History Main / WorldLimitedToThePlot

Defying this trope is a common way to {{deconstruct|edTrope}} 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]].

* ''WesternAnimation/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 [[OneShotCharacter appears in one episode]].
* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' takes place in the Cul-de-Sac they live in with the other neighboring kids and no one else. Later on in the 5th and last season, they all go back to school once the summer ends (and occasionally go on field trips), but even then it's just them (crowds, when they rarely appear are FacelessMasses). Even in ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddysBigPictureShow'', it's just the kids as they walk across barren landscapes or empty buildings and amusement parks [[spoiler:except until Eddy's big brother appears]].
* ''WesternAnimation/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. The closest we get to worldbuilding are a few references to Franchise/{{Batman}}'s mythos (a couple of mentions of Gotham City, a fight taking place on a Wayne Enterprise building, and hints about Robin's past), a WackyRacing cross-country episode, and an episode where Robin goes off to train somewhere in a vague Asian country. Downplayed in Season 5 when the Teen Titans turn into HeroesUnlimited and start [[WalkingTheEarth traveling the world]]: we meet the ''teen superheroes'' of the world while they're traveling, but little else. We get nothing of the teams' non-spandex lives. ThePowersThatBe were deliberate about this.

* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' plays this both story and meta-wise, only five characters are present, other people are alluded to, but never appear. The main characters spend time preparing something for a school festival, but it never comes to that. [[spoiler: Meta-Wise there really is nothing outside the main character's world and by the time Act 3 rolls around, you're left in a single room floating in empty space with the last remaining character.]]

* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' plays this both story and meta-wise, only five characters are present, other people are alluded to, but never appear. The main characters spend time preparing something for a school festival, but it never comes to that. [[spoiler: Meta-Wise there really is nothing outside the main character's world and by the time Act 3 rolls around you're left in a single room with the last remaining character.]]

* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' plays this both story and meta-wise, only five characters are present, other people are alluded to, but never appear. The main character spend time preparing something for a school festival, but it never comes to that. [[spoiler: Meta-Wise there really is nothing outside the main character's world and by the time Act 3 rolls around you're left in a single room with the last remaining character.]]

* In the ''Age of X'' storyline in the ComicBook/{{X-Men}} 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.

The story is its own little world: It's not merely secluded from the context, there ''is'' no context. It is not merely the [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality morality that is centered on the protagonists]], the world itself revolves around them.

* A minor Finnish HighFantasy 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.
* The Polish novel ''Nest of Worlds'' uses this as a plot point [[spoiler: or rather, as the basis of the entire plot.]] The protagonist is an ordinary guy who turns out to be an inexplicable WalkingDisasterArea: any people he has talked to, come in contact with, or just caught a glimpse of, tend to die from unrelated causes within days. Strangely, it's mentioned that before he turned up, the city where he lives had recorded ''no deaths at all'' for over a year. [[spoiler:He eventually realizes the reason for all that: his entire world is setting for a novel, and he himself is the main character. It's not that he attracts disaster--on the contrary: nothing significant or dramatic ever happens in his world if he isn't involved in it somehow. Also, it turns out he is protected from death by some very heavy-duty PlotArmor (that tends to also leave hundreds dead with collateral damage), until he decides to make a HeroicSacrifice to save his world from himself.]]

** On the other hand, there are cases where we do have a glimpse outside the plot, with current events like how UsefulNotes/BarackObama is the president, and other people completely irrelevant to the plot, like the [[{{Twitter}} Serious Business]] and Website/GameFAQs users, are still shown to actually exist, even if they are never shown. We also see maps of the entire planet, and the plot does, in fact, make an [[StealthPun impact]] in places irrelevant to the main characters.

* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' takes place in the Cul-de-Sac they live in with the other neighbouring kids and no one else. Later on in the 5th and last season, they all go back to school once the summer ends, but even then it's just them ...[[spoiler:except for the movie where Eddy's big brother appeared]].

-> "No questions asked. Up we get and off at a gallop, fearful lest we come too late!"\\

"How would I know? We haven't got there yet."

->- "No questions asked. Up we get and off at a gallop, fearful lest we come too late!"\\
- "Too late for what?"\\
- "How would I know? We haven't got there yet."

* One of the favorite tropes of the [[{{Absurdism}} Theatre of the Absurd]] in general. In addition to the aforementioned Stoppard and Beckett plays, Creator/EugeneIonesco comes to mind, especially ''The Bald Soprano''.

* One of the favorite tropes of the [[{{Absurdism}} Theatre of the Absurd]] in general. In addition to the aforementioned Stoppard and Beckett plays, Ionesco comes to mind, especially ''The Bald Soprano''.

** On the other hand, there are cases where we do have a glimpse outside the plot, with current events like how UsefulNotes/BarackObama is the president, and other people completely irrelevant to the plot, like the [[{{Twitter}} Serious Business]] and GameFAQs users, are still shown to actually exist, even if they are never shown. We also see maps of the entire planet, and the plot does, in fact, make an [[StealthPun impact]] in places irrelevant to the main characters.

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' 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.

* ''[[VisualNovel/{{Ozmafia}} OZMAFIA!!'']] takes place in an isolated town ruled by mobsters with seemingly no other nearby settlements and no wider governance. [[spoiler: It's a PocketDimension built by a RealityWarper.]]

* ''[[VisualNovel/{{Ozmafia}} OZMAFIA!!'' takes place in an isolated town ruled by mobsters with seemingly no other nearby settlements and no wider governance. [[spoiler: It's a PocketDimension built by a RealityWarper.]]

* Creator/RidleyScott's ''Film/{{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.