Out-of-Game skills and How they impact your game

Nirrum can be assumed to succeed all his skill checks

I, on the other hand, can be assumed to fail all my saves. We both have Jack of all Trades though.

So you've decided to design a game or a story for your friends or for a project of your own. You decide to set it up one day after you get home from whatever it is you do. In designing the course of one section you realize something. "Wait, those cliffs should be Marble, not Basalt." or "Wait, I can flesh out this menu and make it look more real" or "Now hold on, these trees wouldn't be good for building these houses." Even more frequently, a question will come up in the design process, whether at a table in the middle of play or at a desk fiddling around in any modelling app, that you just know the answer to. "What's inside this toolshed?" or "did they even have pizza in this time (turns out, pizza as we know it today kinda started in 1891, but it was december of 1890 in our campaign)." 
Surprise surprise, you've spent more than an hour bothering to learn something and now you know it. If it took more than a year to learn, you might even be an expert. Got a degree, even a doctorate? Well shit, whatever you're designing is going to end up asking a question of an expert and 👏👏, that's something you qualify for. 

The Inevitability of intersection

Unless your area of expertise is in an unskilled field where none of your questions have a "why" to follow the basic answer, You're going to find that at some point, what you do, no matter how far removed, is going to come up. I did Computer Systems and Networking and run a high fantasy 5e campaign where computers don't exist yet. Useless right? Well it turns out that the concept of policy and protocol is extremely relevant outside of computers, especially when there's a race of diabolic end-users that act on written contract only. It also turns out that I can probably break modrons with reliable ease.

My brother is a historian? Obviously useful right? Double that expectation, because being a historian means having a lot of answers to a lot of questions.

Bringing your skill into your game is, at least in my eyes, one of the better things you can do as a person who is designing one. The pedagogy upon which your skill and field are built are indicative of a real world with problems that need to be solved according to their context. When building a world with a degree of verisimilitude, it should come as no surprise that your minor in women's studies and major in art history are actually extremely relevant and good groundings for in-world interactions. I recommend against pulling an agenda, as it becomes obvious quickly and tiring for your players. I'll talk about that further down. There are ultimately two categories of skill that interact with the game in different ways.

Indirect-Experience Skills

It's hard as a geologist to show your players the canyon you're imagining, the color stone you're imagining, the landscape that dictates the tone that you're trying to convey. At best, you can show them a picture but unless you've got that same setting in your backyard, your iron-rich post-glacial conglomerate highlands are going to be exclusively theatre of the mind. Your political structure, cultural philosophy, and tax bracket-ratios are only ever going to come up if you

 a) push your audience to them (probably don't do that) 

or

 b) Your players either ask or discover them organically through their adventure (Very fulfilling)

Build your world as a world to the best of your ability. Remember that nothing is perfect, everything is mutable, and don't be disappointed if they don't ask, it was there for them to discover and they're making their own journey.

Direct-Experience Skills

This one is harder to do, but more immersive. Cooking, Drawing, Composing, and other things that you can allow your witnesses to experience outside of the theatre of the mind are all fantastic inclusions. Don't force people to experience what they don't want to experience and don't hide things in food, 'cept maybe food coloring for poison, and your  assemblage will love you. Probably. Make sure to check for allergies if you're doing food in particular.

Bringing these expertises into the game allow one to prove the world, and allow the players to briefly become their characters. This only tends to work in tabletop games or in merchandise for other forms of game, and is thus limited, but unique inclusions of amminiculi bolster the experience as a whole

Shared Experience

A gaming group is made of multiple people, and indeed, exist in a context with multiple people. Including those other people in the delivery of Direct or Indirect experiences is an easy option. If someone knows how to cook ask infrequently, politely, and without entitlement if they would like to help you by cooking a dish that would work as an aid for the story. The same can be true of any skill that a player has. You are not entitled to their skill, but should they choose to share it with you, then you have many new ways to develop a fondness for the experience that you are curating, that is, the game world. Fan works, for those whose audience might lie outside the immediate actors, are a valid part of the experience and should be cherished. Those who are willing and able to contribute without being obstructive are encouraged to do so, and reaching out to find and ask those people is encouraged as well. 

All of this post is simply a reminder that you are not the only one in this experience, and that we have many ways to supplement those experiences. If you have a skill that adds to the world, use it. If you know someone who is willing to use theirs to do the same, it is a good idea.

Shor hiar L'A rau

-Dal Kaolok Nirrum, Archbard of the college of lore