A World Not Desperate to Explain Itself

[@QuestMarker]

Hey everyone, thanks so much for indulging with me on this one! This one is certainly more meditative than bound to a single game, so forgive me as I wander about. A few quick things I forgot: - Definitely check out the full Q&A with the Wildermyth team here -> kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKu8k6GVrJp5gNk - I made an editing oopsies around the 09:30 mark for about 15 seconds, so if you can imagine some KILLER AWESOME EDITING SKILLS instead of what I give you, that'd be really great. Hopefully it doesn't detract from the flow. - I try to respond to every comment I get, so please do leave one!

[@bryankelly3647]

Great explanation of this concept, useful for anyone who builds worlds and writes stories. I hope they don’t take it to the extreme and think that unexplained randomness is good and having reasons for why things are the way they are is bad

[@moshiurrahman52]

Link to the picture used in thumbnail?

[@aylbdrmadison1051]

To say _"I don't know"_ requires a modicum of courage and confidence. Not everyone has those those qualities.

[@stephentanksleymusic7240]

I feel this way in a big way with Kenshi. There's some world-building in there and it's enough to get you hooked and immersed into its overall narrative of post-collapse struggle for survival, but it doesn't push itself on you. It's very tasteful that way.

[@tempestgrav]

Have you read any Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson? Many an open ended plot thread and character ambiguity. Amazing series.

[@Cyanosis132]

"I've seen your kind, time and time again. Every fleeing man must be caught. Every secret must be unearthed. Such is the conceit of the self-proclaimed seeker of truth. But in the end, you lack the stomach. For the agony you'll bring upon yourself." -Vilhelm, Dark Souls 3

[@iamdoom9810]

Man did the Dark Souls III DLC's main story have an awesome meta-commentary on the nature of creative works and the struggles of being a creator of them. It really did give me a ton of trust in FromSoftware's design philosophy and creative integrity for them to be willing to lay it all out so honestly in what could only be described as artistic depiction. I hope it serves as a beacon to inspire many creatives to come.

[@MapleFried]

​​@@iamdoom9810 "At the end of all things, we should be quite content to watch it burn away."

[@jamesarthurkimbell]

@@iamdoom9810 MIYAZAKI: I'd rather be the Painter freely exploring a new idea than Ariandel tied down and bled dry AUDIENCES: If you change the Claymore animation I'm gonna scream

[@mattd5240]

I will uncover and loot every secret. For it is my curse.

[@annabellefawn4171]

That quote will stick with me forever

[@WarPenguinDude]

And then you get Morrowind, where you get so much lore that it actually begins to contradict itself and you notice that a lot of the sources and people you get this info from are telling it in a way that pushes a certain agenda, or is so ancient that even the certain phrasing of a sentence can create a dichotomy between factions hundreds of year later, that you have no idea what IS right or wrong, and that you more or less have to choose for yourself what to believe.

[@greattower1650]

tes worldbuilding is at another level

[@QuestMarker]

this is my annual reminder that I need to play Morrowind (I came into the franchise at Oblivion, and never have worked backwards!)

[@Warmaker01]

I know Bethesda got it's big fame, money, fandom with Skyrim. But those boys' world building in the early 2000's Morrowind was top notch. It's forgotten how good they were back then because most of the fandom's memory starts with Skyrim. *Maybe* Oblivion in between these two games, but Morrowind is too old for most of the fan base now. Morrowind put you in a fantasy world. A *strange* fantasy world and not the typical "Medieval Europe but with Magic and Elves" generic fantasy.

[@Michael-bn1oi]

​@Warmaker01 They were incredibly wealthy and famous before Skrim lol Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 were all massive commercial and critical sucesses.

[@Tirocoa]

"Each reader sees different reflections through different lenses, and may come away with a very different reading. But at the same time, all of it is true. Even the falsehoods. Especially the falsehoods."

[@Scruffi]

I see this in D&D and similar games a lot. The DM gets so enamored of their own worldbuilding, with languages and history and so on, that they get caught in a sort of sunk cost situation, where they NEED to tell the players What's Really Going On, and Where It All Came From. I love worldbuilding as much as anyone, but as a DM I've cultivated being okay with the players not knowing, not finding, not fully understanding, and even sometimes not even seeing all the stuff I built for them. I want the players to feel like the world is deeper than they can see, and older than their adventuring lifespans, and part of that is keeping things out of reach, unless they seek them out. At which point they truly DISCOVER something that's already there.

[@TimlerFX]

Great approach. It's always great to play a TTRPG knowing that there is a lot more that is yet to be discovered.

[@QuestMarker]

As a longtime DM, one thing I really look forward to now is co-creating worlds with players. I often draw up a map, or a list of 'ideas', or a few NPCs, but then honestly leave it all blank. I obsesses over creating the tone or imagery or themes, but leave a lot of "the lore" ready to be defined and created and discovered together. Often, my ideas are not nearly as cool as what the PCs piece together. So let's roll with those! Only one in a dozen of my own bits of worldbuilding ends up being neater and cooler, and a lot of is still in response to what the players end up doing.

[@Scruffi]

The trick is finding that balance between prep and improv. For me, it helps if I know WHY some things are the way they are, and sketch out some broad strokes ahead of time. I came up with a small town as a starter location for a new campaign, so I wanted it to be a good place to leave, but also have enough going on that 1st levels could find stuff to do if they looked. I decided that it was a once-prosperous town whose economy collapsed some time in the recent past and was a shade of its former self. That allowed me to have the basics - a tavern or two, a supplies store run by an ex-adventurer, potion store, and so on. There was a "prosperous" part of town near the main trade road, much more run down areas, and some areas that were just ruins or abandoned. Not a lot of money in the town, so a lot of squatters in the old buildings... And since it was bordered by a river to the north, I decided it used to be the northernmost reach of the old empire, long collapsed. SO that gave me enough background to give the impression of a living world, so I could improv detail on top of that. NPCs got improv'd into existence as the party needed, and little character details turned into major plot hooks leading to a larger problem to be solved. Then between games I filled in details, and now 2 years later the whole place could probably become publishable if I organized it a bit. And they're still there, finding new trouble to get into (and now helping to rebuild the economy through adventuring - like a city campaign in a ruined city haha).

[@QuestMarker]

@@Scruffi You take a very similar approach that I do! That sounds awesome. Everything for me is about creating a rough framework, an inciting incident or two, what are the big motivations or themes, and what then what are some interesting choices to put infront of characters. Everything else then just comes from playing!

[@Scruffi]

@@QuestMarker Yeah, exactly that ]:)

[@NorthOfEarth]

I get this vibe heavily from Dishonored. There's frequent mention of an exotic continent named Pandyssia. The game features a plague that was said to have originated there, and in the sequel, we see Pandyssian insects infesting homes. Aside from that, there are some unfinished journals from expeditions into the continent, all of which end abruptly. There's also the largely unexplained history of whales being the source of magic, and their ties to a god-like figure known as the Outsider. Nothing is really explained. The game is absolutely dripping with lyrical worldbuilding.

[@Doomsword0]

Yeah Dishonored does an excellent job with this stuff. It makes the world feel so big in that way

[@ScipiPurr]

I've looked at maps of the Isles and wondered what some of the furthest, most out-of-the-way settlements were like

[@QuestMarker]

Dishonored was definitely another game that looms in the background of this video too. I think a lot of games in the "immersive sim" category naturally have overlap with this lyricism in their worldbuilding, probably being systemic gameplay is kinda 'lyrical' in its game design. It wants you to figure stuff out and do cool things. Deus Ex also came to mind for me, in making this.

[@naiyt9065]

They eventually explain where the Outsider came from, and I always hated that. He was so much better as an unknowable entity, an instantiation of the Trickster archetype. Learning where he came from and how he got his power made it lose its appeal for me.

[@Doomsword0]

@@naiyt9065 I think learning that worked for me, I enjoyed it, and there is still enough other unexplained things out there that I didn’t mind

[@ramley]

I think that this is part of the beauty of Ghibli films, like Spirited Away. They aren't afraid to have distant mountains

[@QuestMarker]

"Distant mountains" is something someone else has said in the comments. I really like that!

[@ramley]

@@QuestMarker It comes from J. R. R. Tolkien actually! He always created what he called "distant mountains" (places mentioned but not fully developed) to keep the world feeling alive. Someone once asked him why he didn't develop these places. He said something like "I could, but then I'd have to create distant mountains for those places as well." (Jesse Schell talks about this in his book The Art of Game Design)

[@QuestMarker]

@@ramley That makes total sense. It looked super familiar. Jeez, that Tolkien guy!

[@celisewillis]

There's an excellent video about this here called "Why Magic Systems Don't Feel Magical." It discusses how many fantasy worlds (Sanderson's work comes to mind) have lengthy and established "rules", and are more of an invented science than magic. Hayao Miyazaki films have a true magical quality; magic is an unexplained, yet natural force in the world. How can Totoro grow trees? Why can Yubaba turn into a bird? Why do Ohm eyes light up blue and red? They just do. Imagine if these films ground the story to a halt to give us long, boring expositional rants. There will be pedantic nerds who make equally long, boring expositional videos nitpicking, but who cares what they think? Magic doesn't have an explanation, and *that's the point*. Magic is mysterious, unregulated and illogical. That is why it's "magic"!

