When you're building your quest, you can twist your plotline around your finger fairly easily. It seems that, even though these are only quests, people still learn from them.
For example, if you see a major item lying on the ground in the middle of a dungeon, and you approach it, and a whole bunch of enemies spawn, ... and this happens in each dungeon, you'll soon learn that in at least that quest, you should be careful when picking up major items, or items you see just randomly lying around. People learn things like that. It's almost pavlovian. Actually, I should see no reason why it wouldn't be.
I should tell you all now, that the Pavlovian response, isn't an association of the bell with the food. It's an association that when the bell rings, food follows. The expectation is important, rather than ringing the bell WITH the food. If you ring the bell at any point whatsoever after you've gotten the food, it doesn't make any difference at all, because you've already got the food.
An example I was thinking up, at least in terms of WTWB, is that whenever you see a character wearing a specific color, you would associate that individual with some sort of either emotion or activity. Max, from WTWB, saw these specific guards, the keepers, wearing black and green. Whenever she saw anyone with that combination of clothing, even though she may have known otherwise, she kept well away from those individuals.
Thus, in more terms of Zelda Classic, you could make all sorts of connections. You can do anything from when the player kills an octorok a Death Knight will spawn, or when you pick up an item the floor drops from under you, or when you're about to beat a boss for the first time, he makes the stage change and you have to beat him again. You can do all sorts of things.
But my favorite thing to do, is deprive the player of such experiences. Has anyone here played Alien Versus Predator on the PC? If you have, you would know that the entire first level was devoid of a single Alien. You keep expecting them to pop up, but they never do.
So if you're expecting the floor to drop out from under you when you pick up this item, and it never does, ... imagine what'll be going through your head. That's so twisted, isn't it?