The Hard Worldbuilding Trap

POSTAL ADDRESS (if you're kind enough to send me a letter or something!)

Tim Hickson
PO Box 69062
Lincoln, 7608
Canterbury, New Zealand

Script by meeeeeeeee
Video edited by Lalit Kumar

0:00 Take a look at this MAP
0:54 Environmental worldbuilding
2:34 The environmental determinism trap
4:00 How history changes us
6:00 How culture EVOLVES
9:30 Lord of the Rings
10:00 Game of Thrones
12:20 Don't make these assumptions

The artist who design my cover photo:

Stay nerdy!
Tim

[HelloFutureMe]

All comments/likes are appreciated to help the video! Have you ever fallen into the hard worldbuilding trap? <3 Stay nerdy!

~ Tim

[christianpetersen]

While designing an antagonist civilization that lives in a swampy area, I had a major epiphany and realization that shook me to my core and realligned all my values: ...They don't like the swamp.

[nancyjay]

It's not a religious thing, but I heard a story about preparing ham for roasting. A boy was watching his mother preparing the ham, and noticed that she always cut off the end of the joint, so he asked why. The mother said she learned from her sister, who is older by about ten years. So the mother calls the sister to ask why, and sister says that their mother (boy's nanna) did it that way. Phone call to Nanna: "That's how my mum did it." Phone call to great grandma, who laughs. "I couldn't fit the joint in the pan otherwise."

[eos_aurora]

Important to note for writers in the comments: this is like level 5 worldbuilding. If you’re just starting out, the “city by coast worship on mountain” is just fine! Don’t let Advanced Worldbuilding™ stop you from writing the story.

Great video!

[chris]

I feel the need to defend Tolkien's dwarves and point out that alot of the stuff we associate with them got pasted on by adaptations later on. Dwarves in the books are the least fleshed out and one of their main traits is that they're secretive and other races don't know much about them.

Which leads me to what I really like about Tolkien's world-building: how the gaps are often a feature. There's stuff he never finished, stuff he changed, and the whole historical document frame he overlays it with makes that stuff that's unfinished or inconsistent feel like part of the world, part of the experience of being in the world and only knowing as much as various intellectual traditions preserved for you to know.

[domeniccalabrese]

I love this topic! It makes me think about Polish traditions my grandfather told me about. Poland is one of the most Catholic nations I have ever been too, but every spring a lot people make effigy of the old goddess Marazanna burn it and throw it in the river. People understand that it is supposed to honor her, but no one knows why we still do it

[SNWWRNNG]

Tolkien's Dwarves being so immutably tied to mountains makes sense, considering they were designed by Aule to be that way. He was the one who also created the mountains, and wanted the Dwarves to be safe from the evil ruler of Middle-earth, Melkor.

Fantasy races should resemble us in some aspects, but if they're completely different in others that's good too.

[SomasAcademy]

There's a museum in my area focused on Jamestown, the first successful British colony in North America, where they put a lot of emphasis on the cultures of the area and how they interacted and changed over time, which I think provides a pretty good example of how colonialism and evolution impact cultures; when the English first arrived, they started making their houses out of wattle and daub with thatched roofs, even though they were completely surrounded by trees, because that was how they did it in England. By the end of the 17th century, they'd switched to mostly making their houses mostly out of wood, including wooden boards for the walls and wooden clatter boards for the roofs; they adapted to the new landscape. Meanwhile, the indigenous people started out making their houses by bending saplings into a frame and covering the frame with sheets of bark or mats made of reeds; by the end of the century, they were making rectangular cabins with wooden boards in the walls and pointy roofs, just like the English, BUT they were still covering their houses with sheets of bark and incorporating saplings into the structure, as well as using central fire pits instead of fireplaces like in the English houses, blending the colonial influences with their traditional style of architecture.

[daboz]

Post-apocalypse worlds also tend to have a strong "what came before" worldbuilding in which "what happened here" tends to be more important than "where are rivers and mountains right now". What killed those that came before will probably inform next generations of survivors on how and where to rebuild.

[jonathanfranco]

Pretty cool how you used Colombia as a reference. I've been to the capital, Bogota, which is situated at the base of a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides. I was told that the ruling powers were able to win a lot of battles because they would camp out on the mountains and strike the invading forces attempting to invade the capital, which is the most hardcore and fantasy-like piece of history I've ever heard.

[KumaTorey]

interesting thing a buddy of mine did for world building for a novel he wrote:
he slowly now and then wrote a history book about his fantasy world where the novel takes place and upon finishing it he tore out half the pages at random and that's how he decided what is known and stayed and what was left and forgotten. it's such extra work but he did it more for his own entertainment.

[rudyproductions]

I think my favorite piece of non-environmental world building comes from, of all things, Thomas the Tank Engine, specifically the original Railway Series books. For those who don’t know, the author, Reverend W. Awdry, wrote a book that laid out the “real world” history of the Island of Sodor where the stories take place. In this he reveals how Sodor was historically a victim of constant invasion, this finally ended when England gave them an Earl and attached the Island to the Dutchy of Lancaster, but Sudrians always saw that as a compromise rather than the sovereignty they wanted. This created a culture of quiet resistance that’s remained prevalent enough, that when British Railways were putting pressure on their North Western Region to scrap their steam engines and switch to diesel, the people of Sodor rallied behind Sir Charles Topham Hatt II in his defiance. Cementing the Island of Sodor as a safe haven for steam!

