5 Tips for creating believable bureaucracies in fantasy worlds!

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Time for the Annual July Sale! If you don't have my books, this post is for you. If you want some FREE summer reads, head over to Smashwords and download the eBooks. If you are an Amazon reader, the epic fantasy is 99c per book for the month of July. Epic Fantasy (Sangwheel Chronicles): www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/83723 or www.amazon.com/Sangwheel-Chronicles-3-book-series/dp/B099Q91TL1 Spicy Series (Where Fire Kisses Water): www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/106967 (The spicy series is only available on Smashwords because Amazon) If you're interested in the video creation, I made the intro skit by filming myself (original footage here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q5KmioKpiqemq6M ) and then applied an anime filter to the footage in the cyberlink.

[@deputychiefclifton]

The game civilization explains bureaucracy best. When you are civilization advances to the part where they have discovered bureaucracy, it says that the bureaucracy is growing to fulfill the needs of the growing bureaucracy.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Bwhahahahahaha. Yeah, sometimes it feels exactly like that.

[@deputychiefclifton]

@@JustInTimeWorlds I am currently working on a fictional setting for a roleplay that is effectively the modern world but with magic. Magic is treated the same way that we treat firearms here in the United States. Our Constitution prohibits our government from restricting the ownership or physical possession of any "arms ". While arms isn't defined in the text of the Constitution itself, our founders were raised on the 1754 dictionary which define arms as any weapon used for offense, or armor for defense. So am I fictional setting, once they discovered magic, it was just included under the definition of arms. So anyone is allowed to learn it or use it legally. Whether or not magic use is a crime, it depend on how you use it.. For example if you use magic to give somebody cancer that would be a crime. If you use magic to heal someone's cancer, without their consent that would be a crime. Healing someone's cancer with their consent is never a crime. And in my major primary government there's an entire agency or division of the law enforcement function who's sole purpose is to investigate whether or not the criminal act could have been conducted in a mundane fashion. If they rule that it could not have been, then they investigate what magic was used to commit the act and they have a subset of police officers who use a combination of magic and anti-magic devices to arrest the user.

[@michaeladu6120]

I've always been a massive fan of historical bureaucracies. Corrupt bureaucracies that breed peasant revolts and power struggles are so interesting that I want to include them in my worldbuilding. Recently, I've been listening to the Turkish History Podcast and especially enjoying the episodes on the Great Seljuk Empire. In them, Persia is conquered by Turkic nomads. The Persian bureaucracy, full of cultured and highly educated men, is made to serve a ruling elite of steppe nomads who are largely illiterate, know little of the culture of their subjects and often despise the manners of the bureaucrats. I find the Persian vizier, Nizam ul-Mulk, to be a fascinating personality. He has to navigate the two worlds; the world of the steppe tribes and the world of his fellow Persian bureaucrats.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Those stories, the barbarian power conquering the bureaucratic empire that's lost it's place in the sun, are some of the best :D

[@ronecotex]

When it comes to bureaucracy I think it's comedy gold when you mentioned about knowing a guy what do you have to play with that guy's kid to your kids birthday party I'm just annoys you all day long but if you don't do it you don't get your driver's license renew

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Heh, payment with favors instead of cash hahaha

[@talscorner3696]

Also, at its core, bureaucracy serves the purpose of sparing anyone in the organisation the time they would need to check whether or not the persone they are interacting with is who they say they are and has the skills they say they have, especially when the organisation is large enough that any two members aren't likely to personally know each other.

[@tommylerberg2258]

this is awesome, you are awesome. you got a subscriber

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Thank you and welcome to my small corner of KZbin :)

[@tommylerberg2258]

@@JustInTimeWorlds i am honored

[@nightember4706]

Very informative, thank you

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[@jfferallian]

Related, though not governmental, corporations do the same thing to try to legislate leadership, creativity and ethics (at least retail and customer service in my experience). So definitely something to think about when making that adventurers guild 😅

[@StarlasAiko]

Even before bloating and shadow organisations, bureaucracy causes corruption. A little "greasing the wheels" makes all the differentce between getting an application checked, vetted, processed and approved in a day, a week or disappearing on the bottom of the stack and not getting looked at for a month. This is especially important when it comes to competing licences for the same plot of land or to get a patent/copyright registered before somebody else registers the very same.

[@ronecotex]

What do you think all Mages being collectively free within the major Circle but unregistered ones are hunted down relentlessly by the Mages Circle

[@maxpowers9129]

Similar stories already exist so it can work. I think it's just hard to do well. Typically those stories just drop the mages guild on the protagonists at strange times to add unnecessary conflict without it adding much to the story. It's hard to balance the power of a mage circle or mage guild not being able to instantly smash the protagonist or making the mage order seem pathetic. Depending on the mages they see people's locations, or even see the future so the powers have to be well balanced to be a threat and not instantly beat the protagonist. The time turner in Harry Potter is an example of what an imbalance in power can look like. Logically they should have been able to stop every dark wizard before they ever picked up a wand since time travel was possible. Maybe the protagonist being the one to hunt down illegal mages might work better? Seeing the flaws in the order from the orders own viewpoint might create more realistic opportunities for conflict. Another option might be that if you're not a member of the mages circle, maybe they won't sell you important magical ingredients, and the illegal part comes from smuggling those items for mages who aren't in the circle to use. The circle could even make money by selling those same items at an inflated price on the black market themselves, in an attempt to drive competition into poverty.

