History Main / WorldLimitedToThePlot

* RidleyScott's ''{{Legend}}'' takes place almost entirely within a magical forest and Darkness's palace. There's virtually no indication of what the world outside the forest is like.

* ''Dogville'' plays this for drama. It turns out that [[spoiler: Grace could have escaped all along -- she was just too stubborn]].

[[quoteright:225:[[OrderOfTheStick http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/namelessmooks_2960.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:225:[-Later in his life, Hobgoblin Cleric #2 would whine to Hobgoblin Cleric #1 that his lack of career advancement was caused by his mother not giving him a real character name.-] ]]

* A minor Finnish EpicFantasy wannabe novel called ''Kuolleet kaupungit'' ("The Dead Cities") may have averted this trope in some other ways, but certainly embodied it in one sense. There was a world map included with various locations marked all around its two continents. In the course of the story, the protagonists visit pretty much every single one of these locations. Looking at the map after that, one is left with the impression there isn't anyplace else left to go in the whole world, and even if there is, it must still be a rather small world.

Skilled authors often avoid this problem, while also avoiding filling their stories with useless information, by applying {{The Law of Conservation of Detail}} in a careful manner: things outside the plot are mentioned, and later drawn into the plot. However, when used in a heavy-handed way, {{The Law of Conservation of Detail}} can also ''result'' in this: Since all details are a part of the plot, there simply isn't room for any outside world to be described!

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* In ''{{Bleach}}'', no one seems to notice when all of Karakura Town's entire population is teleported into another dimension for a substantial period of time while a bunch of mysterious explosions occur in the skies above the city.
** Everyone not in on the [[TheMasquerade illusion]] are apparently knocked unconscious, though a random doomed bystander does regain consciousness before everyone else for no identifiable reason.
** Nevertheless, shouldn't there be some amount of travel and communication between Karakura Town and the rest of the world? Shouldn't someone in Japan notice that an entire city has suddenly gone silent?
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* Lampshaded and justified in the ''Age of X'' storyline in the XMen line: a clue that something is wrong with the alternate reality the characters find themselves in is that there ''is'' nothing outside the walls of their compound, and the soldiers that attack seem to only have a few names, repeated over and over.

* Deconstructed in ''TheTrumanShow'': The movie has two plotlines that eventually merge. The "inner" plotline suffers heavily from World Limited to the Plot, but the "outer" plotline reveals that this is caused by [[TheMasquerade manipulation]] rather than bad storytelling.

* In-story example in ''{{Coraline}}'' - the Other Mother's world seems to be limited to the immediate vicinity of the house. More obvious in the movie, where the world fades out into featureless white space after a certain point and is small enough to be walked around in the course of one conversation.
* HarryPotter. Sweet Jesus, Harry Potter. Re-read the books sometime - literally everything that goes on in the world in some way boils down to Harry and his blood feud with Voldemort. Escaped prisoner from the world's deadliest prison? Check. Bitch of a teacher appointed by the Ministry? Oh yeah. Country being overrun with monsters, evil wizards and god only knows what else? You better believe it. ContrivedCoincidences are take UpToEleven here.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''FinalFantasyVII'' begins this way. There's very little clue that [[spoiler:Midgar only takes up maybe 3-5 hours of actual game time in a 40 hour game]].
** The game also suffers from the ConservationOfDetail variant: only towns or locations directly relevant to the adventure appear on the world map, even though it's extremely obvious that [[FridgeLogic many others must exist]] for the [[ThrivingGhostTown thriving ghost world]] to function as it does.
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* ''{{The Order of the Stick}}'' lived by this trope until the foreshadowing at the end of book one. ([[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0120.html Strip 120]] in the online version.) Only then, when the dungeon in which the entire plot has taken place is destroyed, do the plot and the dungeon turn out to have some relevance outside of itself. Of course, one can argue that it starts falling apart already when the heroes encounter the Linear Guild, or even when Roy's father is introduced.
** Later heavily deconstructed when it turns out that characters who aren't relevant enough to the plot to be named actually don't even ''[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0703.html have]]'' names... at least not until they [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0472.html become relevant]] to the plot.
* ''CtrlAltDel'' started out this way, then gradually introduced a social context.

* ''TheBremenAvenueExperience'' is a short-lived series about a FunnyAnimal GarageBand. The entire series is set in the suburban living room where the group rehearses, and the only character besides the band members is the drummer's father, who appears in one episode.

