Best Example of Good World Building in Any Media

Basically a sugar wiki of good world building examples including your favorites and the old classics.

First among the old classics has to be Tolkien, and his use of Norse Mythology to create the races and cultures of Middle Earth.

Three words: "The door dilated."

edited 14th Mar '13 9:35:13 PM by DAStudent

Discworld. Now I'm older Pratchett's writing leaves a lot to be desired, but as a pseudo-fantasy wacky mirror to reality, Discworld is almost perfect. It succeeds in being topical and humorous, but also rich, atmospheric and integrated in itself, and that's a pretty rare combination.

I was also really impressed with the world building in Cerebus the Aardvark. Particularly, it's emphasis on politics, churches and using a city as a microcosm for the world

Not to mention the hyper-realistic artwork.

I'd say George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. He's got multiple fully developed cultures in his world. First you get Westeros with their New Gods and Old Gods, and the Dothraki, then as time goes on you find out about the culture of the Free Cities, and you find out how different Dorne is...He'll even take time and develop individual locations as their own little cultures, like Kings Landing or Braavos, or Harrenhall. It a looong way off from the single overriding cultural stereotype personality that seems to exist in some other fantasy epics I could name (though even in those cases, the authors are at least trying)...

edited 17th Mar '13 8:20:35 PM by Robbery

Any media huh? The Elder Scrolls by far when it comes to videogames, if you know a better one let me know, I'd love to play it.

Elder Scrolls definitely gets points for volume and the actual content is pretty solid too. It's got mysticism on a fantastic level. In terms of video games though, I still have a preference for Myst and its series, as much as I like some of the lore-writing that went into TES.

I've always liked the way Jim Butcher builds worlds. Codex Alera is a solid high fantasy, if a wee bit over powered. On the other hand, The Dresden files manages to reconcile the Christian, Rationalist, and Neo-Pagan viewpoints into a single coherent universe without outright offending anyone.

http://www.tekumel.com/

M.A.R. Barker. Tekumel. he made a world for wargaming every bit as detailed as Tolkien's, apparently.

i have to say i love Tolkien's world, but the world of avatar: the last airbender is impressive too

Mass Effect (videogames), for creating an image of a world that was seemingly alien, yet also oddly close to our own. The method with which it conveyed the world, down to having a pseudo-wikipedia in-game, also really made it feel downright real.

edited 11th Apr '13 4:36:20 PM by stripesthezebra

I'm with Passerby. Barker's Tekumel is an incredible piece of work.

While I'm not sure that I'd rank it as the best, specifically, Discworld and Tolkein have been taken so let me say that I've been very impressed with the world thus far revealed in The Kingkiller Chronicles: some as-yet mysterious, some laid out in fascinating detail, some in-between, with interesting magic systems, hints of a broader world and quite a bit of history affecting the story...

As the person above me mentioned, A So Ia F has a beautifully crafted world that, over time, you go from, "Okay, typical honest folk up north with their old gods, and politically driven nobles to the south with their Seven." Then you begin to learn about the horse-worshiping (and coincidentally, horse-eating)Dothraki, the Ironborn and their Drowned God, R'hllor and Azor Ahai (Zoroastrianism with a Christian-esque savior theme and missionary call), the Dornishmen and Dornishwomen, separated from the rest of the continent because they invaded the continent last, the incest/dragon-based dynasty and history of the Targaryens, so on and so forth.

Say what you will about the games themselves, but Warcraft is the best example of a would-be clone turning itself around and becoming a great, fleshed-out world. I haven't played World of Warcraft in over a year, but I still keep up with the story because it's so fun to watch Azeroth's history slowly unfold.

I am a huge fan of Myst for making diverse fantasy worlds with few or no distinguishing traits based on "magic".

What, no mention of Fallout yet?

I'd say The World Ends With You. Sure, it's not vast on the scale of an epic fantasy novel, but the world-building does a great job of breaking down Gameplay and Story Segregation and integrating gameplay elements into vital parts of the story. That, and even though the Reapers Game is pretty grim, it still seems like a blast, and there's a lot of space for players to fill in the blanks about certain aspects of the UG and how it applies to other cities.

Seriously, no kidding, but... Trailer Park Boys, the series and the movies.

But to be fair most of that "world" was already built and the actors do a lot of improvisation to the point that some episodes are entirely improvised.

Example of me and my cousin explaining the series to my sister: "See, there's all these informal rules. Like there are times where the main characters would rather go to jail than face Lahey, and jail's not always a bad option. It's kind of like a party that you keep coming back to for six months out of the year."

edited 18th Dec '13 11:15:35 AM by fulltimeD