[@pabillidge02]

once again thanks. the story at the beginning reminded me of an old movie of Asterix & Obelix in which they had to get a document from an office that made crazy everyone that came in because of the complexity of the bureaucracy. also a bit of that scene from Avatar the last airbender in which there was a very strict lady doing border control in a port.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

I did actually draw on the Astrix and Obelix book, the twelve tasks of Astrix. That’s such a fun cartoon 😁

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

If you're interested in such thing, I made the intro skit by filming myself (original footage here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q5KmioKpiqemq6M ) and then applied an anime filter to the footage in the cyberlink.

[@katiekofemug]

>>happy dance>more happy dancing

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

My absolutely pleasure :D Glad you enjoyed the skit and the video.

[@jbann123]

"A code of chivalry but for clerks" is pretty poetic. Bureaucracies are always painted in a bad light in media. We don't give enough credit to the institutions for all they do and know.

[@jgr7487]

Why have an Adventurer's Guild when you can make all your PCs report to different administrative bodies, such as the Military, the Palatinate, the Temple, or the regional office of the Department of Spell Books and discovered magic Items of the General Secretary of Magic and Education of the Ministery of Interior? I mean, your Wizard will always have a copy of their Spell Book ready, as long as they fill the right form and explain the occurrence in terms a Gelatinous Cube would understand.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Filler adventure! Your adventurer's license is overdue....

[@jgr7487]

@@JustInTimeWorlds We can always make it more complex by having each administrative body have its own rules about their members being adventurers. "Sir, your adventuring license is overdue. You have to return to the nearest recruiting centre of the Army to be relocated." "Ma'am, I have already filled a report, detailing the imminent attack by the Goblin Caravans." "Sir, I don't make the rules, I just enforce them." "Ma'am, you are a Gnome. You are older than the rules." "Now, let's note on your sheet that you show Xenophobic and specist tendencies against members of the Imperial Civil Administration."

[@ronecotex]

What do you think of the idea of having a mage Circle being kind of like the Marshal Service but for Supernatural events

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

I think it could work really well. This is the premise of the Anita Blake novels, she starts out as a "vampire executioner" but as the series carries on, she actually becomes a US Marshall.

[@daveshif2514]

great as always! video request/idea: how to write iconic supporting characters for each pov, and how supporting roles are dif in each pov. for instance, in 1st pp you have to include the mc in any scene with supporting characters, so how is that going to be dif from say a 3rd pp where those same characters could be seen having their own conversation. and what are the differences in making these characters stand out as relatable and iconic. if you have a nurse character, for example, and want her to have an iconic character arc that would make sense for a nurse, how would you show that in 1st pp without dragging out the pacing if your mc never goes to their job or sees them being a nurse. how do you tell if your characters tropes are right for your story? how to you decide which tropes to use and which not to? can you easily mix n match iconic tropes with any theme, or are some tropes meant only for certain themes and further, compare that to the point of views, and genre such as how tropes change from fantasy to sci fi to sci fantasy cheers!

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Character design :D I might need to start a little series on character design to answer all those questions.

[@daveshif2514]

@@JustInTimeWorlds haha even better! thats just 1 shower worth of shower thoughts i had ;]

[@jfferallian]

JITW form 😂 bureaucracy is absolutely important, still makes me think of Douglas Adams and Brazil. Joking aside, this is fascinating thank you!

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

It's important, but also a pain in the ass :D

[@lapiswolf2780]

I could see the AI in the beginning. My world (same as mentioned in my previous comments) has an empire that recently mechanized and became quite powerful compared to medieval and classical equivalent neighbours. Among other things including acceleration of mechanization, the relatively new empress decided to shorten/quicken the empire's bureaucracy by cutting unnecessary portions in order to respond more quickly to threats across the territories in a region constantly at war (invasions can happen as soon as that day in some subregions). It certainly helps that as a relatively powerful empress, her decisions could be rushed through (though this could be abused by more careless leaders). It also helps that they could send their knights by armoured trains for a few decades by then. Various polities also aren't as strict about registering and licensing cars as governments are in real life. Thus no guilds are going to be fined for having certain headlight shapes.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

There's a link explaining how I created the first scene and the filters applied. Interesting setup of your bureaucracy.

[@acadiano10]

One thing you didn't mention is the importance of all that paper or equivalent supplies... Makes me think of the shift from papyrus to vellum in early medieval Italy as trade with Egypt was cut off. Modern bureaucracy has document retention policy because do we need to save all those emails more than a few years? 😂

[@thomasvogel1696]

Write a comedy where a protagonist falls through multiple worlds uncontrollably but in most of them the bureaucracy is super helpful and never inconviences people.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

I feel like that's enough fantasy right there. You don't even need a magic system at that point :D

[@ChristianDall-p2j]

What about spell that Force pepole to follow laws, making it physiclly impossible to break the law! The countries law become as unbreakable as the laws of physics!

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Heh, that would make for a fascinating rebellion story. Kind of like the movie Equilibrium.

[@Arnsteel634]

You seem way too knowledgeable for your own sanity on this topic. Edit: I finished watching the video. Apparently you passed a sanity check, but lost a few sanity points temporarily. All seems well. Carry on.

[@nathaniellk7557]

i enjoy your videos but as an artist in addition to being a writer, i find it unfortunate that you make such use of AI which is actively pushing artists out of their fields

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

I filmed myself and applied a filter to the footage. It was an interesting experiment to see what the filter would do with me (which is apparently turn me into a guy).

[@ChristianDall-p2j]

10:15

[@ChristianDall-p2j]

Hiearchy is pronounced HIarchy!

[@ewabrzakaa6395]

"unaliving"??? what is wrong with you?