LukaLightning

at the start of a world, a set of actions are randomly chosen which have some positive effect. walking counterclockwise around a tree or throwing an item into a fire or killing an animal with an axe. there has to be a very large number of possible actions such that they won't seem to repeat.

when doing a ritual, you get a buff that's clearly there but kind of subtle. maybe ores drop more, or monsters don't hurt as much. it's never communicated that you have a buff, the idea is that you accidentally do a ritual and notice "oh shit I'm getting really lucky, maybe I should do that more"

there's also a set of attributes which can greatly increase the effectiveness of your rituals, completely randomized per world of course. sometimes it's additional steps, drawn from the same set as before. sometimes it's decorating the ritual site in a particular way, with skulls or candles or flowers. maybe it's more effective at a certain time of day or phase of the moon. maybe it's more effective on the top of a mountain or in a cave.

because the magnitude and duration of the buff is randomized, you can't really know if stuff you're doing is helping, but you'll be always trying shit out and modifying your rituals. the buffs get really impactful, and you can hardly play the game without them.

after a while you'll build up elaborate rituals and intricate temples housing them, and importantly

half the shit you're doing does absolutely nothing

if you get lucky a few times with a modification to the ritual you'll adopt it even if it actually does nothing. depending on how succeptible to confirmation bias you are, you might develop whole rituals that literally do nothing but you're entirely convinced that they do. you'll be dancing around trees and putting pumpkins on your head for literally no measurable benefit.