[@ramley]

@@celisewillis Thats great! I will have to check it out, thanks for sharing. It reminds me of "soft worldbuilding" vs "hard worldbuilding," which is just as you describe. In soft worldbuilding (like Miyazaki), the rules are loose and bendy and their underlying structures may not be thought out. In hard worldbuilding (like Tolkien), systems have explanations and rules. I think one isn't necessarily better than the other; each just offers a very different experience and can do different things!

[@user-ce2jn3gz3d]

I'm suprised shadow of the colossus wasn't mentionned here, it's so vague about everything but it really sticks with me for some reason

[@QuestMarker]

I was waiting for this comment! Youre totally fair. ...i have never played shadow of the colossus. I wasnt a PS2 kid (I was Gamecube and 360)! And I have yet to go back to try it out. Always funny how us gamers can have such different journeys.

[@patjohbra]

Lol, I clicked on the video thinking it was going to be about Shadow of the Colossus

[@Rikirie]

@@QuestMarker The PS5 remake is phenomenal if you don't want to go back too far :)

[@simomon6]

​@@QuestMarkerBro you are missing one of the top 5 games of all time

[@ganthori]

​@@QuestMarkerbro you gotta play it. It is a beautiful game.

[@ZealotPara]

I'm so glad I finally had this explained in a way that clicked with me. You always hear "show don't tell" "don't overexplain everything". But something about the phrase "A World Not Desperate to Explain Itself" just hits different and really has me rethinking a lot of my exposition dumps in my novel. I realize that the deep worldbuilding and lore I've built up will be far more interesting to the reader, and certainly more fun for me to write if I keep secrets to myself or keep mysteries even from myself. Keeps the imagination flowing without putting in a ton of work just to cheapen my world with answers.

[@bradleymay5350]

*Whoops! Sorry, you can ignore my rambling because I paused the video before the Tolkien segment. If I'd waited a moment I'd have seen all of my talking points repeated almost verbatim (although much more eloquently). But I should mention the author I spoke of was a different, lesser known one. But, like most sci-fi/fantasy authors, he admits to taking inspiration from Tolkien.* Excellent tieback to those common aphorisms. As you pointed out, it's not that "show don't tell" doesn't have its own inherent wisdom. But it's almost so worn out that I'd forgotten its ultimate narrative purpose and utility. So you and the author are correct, that alternate phrase is illuminating. It kind of reminds me of an author I'm fond of. He mentioned that one of his favorite narrative devices is when you're really invested in some concept or piece of lore but the characters can't be bothered to properly flesh it out for the reader because it's common knowledge to them. There's a KZbin channel called Sarcastic Productions that has a fantastic 'Detail Diatribe' featuring the world building of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that covers this concept beautifully. As an author, it can (lol supposedly) be tempting to try and fill in all of the blanks and give your audience clear answers to the remarkable ideas populating your story. But their thesis was that it can almost be more telling to have landmarks and phenomena that no one truly knows about because so much other stuff happens in this universe and much of it is lost to time. Instead they're left with legends and rumors. Or just idle curiosities mentioned offhand, but never elaborated on.

[@QuestMarker]

@@bradleymay5350 Who is the author you're fond of?! You forgot to mention!! The suspense is killing me

[@QuestMarker]

I'm really glad this clicked. I think the "show don't tell"/"don't overexplain everything" spectrum is just one way of looking at it, but Douglas Austin's principle has a different feeling and approach to it. Exposition dumps all have their place and time. Even the game Wildermyth has them! It can also be about the "feeling" or "quality" of those exposition dumps (is the goal to inform the reader of the systems? or a launching off point for something more mysterious? or seeding a theme that's going to be expanded up throughout the book?). Really hope this helps with your worldbuilding and writing :) Let me know how it goes!

[@ZealotPara]

​@@QuestMarker Not long after watching your video, I heard a quote from Neil Gaiman, and I'm gonna paraphrase here but he essentially said what you did, that there's a time and a place for tell. If you, the author feel like you need to tell, then do it. Goes to show that there's a lot of nuance behind phrases like "show don't tell." Coming from a legendary storyteller like Gaiman, these are definitely words to keep in mind.

[@ZealotPara]

@@bradleymay5350 It's like how in Dune 2, Princess Irulan warns the Emperor about killing Muad'dib. A prophet is stronger when he's a martyr (paraphrasing). In a similar vein, the *idea* of something can often inspire the imagination and be more powerful than the real thing. I don't think this is a universal rule, but it is good to keep in mind.

[@Zythryl]

“Closure…. It’s like a drug.” -David Lynch It’s not to bash frustrated people who want answers but “can’t” have them. It’s about reminding ourselves that we don’t have to, and shouldn’t, stop wondering about mysteries *because* of lack of information. Especially in fiction. Like, it’s understandable, but also really strange when someone is quicker to attribute a lack of information to be the cause of *no* explanation, and therefore lazy, instead of there being a mundane, true answer, where the ideas *you* come up with are probably more fascinating than the thing itself. Like finding a machine in Sable, as you mentioned. When I ask “I wonder how that works?”, I imagine like three different possibilities for how little mechanisms could take shape inside the machine. For others, they don’t do that, they ask “I wonder how that works?” but then imagine no further than the question, and where to find an answer, instead of the machine itself. Again-totally understandable, but it boggles me. It comes off as, you’re missing out on yourself.

[@maximedaunis8292]

Too much ignorance is not a pleasant thing to live with either you know

[@thefarlander2050]

@@maximedaunis8292 I think what we mean is that there shouldn't be more information than there should be when explaining the lore of a world. The line that Imperial officer used in Star Wars: A New Hope, as well as dissected in the video, exemplifies that. "Sorcerer's ways" imply some type of mysticism, and "ancient religion" implies that it was worshipped a very long time ago and persists in the modern age as long abandoned practices. That's all we really needed to know about The Force and Jedi at that current moment, and any extra lore dumping would've been boring, out of place, and kind of a letdown as we can't wonder about it in the future.

[@nojusticenetwork9309]

​@@thefarlander2050 sure, you can wonder about something for a time but if it's a key part of the narrative and lore, eventually people will want answers. There is a limit to how much intrigue or mystery you can create before it becomes obtuse and unsatisfying.

[@mastersquinch]

Disco Elysium has a bunker dealing with this exact thing lol.

[@QuestMarker]

@@thefarlander2050 woo this is totally my stance!

[@TheSeamonkeyBrigade]

This is exactly why I love the Mad Max series. Each movie after the first feels like a myth played out on screen, a story that is both canon and apocryphal. It all happens, none of it happens, who cares; it’s part of the legend. The wasteland can only be anecdotal and because of that partially unknowable

[@gamer1X12]

Also it keeps in mind the setting, as you said. In a setting like Mad Max, there really isn't any record keeping or video recording... hell, depending on which crowd you run with, there won't even be witness 😂. There really is no proof or disproof of something other than what someone says.... reality and fiction blend together, perception is unreliable and yet all there is. In worlds like Mad Max, truth is non-existent and omnipresent all at once.

[@QuestMarker]

Gosh Fury Road is one of my favourite movies of the past decade (and apocryphal is one of my favourite words). I love the myth-making of Mad Max.

[@TheRusty]

And I love that the fandom, such as it is, embraces. "Don't know, don't care; it's rad though!" is the order of the day

[@mayhemivory5730]

One detail I love in specifically the Mad Max game is a story that is told to you by some old woman somewhere. About how her great great grandmother told her stories about a black car possessed by a demon or ghost, endlessly driving across the wasteland - undable to stop and find rest. And she's very clearly talking about Max, but it just cannot make sense! How much time is four generations? Max was alive before the collapse, but enough time has passed for oceans and forests to fall into myth. Even the old and the ancient have only ever known the wastelands. Is Max actually immortal? Ageless? A cursed ghost? There's no answers; but that is okay, because all that matters is that it reflects his mental state. You only really need to know that he's in pain and can never find solace.

[@celisewillis]

​@@mayhemivory5730this is so smart, 100% agree! What a fantastic movie. I love Shaun's (the skull icon guy) video rebutting Cinema Sins' lazy Fury Road video. People who nitpick about little things are always missing the forest for the trees.

[@naosouumpatopoha7861]

that's why i love adventure time so much, everything being so vague makes it feel so real

[@QuestMarker]

:( this is has been on my Watchlist for so long. I really do need to just start!

[@reese3083]

@@QuestMarker please pleas please do, great video by the way

[@QuestMarker]

@@reese3083 i'll get on it! and thank you so much :)

[@BaleonRosen6547]

It's what I liked about Adventure Time initially too, and why I was a little disappointed with later seasons. It felt like they had to start explaining everything. But the early seasons weren't afraid to just have things happen "just because."

