I run a game of D&D in the Eberron setting and I tend to find that my players latch on to all sorts of things that I don't expect them to including NPCs, bad guys, world details, particular loot pieces... you name it and they tend to either totally ignore it or give it overwhelming significance and read too much into anything I say about it.
To some degree, I think it's kind of arbitrary. They're trying to find meaning in a world that they can only interpret from limited information (the best I can convey of their character's experiences). To some degree I think what they latch on to reflects what they want. It can reflect their expectations for the kind of story they're playing or what their characters want or fear.
If I included frescoes of elves building tree cities in the ancient ruins purely for color but the players obsess about who they were and why they left the place behind? Probably there are themes and adventures in that they want to play. If they constantly call "that" plucky urchin who they saved from a street gang to run messages for them, probably she needs a more significant part in the story at some point in the future. ;)
no subject
To some degree, I think it's kind of arbitrary. They're trying to find meaning in a world that they can only interpret from limited information (the best I can convey of their character's experiences). To some degree I think what they latch on to reflects what they want. It can reflect their expectations for the kind of story they're playing or what their characters want or fear.
If I included frescoes of elves building tree cities in the ancient ruins purely for color but the players obsess about who they were and why they left the place behind? Probably there are themes and adventures in that they want to play. If they constantly call "that" plucky urchin who they saved from a street gang to run messages for them, probably she needs a more significant part in the story at some point in the future. ;)