What is world design?

What is world design?

Since world designers are rarely, if ever, specialized in such, and I've found many in the industry aren't even entirely sure what the term means, this is intended as a quick crash course in what world design entails, what it does, and how it helps your project.

In the most basic sense of the term, world design is a specialization within pre-production. As can be attested to by writers, producers, directors and game designers the world over, in virtually every form of media we find pre-production vastly accelerates the rate of creation of the final material, lowers the associated costs, and increases overall quality by several factors above that which is invested into the pre-production itself.

In the usual case for pre-production, this means things like preparing a rough outline of a script for a movie and having a list of ideal actors prepared. Each bit that can be set up before the actual filming of a shot or the writing of a chapter begins greatly helps in a disproportionate amount.

When it comes to the specifics of world design, the fact of the matter is that the term "Intellectual Property" design may honestly be a more accurate descriptor, as world design doesn't always necessitate designing an entire planet, and often only requires covering the areas which are to be covered by the production itself.

For example, in the game SALIGIA, the entirety of the game took place within the confines of a single town. The world design aspect of this involved plotting out what key areas were present within the town, where these were in relation to one another, the history of the area, nearby important locations, key groups and political factions, and basically anything of importance which would later play a role in the plot but took place before the game's time line.

In other cases, world design can involve creating entire planets, ecosystems, religions, architecture, species, cultures, political and military factions, and even new physical laws to organize concepts such as new materials and their properties (such as in the Mass Effect series), to how magic operates (like the vast differences seen between Discworld, Shadowrun and Forgotten Realms), or even basic fundamental principles of reality (alternate physics models such as in The Matrix).

As should be obvious by now, world design covers an enormous number of areas, from sociology, to geology, from molecular biology to theology, quantum physics, politics, military tactics, environmental concerns, astronomy, the list goes on and on.

As should also be obvious, due to the nature of specialization in today's modern age, individuals are vastly discouraged from garnering the massive accumulation of wealth and comprehension of so many fields of study to be able to fully invest in the specialization of world design.

With this in mind, it is then of excessive value when a world design specialist actually is found. By utilizing a dedicated world designer, rather than having to have multiple writers attempt to piecemeal together a series bible, a single individual can create and provide the entirety of the information needed for an entire series and its continuation. The entire backdrop for a world, from factions which may go to war, to cultural quirks, are all able to be uniformly built from scratch by a single writer. The benefits for this are immense as it means an enormous degree of internal consistency is provided, which ensures a minimum of plot holes, a feeling of a living, breathing world, and events which take place can be easily created and added to as the history of the world is already present, with a wide scale selection of plot threads able to be picked up and used in a storyline at any given point.

Character designs are vastly easier to create, as racial, species, and cultural traits are all pre-built, allowing for a baseline of what is "normal" for a given individual's people, making it far easier to know what traits the character should possess, and which traits, if missing or different, would distinguish that character from others of their same lineage.

With carefully detailed rulings on concepts such as alternate physics, new elements (unobtanium, neutronium, mannah crystals, other commonly used examples), magic, psionics, divinity, or other aspects which may play an overarching role in a storyline, these can be much more clearly defined as to what makes internally consistent sense within the world in question. Furthermore, in terms of video games in particular, this also allows for the creation of game play mechanics inherently built into the core physical aspects of the world at a baseline level, ensuring little to no disconnect between what the story says a character can do, and what the mechanics that the character can actually employ are.

Due to the wide range of aspects which a world designer will be well-acquainted with, it's possible to have a single writer compose and correlate vast swathes of information from the same cloth, rather than attempting to stitch together a cobbled mess of parts which poorly fit. This advantage, in particular, is one of the most favourable traits behind hiring a world design specialist, in that the worlds they create are of many orders of magnitude more detailed, more interesting, and more consistent in their presentation than otherwise would be available.

Another major advantage behind having a dedicated world designer, is that since the individual knows everything that has been created, and knows how it all fits together, they can also then create an intricate web of correlation between various aspects. Rather than the rather clunky and unwieldy standard method of two countries just randomly going to war without apparent cause, the histories of both countries and the surrounding area are vastly more likely to span back hundreds of years with major historical figures which can be easily referenced during a storyline, and which also ensures that both sides can appear sympathetic as either side will have their own historical reasons for engaging in a war in the first place. This bypasses the "Saturday morning cartoon villain" effect which essentially boils down to "I did it because I'M EVIL!", which, if not avoided, severely compromises the willing suspension of disbelief by the audience, and shatters any pretense of any level of immersion value at all.

To summarize, world design is not necessarily about designing an entire planet, though this can occasionally be the case. More often, it's a city, or a country, or a smaller scale microcosm which represents a larger scale locale which is built. The specialization of world design is one of pre-production, and will vastly increase the quality of the final product while lowering costs and production time required.

It is my personal recommendation that any new IP created be handed to a world design specialist to ensure the greatest chance for a positive end outcome. Note I would state this even were I not such a specialist myself; it simply is the most efficient and effective method available by far.