[@jazermano]

Wow, you're totally right. When I walk down the historic district of a city, with buildings sometimes hundreds of years old, there are surprisingly few plaques and signs just... telling you how it was made, who worked on it, why, etc. It usually just a year, maybe an architect, and who lived there. If you're lucky. Life is in no hurry to explain itself to you. Why should a game?

[@peterwinkler8888]

This is something I had to learn myself, to get over my anxiety, to be unapologetic about being me. To be "a person not desperate to explain themself".

[@QuestMarker]

preach, brother!

[@celisewillis]

Wow, you're right, it's solid life advice as well!

[@666lupine666]

this video cured me of self-doubt, acrimony, and the feeling that I am doomed to disappoint anyone who believes in me. thank you.

[@QuestMarker]

Self-doubt can be an awful thing. Just keep trucking, my friend! This stranger on the internet believes in you.

[@ryanparker4996]

Maybe if you didnt invoke the number of the beast you would feel better about yourself 😂

[@emirobinatoru]

​@@QuestMarkerGurren Lagann wisdom

[@TwixtheFox]

​​@@ryanparker4996OoOooOoh, sPoOkY nUmBeRs!!!!!1!!! OOOOH Grow up

[@giuseppeagresta1425]

​@@emirobinatorubelieve in the me who believes in you!

[@chyra451]

You have no idea how much this helped me regain my writing confidence.

[@QuestMarker]

really happy to hear this. keep up the writing! let me know how it goes

[@daniellegilmore541]

It has genuinely inspired me to really think about my world building. There’s a part of that ego that wants to say “Look! Look at all the cool stuff I’ve created! I’m so clever!” and there’s the joy of world building because it’s fun. But it can be so easy to get bogged down in the details, and to overwhelm a reader with unnecessary details. This was a great video!

[@Annatar3019]

This is my favorite type of world building. Where there is no pages of lore explaining the history of every little thing, just small exerpts of 2-3 sentences. Really allows the imagination to flow

[@QuestMarker]

Agreed! I love a 'voice' in worldbuilding that definitely has mastery of when to let you wonder, and when to let you know.

[@nyalan8385]

As a world builder myself though, this type of world building is by far the hardest to pull off well. You could very well just only write those snippets of 2-3 sentences, but your world will come across as shallow and barely built, lazy even. In order to actually make your world have that depth that lets people spend an eternity speculating on those 2-3 sentences, you have to put in the leg work yourself. You have to spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours researching, drafting, planning. Witing hundreds of pages of detailed histoy, coming up with dozens of drawings representing the architectural style of one group of people, creating a world as detailed and intricate as our own. And then … you have to hide most of it. Only show fragments of the important stuff, hint at greater details, just show snippets here and there. Making the world is very hard, knowing what snippets to show and how to show them is very hard, but hardest of all is being comfortable with nearly all your work never reaching the audience’s eye.

[@AndrewChumKaser]

I feel like every question that you answer in the world should only raise more, to create that urge to want to know more. A compulsion.

[@DarkJediHunter117]

It's the wonder. The little tidbit of information that sparks a desire to know more, and wondering how deep the lore of a fictional world goes down, but never being able to tell how far down. A lot of overdone fantasy franchises seem to forget that last part.

[@QuestMarker]

This is really nicely put. I also really like the idea that there is an urge to know more... but you just never will. Like we'll never know things about Elden Ring or Middle-earth, and there's almost a sense as long as we have questions, we're never quite 'done' exploring.

[@driver3899]

You just have to watch out for the Lost problem. If you are led down a trail of interesting hooks you eventually have to have something satisfying at the end of it. Having no good answer at the end of it, something less satisfying than the puzzle peoples they found along the way, then it will make people super mad at something they previously loved. Just like how people turned on the show Lost at the end.

[@Nodiee1]

​@@DarkJediHunter117I know that a lot of people like to have all of the gaps filled in--all of the mysteries solved--but I really think it's too bad when a fantasy work leaves interesting little mysteries to spark the imagination and leave the reader/viewer/etc. with a sense of a wider, unknown world, and then the viewer wants nothing more than for all of those little mysteries be given concretely described explanations. More often than not it cheapens the world building because mystery, in and of itself, contributes to effective world building.

[@jacksmythe2187]

Another really good example of over-explaining is Baldor in LotR, the body they find on the Path of the Dead outside the locked door that Aragorn makes a big deal of how they'll never know what's beyond that door. It freaked me out as a kid because I wondered what dark force was beyond there that they didn't even want to speculate what it was. Then I learned Tokien said in one of his essays that Baldor had been trying to break into some dark temple when he was ambushed and his legs broken. While it's still horrifying and there's plenty of mystery, it just turned the moment into something so mundane for me. It's fun to know the truth or intent of something, but the mystery and wonder has its own allure as long as it's not over-used or trying to patch bad writing Wildermyth really fed that for me, with stories that refused to give you a conclusion so you can make it yourself. The flame shrine felt good because you really don't know what you're getting into letting a flame spirit possess your character, all you see is the result of your character slowly being burned away by flame and if that's good or bad (non-mechanically) is entirely up to you. Is it giving them power? Stealing theirs? I don't know, and it's great to wonder how all this will end up once the story ends. Tangent: Thanks for listing where the game footage came from, I was going mad trying to track down The Pathless because the visuals looked cool and had no luck until I saw it in your notes. I've also been pronouncing Wildermyth as Will-der-myth not Wild-er-myth and now I'm revaluating my life choices lol

[@QuestMarker]

There's definitely moments in Tolkien's letters that take away some of the mystery away too, as much as he adds to some of it. I think there's definitely A Lot that has come out since his death that does increasingly colour Middle-Earth in a certain way, and maybe always not so much for the better. (Our constant quest of wanting more and more of something necessitates that things become less and less mysterious, ... right?) Wildermyth definitely has a lot of moments where it doesn't explain things. In that q&a, Douglas Austin also talks about how the gods in their world "just don't have the same interests" as mortals, which I also thought was a really cool take. And I'm glad my notes were helpful! I need to make sure they're accurate, too haha. I definitely think it IS pronounced Will-der-myth, and I totally got that wrong. It definitely wasn't my obvious first take of how to say it, so please don't re-evaluate lol

[@Zuldaar]

Do not bother with pronunciation, particularly in English where you have at least 2 sounds for each vowel. Language evolves, if there's enough people pronouncing a word "wrong" worst case scenario it becomes part of a dialect (Which results in making it valid).

[@ThuderDragon2408]

This video is very comforting for my own worldbuilding. I’ve had quite a big dilemma for a while with my own worldbuilding when there are things I don’t want to explain, and I’d rather just say “I don’t know what happened”, but I felt obligated to come up with a concrete answer. But now I can confidently write I don’t know what happened

[@AD-dg3zz]

My personal strategy is to come up with concrete answers for as much as I can think of, but purposefully leave a lot of it out of the final draft. That way the world does feel like it has an internal logic to it, even if it's impossible to fully understand with the limited information you provide. The audience can often sense the difference between when the author has answers that go unanswered, and when the author is copping out of having answers in the first place. Think of J.J. Abrams' controversial 'Mystery Box' method as a shining example of how *not* to set up your world's lore.

[@TuckOfIron]

Came here to say this myself.

[@thehunter8417]

Definitely this

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

because you do need a concrete answer, you just don't need to share it. when a world is actually thought out it shows even if it is not explained, there is an internal consistent logic.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

​@@AD-dg3zz calling that a "method" is far too generous. its lazy garbage from a hack.

[@VernAcualr]

Togashi has turned 'The Dark Continent' into the embodiment of this concept through sheer delay and blue balling of the fandom. Perhaps the most built up place in all of ani manga other than laugh tale.

[@ReiseLukas]

Is that problem even? I get that many fans want explanations to these places, but does it really need to be completely explained?

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

​@@ReiseLukas yes. why even introduce it if you're not going to explain it? especially in a Shonen.

[@JCRS92]

​@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305but why explain it? The suspense, the unanswered questions makes us look forth. Closure is stillness in this case.

[@theviniso]

​@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 I don't really care about the destination if the journey itself is entertaining, and ooh boy, does Togashi know how to write an interesting journey.

[@nullakjg767]

Check out the video game "kenshi". They dont explain jack unless you explore the world yourself and find out.

[@QuestMarker]

It's been on my wishlist for a very long time!

[@yawarapuyurak3271]

​@@QuestMarker Kenshi was the game that reminded me of childlike wonder. It's an inhospitable world, I would dare say more dangerous than any From Software. And with that, every new discovery, feels as finding purpose in the world.

[@ethanmarvalenzuela9619]

You'll have to do a lot of walking though 😂. Hands down one of the most immersive games out there

[@QuestMarker]

Haha you and @ethanmarvalenzuela9619 have both sold me on it

[@EgoEroTergum]

​@@QuestMarker It is an amazing world. An entire continent, with no invisible walls.

