TIL in poker, there's a heirarchy of precedence by suit. For example, 4-of-kind in spades beats the same 4-of-a-kind in hearts. And the easy way to remember what beats what is "reverse alphabetical order", i.e. spades beats hearts, hearts beats diamonds, diamonds beats clubs. That's not the original why of what beats what, just a convenient coincidence.

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There are various literary theories floating around about how many patterns stories fall into. "Rags to riches" vs. "rags to riches to rags" vs. "riches to rags", etc. A fellow aptly named Christopher Booker wrote, you guessed it, a book about books, or at least about stories, which we would probably collect in books? called "The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories". In the TTRPG community the idea of reducing the universe of possible stories to X number of basic patterns has circulated enough that there's a Youtube video by creator Cabbit Crossing, "9 Types of TTRPG Stories Every GM Should Know".

Booker	Cabbit
1. Overcoming the Monster 2. Rags to Riches 3. The Quest 4. Voyage and Return 5. Comedy 6. Tragedy 7. Rebirth	1. Combat/Battle 2. Mystery/Investigation 3. Revenge 4. Exploration/Discovery 5. Survival 6. Heist 7. Escape 8. Rescue 9. Politics (courtly/factional intrigue)

Why do RPG hobbyists care? Because story is one of several things that brings players to the table. But sometimes DMs get writer's block; or sometimes DMs get bored with knowing everything and want a surprise twist too. When that happens, it's comforting to have randomizing tools to fall back on, to nudge the adventure-design process in a direction.