[silverdust]

If you where given a map of earth without any knowledge of real history, would you guess that a biggish island in the north was at one point controlling almost half the landmasses of the globe ?
Probably not, but it happened.

[Aaronlune]

Environmental Determinism, is only a trap when it is applied incorrectly. The ‘hardest’ world-building is starting with environmental determinism and then playing the game of ‘civilization’ forward while keeping the environmental pressures in mind.

[edwardreed]

One of my favourite pieces of worldbuilding is (don't laugh)... The Island of Sodor.

I'm not joking.

So basically before Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends became Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, it was a book series called 'The Railway Series'. A bunch of short stories by Rev. W. Audrey. And he didn't just make a random island for his engines with faces to be on, he put so much EFFORT into it.

So the island itself is situated on the North-West coast of England, snuggled in between The Isle of Man and Barrow-in-Furness, hence the railways name, the North Western Railway. Think of it like an alternate history as it were. And what Audrey did that was so impressive to me is that he didn't just make a world with another history, he INTEGRATED it with already established British history.

And he had it all planned out for his railway.

Different sediments of rock and how they effected the landscape and industry.
Optimal routes of railroads, ports and harbours connected to ancient villages established in the viking ages.
Corse ways and valleys that would need tunnels or alternative engines such mountain, Narrow gauge and electric in order to run correctly.
How certain places were effected by war, industry and financial collapse.
Tourism, destroyed landmarks and drained lakes
Exports, imports, heck, its OWN LANGUAGE. Yep, Sodor has its own language; Sudric. And you can see them as the names of stations and castles.

J.R.R. Tolkien eat ya heart out.

Thats not to say its perfect obviously but I find it so slept upon when it comes to worldbuilding because Thomas is viewed as "babyish". When really it (was) for all ages.

[Spearced]

This is one of the reasons I still find Elden Ring's worldbuilding so compelling, incomplete as it sometimes is. Little details like General Radahn having the knowledge to perceive the threat coming from the stars due to his heritage as a member of the Carian royal family, despite that history being almost a non-factor in the rest of his adult life. GRRM and From Software really did a great job of building this layered, storied world with cultures and individuals that are influenced by multiple historical factors, exactly like you're describing here.

[ManiaMac]

The capital city in my story isn't a port city or situated in naturally defensible mountains, its just kinda chilling in the middle of an open, empty lowland plane. Looks weird at first, but if you look at it's position you'll see its at almost the exact center of the kingdom's major trade routes. Merchants would commonly stop to rest on their travels in this place during ancient times, which saw large amounts of wealth and cultural exchange flow through this one area, which led to development and expansion over time. Water was easy to find because there's a network of underground rivers that flow underneath the land, and it was cheap to import food due to its favorable location. It's exposed position was actually an advantage in the age prior to siege weapons, because it is extremely costly to besiege or attack a well-defended city from all sides in a place that provides no natural cover. When siege weapons became prevalent, the city poured its considerable wealth into building highly fortified castles and walls with counter-siege weapons. This city became the beating heart of a vast trade network, where environment had very little to do with it's development besides it's placement on the map.

[anthonyandrade]

Congrats on the new book! My son and I are both fans.

To add another real life example: in Brazil we celebrate Christmas exactly the way it's done in Europe or USA. The funny thing is that in Brazil the temperature in December is around 35oC (95oF). So for one month we can see a lot of cotton 'snow' in the houses and in every shopping mall an old fat guy melting inside red clothes meant for the north pole.

[mielryanalavanza]

I'm currently worldbuilding a world inspired by SE Asia, and it turned out to be such a dense and complicated endeavor. When you start reading about real life cultures, you start to understand just how complex and interconnected they all were. I can't just create an archipelagic country inspired by precolonial Philippines and call it a day, it turns out that (1) PH didn't exist before Spanish Colonization and had A BUNCH of individual separate polities (which meant a lot of cultures to individually think about, like which indigenous group from real life would I like to include... Etc.) (2) Southeast Asia was and still is such a complicated and diverse place culturally. The entire place stood at the crossroads between two major super powers that had major influence, i.e. India and China, and I had to consider where and how I would incorporate those countries into the world as well. Which meant there is almost this gradient of influence from India to China. But not so fast, because while China did have influence in the oceans around it, it still conducted it's trade mainly in the land based Silk Road. So there is just so much influence to think about there, and I've got my work cut out for me. 😅

[Melggart]

I agree with what you said, but R.R. Martin was actually smarter than most with his world building. As a example, the Ironborn did conquer and settled, what they are now are very embittered remanants holding to what they believe is their glorious pasts, since they are now stuck in their very poor homelands since Aegon conquest. Martin's world is also full of migration and customs that has no know origin or something mythical with grains of truth. The waves of migration have also played an immense part on culture. How in Dorne, mostly desert, people still revere a great river. On how people speak dialects of a dead empire, specially as lingua franca.