[@AccidentlyHero]

“We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. Fear the Old Blood". - Bloodborne

[@QuestMarker]

lots of bloodborne love in these comments and im here for it

[@WarPenguinDude]

A friend of mine and I had a conversation over a topic similar to this, about what should be seen by the audience that's necessary for them to see. Should they see this part of the fictional world for the context to the plot? Or context of characters and motivation? Should they be exposed to this part of the world for mood and tone? Suggestion for what the audience should feel? How much is too little and how much is too much? Ultimately we came up with a good little phrase for ourselves in terms of writing fantasy/supernatural/whatnot: Don't explain. Explore.

[@jocosesonata]

*_"Don't explain. Explore."_* Bro thought he could drop a hard line like that and dip out, but I see you! I want that as one of the core pillars of Worldbuilding & Storytelling. Fuck it, I want that on a shirt.

[@bryankelly3647]

@@WarPenguinDude you explained that well 🤭I agree tho it’s a delicate balance

[@bryankelly3647]

@@jocosesonata it’s like show don’t tell only better

[@QuestMarker]

"Don't explain - explore." Yo preach. This is stellar.

[@IanMRountree]

An author I feel does this well is Steven Erikson, with the Malazan Book of the Fallen. By the end of the core ten books, you'll know everything you NEED to know, but the world doesn't care about the reader. This makes the first couple of books feel dense and impenetrable, but that fades by the middle of the series. It also means there are a lot of loose threads, but thats because many of them arent necessary to finishing the story. People and plots simply cross paths, and move on in their own directions.

[@ryanpangilinan5803]

Going through this series right now! And feel this already lol. Just started Memories of Ice!

[@chuckwagon3718]

This is the one I came to mention. It's always been my go-to example for this kind of approach.

[@QuestMarker]

I read Garden of the Moon many years ago, and I loved it. It was in between school years, so I never embarked on the journey of the rest of Malazan, but, I also love the writings/interviews with Erikson (he doesn't live that far from where I do, currently!). This is a great reminder I need to get back to it. But his series and his philosophy of writing epic fantasy is definitely this video also in a nutshell.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

"tying up loose threads is not important to the story" asinine.

[@IntrusiveThot420]

@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305it works for Malazan because the core story covers hundreds of thousands of years of history. The central conceit is compassion's very real, historical, material role in human society and how it can exist as a core pillar of even the worst, most genocidal regimes. Sometimes, plot threads will be lost to time.

[@cajunguy6502]

As a child, I loved this about the gummy bears show. It's like the world after the fall of rome from the perspective of a lone clan of Romans whose grandparents still vaguely remembered the empire. Human world built in the ruins of the ancient, powerful magical gummy bear empire, with a lone family living underground who still hold the secrets of their society. The whole show was from rh perspective of the younger generations who knew as much about the empire as the viewer did. Great show

[@leesnotbritish5386]

Some modern Star Wars fans would do well to not the difference between “I don’t know what happened, it is better if there is some left out, just like real history” and “it is just a story, stop taking it seriously, it doesn’t matter”

[@AndrewChumKaser]

Well said.

[@gearandalthefirst7027]

Some star wars fans would do well to go outside sometime

[@elijahherstal776]

There are still Star Wars fans? Weird.

[@Aeraleach]

"...and somehow palpatine returned" you can't just drop that on people. At least cloud it in mystery, different accounts etc.

[@nakenmil]

Star Wars has always been obsessive in murdering its own mystery, paradoxically. They painstakingly chartered the life-stories of literally every person inside the Mos Eisley cantina for example. I think this is an inevitable result when something ceases to be a story (an artistic endeavour) and becomes a FRANCHISE (a business model).

[@bradenmeyer7465]

I'm sick of having to understand everything. How rare do we fully understand our own world?

[@QuestMarker]

Preach, dude.

[@TheDinohunter2000]

Doesn't mean we should stop yrying though, right? Otherwise Science is a waste of time.

[@tylerreed2409]

Wildermyth is the height of collaborative storytelling with the audience's imagination. The studio has just finished content for the game and I desperately hope they are about to keep up this sort of evocative and emergent storytelling with a future endeavor.

[@QuestMarker]

I also really hope it's not the last game from that group of developers - Wildermyth definitely deserves a sequel (whether spiritually or otherwise). It definitely has its flaws, but it really does something wholly unique!

[@fredrik5827]

Scavenger's Reign was really good at building tihs type of world imo

[@QuestMarker]

duuuude thank you for reminding me about this show. I saw the trailer for it when was released earlier this year, and I've been meaning to get to it.

[@fredrik5827]

@@QuestMarker Happy to help :D Thx for a great video ^^

[@jacemoran1190]

Man, am I glad you put Hyper Light Drifter in the end there. That game really fueled my desire to begin understanding for myself instead of relying on what others told me. That being said, my favorite is when others find intriguing ways to interpret it themselves. I remember I was kinda mad when Nintendo officially released a Zelda timeline because me and my friends used to always wonder if the stories were connected and sometimes we were dead certain they were. Now less folks will be able to have those discussions.

[@QuestMarker]

Hyper Light Drifter is the game I never finish. I pick it up, watch the intro, jaw drops, have buckets of fun for the first few hours, inevitably get stuck or lost somewhere, put it down, and then remember it again a year later. (but I still do think its awesome) Have you seen Jacob Geller's video on Zelda? It's all about the timeline discussion!

[@jacemoran1190]

@@QuestMarker that’s the one saying every Zelda is the darkest Zelda right? Yea I watched it ages ago and quite enjoyed it, strangely Twilight princess was my first as well. I dunno if you’ll ever finish HLD (i highly suggest you at least hit credits it’s truly wonderful) but there’s this other great video essay called hyper light drifter is art and it’s about the games real world connections with its creator. It’s another great one.

[@QuestMarker]

@@jacemoran1190 Do you have a link to the video about HLD? I'd love to check it out! And yes it's the one about the darkest Zelda, yeah.

[@jacemoran1190]

@@QuestMarker sorry for getting back late. The vid is The beautiful metaphor of Hyper Light Drifter. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqKym6WPhLR_hM0si=in9pqwIraTLP58f7

[@jacemoran1190]

@@QuestMarker ok, I keep getting blocked for links, the vid is The Beautiful Metaphor of Hyper Light Drifter it’s about an hour long. I highly suggest you play first and then form your own opinions, but the video is excellent and explores some great themes. (Edit) it’s by S.H. Consoli.

[@panzer2580]

Elden Ring rides a fine line where an absolute ton of things are explained in good detail, yet several major aspects are left completely unexplained. Despite their importance to the story, the game never really explains what the Outer Gods are or what their relation to the Greater Will is… it really doesn’t explain the Greater Will either. Or how the Elden Ring actually governs the Lands Between. And we’ll never really know the answers to these questions, which is why they’re so hotly debated. People even argue over whether or not the Greater Will is even sentient, with both sides having radically different takes on Elden Ring’s story. Regardless, I’m really just leaving this comment to bump you in the algorithm. I loved the video!

[@kindlingking]

Elden Ring's lore is a complete mess of dumb characterisation, self-contradiction and above else pointless "twists". It's not mysterious in the slightest, it's annoying and frustrating to piece together because god knows if it sucks because it was meant to suck or if you missed something crutial.

[@AlexanderofMiletus]

Sooooo, like everything else Martin ever wrote?

[@mercerholt8299]

​@@AlexanderofMiletus This right here is the truth game of thrones fans will never admit to.

[@christopherschneider2968]

@@mercerholt8299 I love the books and plenty of fans think he wrote himself into a corner. You could feel the drop with a feast of Crows.

[@mercerholt8299]

@christopherschneider2968 For me, it was the red wedding infeel like he wanted a dramatic scene and killed off a lot of characters that could be used later on he definitely wrote himself into a corner. Honestly, the way things played out in Elden ring before th player arrives feels similar, but our arrival is what allows the plot to progress.

[@denniskylling3887]

Another aproach I really like to world building is the one of the Elder Scrolls Universe. Every book and piece of lore is told by an npc which all have their agenda and such, which means the only thing we know to be true is what we see ourselves. It is very interesting when it comes to theory crafting, since we have to use actual scientific analysis models on the ingame sources, like looking at who wrote a book, when, why and even where. Great video though, must say.

[@dc526]

terrific work. i've said it before but i feel like your channel is a real hidden gem, and i wish it got a bigger audience. this is a really beautifully crafted argument, it's introduced me to a new game in Wildermyth, and it's articulated something fundamental to how i think about fantasy worldbuilding. thank you, and keep it up!

[@QuestMarker]

thank you so much for your kind words, and continued support! I really appreciate it, it means a lot. (and it looks like this might have found a bigger audience - you willed it, my dude!) Circle back and let me know what you think about Wildermyth!

[@dc526]

​@@QuestMarker oh that's wonderful! i was literally telling some friends about it today!

