Why is World Building awesome?

[Villamvihar]

Let's face it, creating a world, especially a detailed and complicated one feels good. But why is that? Is it just a sense of accomplishment, or is it just because people feel passionate about what they created? Whatever is the answer, one thing is for sure: World Building is capable of amazing things and it is a thing of beauty. My quesion is, what do you think makes world building worth it, what makes it such an amazing thing to do, or maybe even just watch?

For me, World Building is amazing because of its potential to have an epic scale and a massive, all-encompassing scope. I always had a fascination with big, complicated things, and this also tends to show in the worlds I enjoy, not to mention in the worlds I create. Whether it is the science fantasy world of Dune with its detailed society of Fremen, psychic powers and political intigue, or the world of Foundation with its psychohistory, I enjoy settings which do not limit themselves to a single planet or they spend an impressive amount of time building a planet. In short, I think world building is awesome because it is capable of achieving such level of detail, because it can create complicated and complex worlds.

 

[Minibit]

I think it's because of the challenge.

There are lots of fictional worlds out there; there's the potterverse, Narnia, Middle Earth, the Star Trek space age, the Star Wars space age, the Whoniverse, the Pokemon world, Hyrule, and that's only scratching the surface of popular fantasy and scifi. Writing a fan fiction or roleplay set in an established world or in the world we already live in, you need only focus on developing the characters and story; the world has been done for you. If you need to handle the world in all it's intricacies and subsects as well; that can be tough!

Most of all though, I feel great when I manage to come up with a world that is entirely my own. Originality can be hard; as BNL likes to say/sing "It's all been done!"! So when you come up with a world that's new and different, it's not only a great accomplishment, but it's incredibly fun to play in because it's full of surprises! How can I explain... We know mostly what to expect when perusing a roleplay set in modern Vancouver, and even the huge world of Whovians has it's established rules to play by. When everything's new, it's fun to go around and poke things with sticks to see how it works and how things will develop. Getting to that point is a lot of work, and worldbuilding is a continuing job as the stories inside that world develop, but it's SO many kinds of worth the work.

 

[Revision]

I agree with the points mentioned above but want to add something: The god factor. It is fun getting to play god. To an extent, you do this anytime you roleplay, but building a world from the ground up puts you in the seat of that world's creator. This is very evident in the Amory Wars where the Writer/God is a character and meant to represent the usually outside of the universe writer Claudio instead of the character Claudio. It's thrilling to look at a blank page and make it into a world.