* ''TheBremenAvenueExperience'' is a short-lived series about a FunnyAnimal GarageBand. The entire series is set in the suburban living room where the group rehearses, and the only character besides the band members is the drummer's father.

* ''TeenTitans'' is set in an unnamed city where, aside from the eponymous superheroes and the supervillains they fight, the population consists entirely of unnamed people who exist solely to be terrorized by the villains and rescued by the heroes. Averted in Season 5 when the Teen Titans turn into HeroesUnlimited and start traveling the world.

* ''{{Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead}}''. It's pretty much the entire point of the play.

* ''{{Xenosaga}} Episode I'' unintentionally invokes this in its ''physical'' world. It doesn't do a very good job of selling its scale. The ''story'' is a rich environment with large organizations with a developed culture and history, but the actual environments one plays within feel very constricted, most of the game lacks background music or dynamic ambiance, and the virtual reality recreations of every game area (complete with unopened chests) really brings this trope to mind.

Usually simply "unaverted" by limited storytelling, but can also be actively invoked as some kind of absurdity or postmodern deconstruction. In either case, when a show or webcomic or other work starts this way, it usually melts away at the same pace as CerebusSyndrome takes a hold on the plotline. In shorter storylines, it can instead be a existential twist to some OntologicalMystery.

This is ''not'' when a story takes place in a SmallSecludedWorld such as [[{{LOST}} an island]] or [[TheCube a box]]: In those cases there ''is'' still a universe outside the place where the characters are [[TheWallAroundTheWorld trapped]]. The characters are still connected to the outside world by their memories, and there are people in the outside world who could miss them.

Defying this trope is a common way to [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruct]] or avert ''other'' tropes: It's easy to be TheOmniscient when there is so little to know in the first place, just add more information and the character turns out to be NotSoOmniscientAfterAll. On the flipside of this coin, philosophical thought-experiments often ask us to accept a WorldLimitedToThePlot, making the most outrageous oversimplifications look like valid [[AnAesop Aesops]].

[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]

* Played straight to BeyondTheImpossible levels in CemeteryMan at the end. [[spoiler: Francesco tries to leave town, only to discover that the rest of the world doesn't exist.]]

* {{Moral Dilemma}}s in academic philosophy usually rely ''heavily'' on this trope: You are supposed to accept, or even take for granted, the premise that the characters and situations involved have no social context whatsoever. (Some are set on {{deserted island}}s, or in rafts adrift on the ocean.) This tends to make it unreasonably impossible to TakeAThirdOption.

* FinalFantasyVII begins this way. There's very little clue that [[spoiler: Midgar only takes up maybe 3-5 hours of actual game time in a 40 hour game]].

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''TeenTitans'' is set in an unnamed city where, aside from the eponymous superheroes and the supervillains they fight, the population consists entirely of unnamed people who exist solely to be terrorized by the villains and rescued by the heroes. Averted in Season 5 when the Teen Titans turn into HeroesUnlimited and start travelling the world.

The stories where the world is limited to the plot are instead the stories where the characters have no backstory, no anchors outside the plot, and whatever they do, there will be no outside forces of any kind reacting to it. Characters irrelevant to the plot are highly unlikely to exist at all, and if they do then they won't [[NominalImportance have names.]] The story does not have to take place in a pocket dimension or even a secluded town: Rather than being shown to not exist, the outside world is simply unmentioned and discarded as irrelevant.

* Deconstructed in ''The Thirteenth Floor''. As the cover says: "Question reality".

* FinalFantasyVII begins this way. There's very little clue that [[spoiler: Midgar only takes up maybe 3-5 hours of actual game time in a 40 hour game.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

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[[quoteright:225:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/namelessmooks_2960.jpg]]

* {{Moral Dilemma}}s in academic philosophy usually rely ''heavily'' on this trope: You are supposed to accept, or even take for granted, the premise that the characters and situations involved have no social context whatsoever. (Some are set on {{desert island}}s, or in rafts adrift on the ocean.) This tends to make it unreasonably impossible to TakeAThirdOption.

* {{Moral Dilemma}}s in academic philosophy usually rely ''heavily'' on this trope: You are supposed to accept, or even take for granted, the premise that the characters and situations involved have no social context whatsoever. This tends to make it unreasonably impossible to TakeAThirdOption.