[@plaidpvcpipe3792]

8:23 "magic, not magic systems" is such a great line. It sums up a lot of my issues with modern fantasy writing. Everything must have a system, must have logic. This is antithetical to fantasy. It is the sci-fi-ification of fantasy. I love science fiction's logic and depth, but fantasy is not meant to share in that, and magic that is explained and systematic is not magic at all!

[@BazTheBlue]

it's the ultimate boring nerd thing

[@tonoornottono]

i was talking about that “sorcerers ways” line with my sister earlier today because i thought it was so mystical and awesome- i just saw it in a tiktok clip and it was literally the only dialogue from star wars that has ever really piqued my interest. it’s an awesome exchange and the way it makes the force sound genuinely mysterious is so cool compared to the oversaturated, i mean, i’ve never watched star wars but i know everything about the force.

[@QuestMarker]

Really hearkens back to a different texture/feeling to Star Wars, eh? I don't know if we hear "sorcerer" anywhere else in the franchise (I bet some lore aficionado might know!).

[@RazorO2Productions]

@@QuestMarker The Mandalorian uses it to describe Jedi

[@Ser_Percival]

This has given me a lot of food for thought when it comes to constructing my own science-fantasy world. I have this breadth of passion and information that I feel excited to exposit to my players at my Pathfinder 2e table, but I've learned over the years that it truly is for the better to keep the fantasy intimately tied to mystery as you have mentioned in this video. I've slowly accepted that real world history has a lot of open gaps, mysteries and uncertainties and why shouldn't my fantasy world be the same way? Great video, I look forward to more insightful ones like this from you in the future!

[@QuestMarker]

Another Pathfinder 2e player?! Awesome! I think one of the great joys of being a DM is putting a world in front of players and seeing what they're drawn to the most - I'm always so surprised by their curiousities and where it leads the table. Mystery at a TTRPG table is heard, because it can be really easy to show too much (and it becomes boring and obvious) or show way too little (and it's vague and confusing). Let alone that different players pay attention to different things - because people are different! The balancing act I still continually struggle with. But when we get little moments of mystery/wonder/payoff/'lightbulb aha!' it's just so awesome.

[@Kurgan0822]

Well I've never heard of Wildermyth but it's certainly going on my wishlist. We're definitely getting more answers about Elden Ring's world but there is still plenty of mystery there. Great video.

[@QuestMarker]

Definitely check out Wildermyth and let me know what you think! It got a lot of praise when it was released a few years ago, and nothing like it has come out since. And yeah, a friend and I are working through our second playthrough of Elden Ring right now to get to Shadow -- we're both stoked to see what's in store!

[@ReiseLukas]

I needed this. I have stories I want to tell but I have been worried about how I'm going to explain everything, but I've asked myself "Why should I have to explain everything?" You provided the answer. Thank you

[@QuestMarker]

happy to help!

[@andrewjhollins]

The kind of deliberate creative ambiguity you mention here was one of my favorite things about the first two Silent Hills, as well. When I first played SH1, I remember hearing Dalia talking about the "Mark of Samael" and expecting that to be the villain (it wasn't). Or "Key of Phaleg" and wondering who the hell they're talking about. It took a lot of these old names and terms from Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, etc., and using them in the perfect places to leave the player constantly wanting to learn more about the world. In SH2, they literally wrote on a random brick wall, "THERE WAS A HOLE HERE. IT'S GONE NOW." Zero context, zero explanation.

[@Kageryushin]

This is very much true, but I feel like, just like Fromsoft games, the context to comprehend the setting and its mechanisms is very much present because of how paradoxically incredibly detailed and coherent the first four games are. In point of fact, I can tell you pretty much exactly how Silent Hill functions. Hell, I'd like to live there. It's simply that the playable characters are neither equipped nor predisposed towards comprehending the town and its underlying spiritual power. The arc and payoff surrounding getting Leonard's Seal of Metatron talisman in Silent Hill 3 is playing off of this, because Vincent's plan is sound, Heather just... doesn't actually know how to do it correctly, even though she's been given the tools to.

[@QuestMarker]

If one wants to go back and play SH1 or SH2 for the first time, what's the best way to do it? ...and just how spooky is it?

[@andrewjhollins]

@@QuestMarker It's so much more than just spooky. But by today's standards, it's hard to tell. If you're like me, then seeing a highly pixellated skinned corpse isn't going to be the shock that it was in 1999; that said, there is so much more about the original silent hill games than just the horror. There's grief, shock, violence, trauma, loneliness... it's not an amazing horror game, it's an amazing story. As for where to play it, given Konami's history with their IPs, my suggestion would be emulation. But I do believe there's legit copies available on the Playstation Network site.

[@Kageryushin]

@@QuestMarker ​Your two options are purchasing the original PS1 and PS2 hardware or PC (either emulation or the PC port of SH2). Buying the original hardware is obviously going to be expensive, but it's the most likely to give you the "authentic original experience" with minimal chance of any sort of hiccups. In this case, you should go for the Greatest Hits version of SH2, as that's the most updated version of the title. If you try to get a physical copy of SH1, there's four separate prints of it: two of the Black Label original (the only difference is the manual of the first printing is shinier), and two of the Greatest Hits version (the second printing was from a promotion Konami ran with Blockbuster); the Greatest Hits version has simplified art on the casing, manual, and disk, but the game itself is no different, unlike the Greatest Hits version of SH2. That said, I think emulators are perfectly fine and quite capable of delivering that authentic original experience, and that's going to be by far the more immediately available option. You'll have to do a little research, but there are guides online for how to go this route. Look up "Silent Hill Series-Wide PC Guide" and you'll get multiple useful posts on the matter. Regarding SH2 on PC, there is an extremely efforted and thorough fan-made project called "Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition." This was created to ensure the PC version of Silent Hill 2 was compatible with modern hardware and displays while enhancing the experience through updated visuals, audio, and features. If you go with the PC version of Silent Hill 2 (as opposed to emulating the PS2 version), it is 100% the way to go. It has higher fidelity graphics, model display, screen filters, upscaled FMV cutscenes, various graphical options you can toggle, and fixes glitches that the PC version had that the original PS2 version did not. Some people consider it the definitive way to play SH2 at this point, and it certainly is when it comes to the PC version. Regarding SH1, either original hardware or emulation, you should get the NTSC (American) version of SH1 due to the censorship omissions and frame rate differences of the PAL (European) version. The PAL version does fix a single glitch which causes a certain extremely significant document to fail to appear in the NTSC version (this document also appears in the Japanese version). Frankly speaking, because of how that document works in-game, you may well fail to get it even if you _did_ happen to play the PAL version, so because the NTSC version is superior otherwise, it's best to just complete that version and then look up "Silent Hill 1 Newspaper from 7 years ago" to see what that document says, as it's basically the last piece of the puzzle of that game's plot. As to how spooky these games are, that's going to vary from person to person. People have different opinions about both of these games and what they represent and deliver, and fear isn't even the only emotion these games elicit. I think it's generally agreed that SH1 has the harsher, more classical presentation of horror, while SH2 is just... incredibly _heavy_ in its mood. Both are able to create powerful atmospheres of dread. You can only come to your own conclusion by playing them. I hope you enjoy them from the bottom of my heart.

[@tomfool23]

Man, the joy I felt when you dropped that Wildermyth music cue at the top of the video. I adore that game (for essentially the reasons you talk about here).

[@QuestMarker]

I'm glad the music cue worked! I figured that only those familiar with the game would recognize the distinctiveness, but even then, I was worried - glad to see my worries were for nothing haha

[@Vincent7381]

This was quite thought provoking and I'm glad the algorithm decided to share it with me

[@QuestMarker]

I am very glad it did as well, and I'm glad it got you thinking. If anything, that's all I'm really aiming for!

[@Pixel_Whip]

Really poignant video, and really well made (as always). So glad to see this one get really good success!

[@QuestMarker]

Thanks so much, PW! I always appreciate you stopping by

[@akumar1423]

Malazan Book of the Fallen is another fantasy book series that nails this

[@QuestMarker]

Mr. Erikson has come up in other comments! I hope you saw them (and also Gene Wolfe's books too!)

[@aymacaymacunt814]

Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours by Weather Factory are some of my favorite examples of this! Alexis Kennedy's writing is some of the most beautiful and literate and yet cryptic and mysterious I've encountered in video games.

[@QuestMarker]

I've heard about Cultist Simulator... but never Book of Hours! I'll add it to my list

[@danielkubicek1323]

I gotta say, thank you for making this video and releasing it right now. I've been working on a bit of world building of my own and wanted it to be full of mystery and awe, but couldn't figure out the right mindset. Now, I have an idea to follow on: to make a "world not desperate to explain itself".

[@QuestMarker]

all kudos to Douglas Austin (the gamedev in the vid!). It's a really great line. Good luck with all your worldbuilding endeavours, dude! There's other worldbuilders in the comments, I wish we could all jam!

[@nezahuatez]

Wow. Caught a video almost as soon as it was uploaded. And what a great one to catch. I don't have much to add at the moment except that when they asked the question about writing style at the end I finally stepped on the spring that was coiling in my mind while watching video. It may sound strange but this is why Henry James is one of my favorite novelists and his last three in particular (along with many of his short stories). "A world not desperate to explain itself" describes exactly the enigmatic psychological and sociological mythologies he creates, largely by the paradoxes his characters encounter and work (or don't work) their way through. It's no wonder his last and unfinished work, "The Sense of the Past" is what it is. It really bridges that gap between this and that kind of fiction and shows how non-fantasy material can create this same feeling. It makes it hard to read another novel sometimes. Those who read and enjoy James know what I mean, I hope.

[@QuestMarker]

really glad you got here at the beginning of it all! I've honestly never heard of Henry James - but my American novelists pre-1920s is a bit spotty! If he has this vibe, I am definitely going to check him out. This is definitely not restrictive to just fantasy (and genre) literature, and is pervasive throughout all kinds. I definitely find Hemingway to be understated to the point of being non-desperate, too.

[@hardtailgang]

Thanks for a recommendation, it sounds like something I'd like. I rarely stray out of the speculative fiction genre, but it sounds like Henry James is doing something similar to a lot of my favorite authors. Got a favorite work of his, or short story collection that would be worth starting with?

[@AROBOT]

This is top tier content, so happy to have found you!

[@QuestMarker]

Daww that's very kind of you. I'm glad you found your way here. Thanks for leaving a comment!

[@samuelschonenberger]

This is a reason why Asoiaf never being finished is accodentally brilliant

[@justcallmenils]

Love the fact you explained the origin for this video while its about worlds not doing exactly that. Great Video!

[@QuestMarker]

haha thats a great shoutout of the irony!

[@Burgerzaza]

I wanna put a few thoughts here as a writer myself. One of the hardest lessons a writer will learn, especially one who loves world building and has that as a comfort hobby: Noone else cares about your world, except you. Especially when it's not yet a part of a narrative work. That doesnt make your efforts not valuable for their own sake, but when writing history and anthropology sections for fun, or designing a world for your ttrpg game: Noone cares about it nearly as much as you do. This video is testament to that. And that's a really hard pill to swallow, but you can be happier as a writer when you let go of the expectation of care, and just create for your own enjoyment without it needing to be 'productive' in some way. This video primarily concerns itself with works that are too heavy on exposition, that share their worlds in unimaginative ways. The world building is there, but its seen through the characters that are flawed observers, who simply dont know every detail of their world(who does?) or take things in their world for granted(An American doesnt find it odd that you need a car to go everywhere here, while much the rest of the world does). This is true for both writing and games. The characters are the 'small window' into their worlds he refers to. If the answer to a question doesnt come up, then it remains a mystery for people to ponder, even if you know the answer. Lots of people will say you have 'bad' worldbuilding, that you have 'plotholes' simply because you didnt answer every question. People will say you didnt think out how your underground city could feed itself when they have vast mushroom agriculture and fish for troglodytic aquatic creatures, but that's boring and the only way its mentioned is the diets of the characters, so people who aren't as sharp eyed see an absence. Just ignore those people. You're writing for yourself and hope other people enjoy it, but not for those other people. Important distinction. I also think him pointing to Tolkiens 'I do not know' as a model to emulate is bad advice. You may very well know the answers to every detail of your world. I'm sure Tolkien could have thought up an answer if he wanted to, and probably thought of several before giving them that response. Just because you know the answer to every question, doesnt mean you have to dispel the mystery in an audience. The headcanons they create will *always* be more personally satisfying that anything you could put to screen or paper. I'm writing a supplement for vampire the masquerade that fills in a massive gaping hole in the lore, and I know the answers and why everything is the way it is, but I'm not telling the audience everything, and leaving myths as myths(tangent: myths are not historical fact and shouldnt be treated as such, both when writing and analyzing works. 'Kernels of truth' is not the whole cloth truth.) And some details omitted. Some questions I leave trails for people to find out by analyzing the games mechanics and scraps of information, and some will forever be there for people to wonder at, like the real world. Last point. I remember learning about this in music theory before the plague times, but my professor talked about periods of expansion and contraction in musical complexity. I think literature undergoes the same thing. Think about it like this. A lot of classic literature(with exceptions, which were largely exceptional for this reason) takes its world for granted. It is taken for granted that sherlock can solve the case with Watson on commentary, it is taken for granted that Merlin can use magic, etc. Then people came in and thought 'I want these questions to have answers, I want to explore complex questions I pose myself. What's going on beyond the narrative eye?" This is especially the case in early fantasy and sci fi where it was much harder to take a world for granted. And over a hundred years of expanding complexity in literature, what this video is talking about, everpresent exposition leaving no room for wonder, people yearn to return to that period of minimalism that precedes us, where questions dont need answers, and things can be taken for granted. Its cozier, and easier on the brain. Plus headcanons are fun. That's really what this video is coming out in support of, though not in those words lol. Let people headcanon, or let them be content with not knowing

[@QuestMarker]

^^^ there's a lot of great stuff here and folks should read. I'm actually of the camp "anti-headcanon" but I'll leave my reasonings to a future video. It's awesome to know you're doing writing fanfic work for Masquerade! That sounds awesome.

[@Burgerzaza]

@@QuestMarker I'd be interested to see that and hear your reasoning. You seemed pretty opposed to people acting like dedicated theologians of lore and letting people decide things for themselves. People thinking through a story and adding their own depth to it can provide personally meaningful additions, even if other people have their own stuff, and we can share, discuss, and so on. For instance, I watched moominvalley with my husband and I'm convinced that the character of Snufkin, atleast in the cartoons, is godling of mischief in the Finnish tradition that the show pulls so much from. I cant prove that and I wouldn't tell someone else that's objectively true, but i like that idea and it makes a lot of sense to me. Just the whole being able to speculate on whats going on beyond the narrative eye. ttrpg games like vampire lend themselves to that model, with Storytellers being able to use existing lore or change it out for things they like more. This has been a huge discussion in the community between 4th(20th anniversary edition) and 5th edition which is a light reboot. I appreciate the kind words! Its more like a storytellers vault supplement than a traditional narrative fanfic, though I do occasionally do those for fun. Basically there's a lot of gaping holes in the 'vampire ecology' of different regions, with Europe's vampires being essentially a 'one size fits all', but I'm wanting to expand to other regions, give them their own supernatural histories. The focus right now is on east asia. It's been very fun project getting me to read and interact with so many resources I might not otherwise have known about and learned a lot more about chinese, korean, and Japanese culture. I'm really enjoying setting up solvable and unsolvable mysteries, like how I can allude to a vampire clans relations to a European clan through mechanical and textual similarities to canon clans. And some stuff that noone would reasonably know about just isnt going in the book, but people will still notice ripple effects of that stuff if they look closely, hinting that something happened for people to speculate on. It's still a long journey ahead and we're looking for more people from those cultures to read over my material, but I'm having a lot of fun and that's what matters I think. I'll still have gained something from this whole process even if at the end, noone actually wants to read and use it.

[@K9-King]

thank you, thank you for making this video, not only did i enjoyed the video's topic but it is something i needed to hear, something aside from constructive criticisms for my own stories, which i still welcome them, yet this topic is the one i needed to hear the most, there are some things of my own ideas that i had no idea how to explain and i felt forced to need to explain them, i'm glad that a relative of mine found this video where it had an answer, the fuel i needed so badly on wanting to make my own story a reality. as i said, thank you so much, well done my friend.

[@QuestMarker]

Really glad this was helpful in your writing/worldbuilding journey. I hope it gives you the confidence to keep creating awesome stuff! Thanks for leaving the nice comment friend :)

[@Sebboebbo]

Damn that montage at the end made me tear up and I haven't even played half those games

[@ALFASKWODRUN]

It’s that Witcher music. It’ll get you every time.

[@MatthewPearce]

I don’t really play video games, so I have no idea why KZbin recommended this video to me but I’m glad it did. Incredibly well done. Such a poignant look into the art of storytelling.

[@regrettablemuffin9186]

I agree with you on some points and disagree on others. My favourite kinds of stories are those fully of mysteries, but mysteries that can be solved, or at least guessed at, if it matters to you to search it out. I agree that I don’t like when explanations for everything are shoved in your face as the world tries desperately to explain itself, but exploring and learning more about the world is what I love.

[@Raf-qz7ih]

this is why i absolutely love the His Dark Materials books, especially the first book. Philip Pullman doesnt feel the need to explain the whole world and (at least for me) it makes it feel more lived in, as if hes explaining a story about a world that we already should know.

[@QuestMarker]

I've only ever read the Golden Compass but I need to go back and finish it.

[@GameLimbs]

Absolutely loved this. Hits the nail squarely on the head about stuff that's bothered me for a while with how games and popular movies and tv-shows are treated more like wikipedia entries to be pored over (to then create more wikipedia entries), than like stories meant to evoke something beyond themselves.

[@nekiddo]

This video encapsulates everything I've been thinking about this topic, thank you.

[@QuestMarker]

you are most welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@nekiddo]

​@@QuestMarker I think you would love Morrowind btw

[@chugwater2745]

Lovely video. Could I make a book suggestion to you? Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe. It’s a first person narrative of a torturer on a far future Earth where humanity has regressed. It’s full of this style of story telling. It’s like reading a primary history source because the main character doesn’t explain things which he assumes are obvious to people of his time. Anyway, it’s great and based on this video I know you’ll love it.

[@QuestMarker]

haha Gene Wolfe has come up a lot in the comments. Book of the New Sun is sitting on my shelf!

[@LardBucket_]

This is a great video about an important yet neglected underpinning of modern media. I can't help but relate this thoroughness in which a worldbuilder explains the world to the reader to the notion of respect. I can't quite pin why, but I feel disrespected when I'm spoon-fed an entirely comprehensive lore with no holes or "stones left unturned". Maybe it's that, with omissions, narratives and worlds have the capacity to mean more to the consumer, as the mental exercise of subconsciously filling, re-emptying, and re-interpreting those narrative holes is part of the intrinsic enjoyment of consuming stories. Perhaps it's more about how this process, especially in the case of Star Wars, leads to a complete commodification of the lore. Answers become things you have to buy and consume to find out, gradually stifling curiosity in the name of stipulating everything in pursuit of profit. Nonetheless, I heavily agree with your sentiment here. I see these omissions as respectful gifts to the consumer: a sort of "you can do what you want with the rest".

[@hardtailgang]

Dude I totally get that feeling of being "disrespected" by being spoon fed in fiction. I get so annoyed that it makes me actually angry. I remember actually flinging a book across the room one time lol. I really resonate with your sentence: "Maybe it's that, with omissions, narratives and worlds have the capacity to mean more to the consumer, as the mental exercise of subconsciously filling, re-emptying, and re-interpreting those narrative holes is part of the intrinsic enjoyment of consuming stories." Well said. Totally agree. One of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite authors: “My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.” ― Gene Wolfe

[@QuestMarker]

This is a great comment, thanks so much for leaving it! "Commodification of the lore" is very much a thing (what a convenient way to reintroduce and remerchandise Bobba Fett, I must say! I'll stop my cynicism there). I agree with you wholeheartedly -- and I feel disrespected when "we can't just let things be." It's been like this for a long, long time - but it's always easier to do things familiar and providing logic and reasoning because we're too worried about readers not being able to 'figure it out', misinterpreting, or risk our stories being called illogical. The quote by @hardtailgang from Gene Wolf really hits below. (and Gene Wolfe has come up in a different comments on this video!)

[@TheNN]

Probably the most straightforward example of this actually comes from The Neverending Story (the book not the movie), in which multiple times it is said about a plot point that seemingly goes nowhere, beautifully and simply summed up as: "But that is a story for another time."

[@Lucas-df4ht]

This video does such a good job of explaining something I’ve been missing from many games. I personally have had frustrations with the fact that players expect a setting desperate to explain itself, especially in tabletop gaming. D&D’s abstractions and formulaic gameplay has done terrible things to the rp side of ttrpgs. Players often get genuinely upset and confused when told that a setting doesn’t have a defined magic system. The anxiety caused by the unknown and the lack of control that not knowing causes some people to entirely sour to the idea of trying many games.

[@graydogger5711]

Yeah this video's gonna blow up. Great job!

[@QuestMarker]

we're doing it! let's gooooo

[@graydogger5711]

@@QuestMarker lol, I'm glad to hear. I kinda suspected it was gonna happen given that this video was recommended to me despite never watching any of your other stuff. Stand proud

[@QuestMarker]

@@graydogger5711 thank you friend. and thanks for your support! now to just keep the momentum

[@samm4158]

i love stuff like little details of there being a skeleton in the corner of a setting, mushrooms growing through its chainmail… and you’ll never, ever know why. books like Roadside Picnic and Annihilation are full of this vague, unexplained horror. what is Hell Slime, why does it exist, why does it melt bone faster than flesh? nobody knows. and that amplifies the fear.

[@QuestMarker]

I've never heard of Roadside Picnic but I need to go check it out. it looks awesome!

[@ProblemForSolution]

Very genuine,soulful, no bullshit video, a rarity on YT. Subscribed, great channel.

[@BigGunsNeverTire.]

Fallen London (and Sunless Sea born from it) are the absolute peak of this style. Playing them is an almost dreamlike experience where everything seems like Wonderland nonsense, but it's all delivered to the player with such unflinching confidence and consistency that you just _know_ there's an internal logic to the world: just one you're not privy to. And in interacting with it, all you can do is smile and nod and shove fistfuls of rumours and memories into your coat like you've been here all along.

[@QuestMarker]

These games have been recommended a lot in this video - they're on the top of my wishlist for sure!

[@internetcouch]

Really enjoyed this! It's maybe a rote response in the "video games writing" space, but I think Disco Elysium has a lot of this DNA in it too. It's a fantastic and weird world, but the game rarely forces you to learn anything about it. You just get enough of a vibe from dialect differences and various little oddities from conversations for a long time, and then some of the fantastical elements build up a bit more later on. I'm glad to see this is blowing up. A friend linked me your Assassin's Creed 3 Ratonhnhaké:ton analysis a few months ago, and I've been quietly following along since then. Would love to see this kind of attention on your Witcher 3 elves video.

[@QuestMarker]

I really need to try to get into Disco Elysium again! I've tried twice to get into, but I had a lot of difficulty engaging because of the plentiful text + the narrator and then getting bored out of my mind. I have to fiddle with the settings on that more, I think. And really awesome to hear you liked the AC3 vid (it's still one of the ones I'm most proud of!), and my one about the Elves. Thanks for being here pre-blowup. It means a lot!

[@BacklogReviewer]

Great vid! I’ve spoke on my own channel before about the kind of pedagogy of lore-hunting that’s sprung up around From’s games, and the ways that that’s been detrimental to the way we can talk about them. It’s hard to engage with the way an experience makes you feel if you’re preoccupied with piecing together an objective accounting of its fictional history! Not only can a world be too eager to explain itself, but we can be too eager to explain a world

[@QuestMarker]

hell yeah brother. we smalltubers gotta stick together! "we can be too eager to explain a world" is a great part 2 to the quote.

[@drunkenhedgewizard]

Great video, thought provoking for worldbuilders & storytellers. I was struggling with the translation of lore to players without it becoming a wikiquest of spoilers. We learn thru stories , our cultures established with morality tales, ancient authority based on interpretations of history and complicated relationships between societies factions. Maintaining a sense of influential everyday mythology and an immersive understanding of ‘commonsense’ of the stories environment without it becoming a lore dump seems possible if I can discover the ‘game mechanics’ of what you’ve presented here. This is the trap I find myself doing research on KZbin. Constant inspiration for the exploration of so many aspects of pure creativity that I never get anything finished. Now I must go down the rabbit hole of your suggestions. The more you know reveals how so much more there is to go.

[@TheLurker1647]

I love Wildermyth so much. Probably one of my favourite games of all time.

[@QuestMarker]

its cemented itself in my Top 10 RPGs ever

[@DanielBrown-nb9zz]

I am relieved to hear someone else that enjoys classical obscurity in writing! I feel this way about most modern medias...

[@QuestMarker]

There's not many of us, but there are some of us!

[@havenschade8174]

Idk if disco elysium fits into the description of worls not desperate to explain themselves, it explains a lot but honestly most of it doesn't matter to the game, the world is and you're just in it. One of my favorite quotes is from outer wilds and i think about it all the time, "the universe is and we are". I feel like it fits for this discussion i just can't put into words how

[@QuestMarker]

Definitely some other folks have mentioned Disco Elysium in the chat, so I think it fits!

[@armaanajoomal]

i can’t even begin to describe how much i love this. you articulated my love for fantasy worlds like Earthsea and Miyazaki’s creations so well. thank you.

[@liamschulzrules]

Questions are always more interesting than answers. Questions are infinite while answers are finite. An answer is the antithesis of the question

[@villasmovas]

Incrediblle video, really glad I found it, and your channel.

[@QuestMarker]

super glad you also found me! thanks for such a nice comment! glad you enjoyed

[@SamHell-wr8bi]

Dude... Just the first two chapters of this video, about Star Wars, and that one line, are deserving of 9 million views. As a 52 year old kid who saw that movie in the theater when it came out, and who has been disappointed in Star Wars since 1997... Thank you. You've articulated what I've been struggling to put into words for 25 years. You are an island of reason in a sea of insanity.

[@QuestMarker]

Super happy to help! I'm really glad to know the bit about Star Wars resonated for you.

[@mattgoldsworthy3278]

Excellent video, this is something I've pondered myself, however you put it to words! Thank you!

[@QuestMarker]

really glad you enjoyed it! hopefully some of my future stuff you'll also enjoy!

[@christophernoneya4635]

This is definitely a good point. Solving mysteries is exciting, but mysteries in any work are finite in number. Soon it will be depleted and empty. But if a good author weaves is able to leave a number of open ended mysteries where there is enough evidence to speculate but not enough to come to a consensus, where we understand what we need to but not enough to lose the wonder, to understand that the world extends far beyond our perspective, that is special. That leads to these things sticking with us, it includes us in the storymaking process to some degeree

[@QuestMarker]

One thing when finishing this video up, and reflecting, is that "mystery" is such a powerful driver in video games (and all of storytelling) and I'm curious as to why it isn't really used more in games today because I feel like it used to be more present 15/20 years ago?

[@octakhan4673]

Caves of Qud comes to mind with a good portion of the game's lore being generated procedurally. The devs have a system where items and locations can be given a history with people's names and accomplishments. Once in the game I go cave diving and find a cannibal who tries to eat me. I kill him and move further in. Exploring his underground dwelling, I find his library. The books are near schizophrenic word salad, and I'm left wondering if the cannibal had written these books, or if he gone mad reading them! The game randomly generated this encounter, but I had fun projecting my own story of events to explain what I had found.

[@DustinHarms]

I fall in a bit of both camps, I think. I strongly enjoy the wonder of a world and narrative style like you say, but I also revel in the moments of "finding out." I also lend a certain amount of immersion to the seeking and delivery of answers, even through third party sources. The line that I find sticks out the most in this essay, though, is, "What is fantasy without mystery?" And, to that, I could not more strongly resonate. For me, it's a journey, though. A journey of steps toward understanding, but each unturned rock revealing a field of stones should I look beneath.

[@QuestMarker]

there are definitely moments needed for logic, and moments needed for lyricism, and I think you'll always move back and forth along that spectrum as is required.

[@harpo8584]

This is a feeling I've had for a long time and never had the words to articulate it. Thank you for putting it into words

[@stevepenn2582]

Sunless Sea/Skies, Cultist Simulator, and Lobotomy Corporation/library of ruina/Limbus Company are all game series that have similar vibes to the "Fairy Story" sort of fantasy you talk about in this video, especially the Sunless series where you can sell mirror box trapped light as a drug or find an island where everything in it is alive and most likely screaming inhabited by men made of clay

[@rzbOwO]

Great story telling with this video! I liked your style of video essay :)

[@QuestMarker]

I am very happy you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for leaving a comment

[@calebgriffin4214]

I think there is a very interesting border between two different effects: one is the idea of not know the answer, and the other is the idea of not comprehending it. To use Elden Ring as an example, we don’t know how Farum Azula was destroyed. There are plenty of theories, but ultimately we can’t be certain. The other kind is something like the fact that Radagon is Marika. We know this to be true, but even in knowing we are unable to wrap our heads around how that works, and it leads to even more questions about their children. These aren’t questions of fact, they are questions of understanding. Personally, I am a much bigger fan of the second, as there is a communal understanding that even if we can gather vast amounts of knowledge, we will never truly be able to realize the whole of it. It gives the mystery such a greater sense of depth, and even the story itself gets the feeling of a presence greater than what our minds can handle when the answer is not only unknown, but unknowable.

[@QuestMarker]

Where do you put the "why did Marika start it all"? Which category would it go in?

[@Unregulatedtomfoolery]

What a great analysis, loved how you used examples from different types of media. When I heard the Wildermyth music in the intro I wasn't sure if it was going to be discussed or it was just used because it's a beautiful piece of music

[@funniestdudeontheweb]

The thing about that quote about not knowing everything that has happened in history, is that nobody likes that being the case. There are countless people who will tell you how lamentable it is that 99% of all history has been lost. Fiction allows for a complete telling of what happened with nothing left out, which is far more satisfying and conclusive, unless you are someone who wants things to happen in a specific way, and get disappointed if it didn't. The idea of theorizing about what's going to happen is inherently something that most people I would say don't even do, myself included. I simply want to experience a world, a story, in its full, without ambiguility, and seeing how it goes. Things being left unexplored don't make that experience better, and more than likely, will make it worse in the end for me as I end up annoyed at plotthreads that will never have an answer for me.

[@humanmerelybeing1966]

The most fantastical element of fantasy is too often the absence of uncertainty. I guess that’s why so many of us find it comforting.

[@SonicSanctuary]

im a lore man, a scholar and lover of history. so i always do try to piece together what i can. im not one of those people that just wanna go oh well i guess we can never know.

[@Zythryl]

It’s just that lore and history are games of inference and likelihoods. Guesswork. Of course it sucks to not know something with certainty, especially when something can feel extremely obvious. But when an explanation is open-ended, when it can’t be solved like an equation or a timeline, the conversation doesn’t have to stop at “well, we can’t know for certain”-it goes into “what if it was like this? Or this? Could this piece mean something else?” The nature of Radagon in Elden Ring, as an example, doesn’t have to be frustrating just because it’s nebulous. It’s cool to imagine both of the main possibilities-that he was once his own character, *or* that he was never an individual person. It’s fun to mull over new, possible contexts.

[@QuestMarker]

I'm absolutely one of those people who want to figure stuff out too - but what I love is when you try to piece things together, and you do find some answers, but this actually raises more interesting questions. (Like have you reader gone down a history rabbit hole? I started the other day reading about Godzilla Minus One and ended up learning about Japanese literature in the Meiji period. One thing just leads to another!)

[@zetsun0]

And this is exactly why I love frictional games' games so much. Especially the older titles. Lovecraftian horror if the fear of the unknown and they conveyed it pretty well in the first few games.

[@joeyj6808]

I have always enjoyed finding out the trivia of a world more than the main plot of most games. There is enormous creativity out there, for which an uncreative like me, must be eternally grateful. Great video, sir.

[@SubjectTo]

It's a little bizarre to me to use Tolkien as an example here because his secondary world is so detailed, because he did set about beginning a sequel, and because the entirety of the lord of the rings is actually detailed exploration of the Necromancer, Ring, and so forth from the Hobbit, being a kind of tell-all follow up for those dangling elements.

[@augustsart5374]

This type of world buliding is called soft world building, where the author only. Gives some explanation but otherwise leaves much up to the audiences imagination. It doesn't work in every situation there are certianly times when hard worldbuilding suits the story better like in the hunger games for example.

[@victorpedrosoceolin3919]

It looks more like there is a complete explanation, but a big part of it is cut on purpouse

[@josevictorribeirolisboa7576]

Isn't this a tool used by lazy writers?

[@Zythryl]

@@josevictorribeirolisboa7576Do you believe that whenever there is a mystery in any media, books, films, games, anything, the answer to that mystery *must* be available to the audience?

[@josevictorribeirolisboa7576]

@@Zythryl No.

[@QuestMarker]

I definitely think "hard" worldbuilding can have elements of this, too. I think Sanderson's Mistborn (and Sanderson being more of the hard systems of worldbuilding) definitely has this vibe. to the other point of this being a lazy tool for authors - I think we throw around the idea of laziness when the there are plot holes, wand waving, and things written out or in for the sake of convenience. Lazy writing can be found anywhere, and I don't think certain ideas or structures of world design are more or less susceptible to it.

[@Drunut]

Weather Factory's games, Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours, as well as the Sunless Sea games also have this incredible indifference towards explanation without becoming hostile to understanding. You piece together what is going on by the scraps of information you're given and how they fit into the greater context you've built for yourself, and your reward is being able to swim through the mysteries they present with practiced ease over time.

[@thisisfyne]

Great video! That ending montage was beautiful

[@QuestMarker]

really glad you enjoyed it. and that ending montage took me an embarassingly long time to get right haha so I'm glad someone liked it!

[@juanviicente2394]

You should check out the works of Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun, Soldier of the Mist, Peace) if your're interested in mysterious cryptid worlds on par with Tolkien. His book have a very similar feel to From Software games.

[@hardtailgang]

Was hoping to find another Wolfe fan in the comments here somewhere. :) :)

[@QuestMarker]

There are several of you here! Book of the New Sun is sitting on my shelf -- right next to Malazan, actually. I should add it to the top my book pile.

[@sleepingbee8997]

I’ll throw in the Ico Trilogy as a great example. Especially Shadow Of the Colossus. At no point does that game give an ounce of explanation, yet you pick up on the implications of your actions all the same.

[@QuestMarker]

These games are games I've never played but I feel like they haunt me. I need to sit down one day and try.

[@sleepingbee8997]

@@QuestMarker Do itttt! They're all pretty short.

[@QuestMarker]

@@sleepingbee8997 added them to my list! Getting a hold of Ico seems to be a bit of a struggle, but I'll make Shadow of the Colossus is at the top my pile :)

[@MrReset94]

Good on you and anyone like you. I, on the contrary, am too curious and have always been stressed at not learning everything. I can leave with slowly discovering stuff, but never learning the lore would be too much pain for me.

[@alextintyrn291]

I loved listening to this. You put to words a concept I had subconsciously felt but not realized after playing and reading fantasy my entire life. So many of the indie games you highlighted were games I have played, loved, and returned to because their worlds were so intriguing that I had to reengage with them. Thank you for this video.

[@QuestMarker]

On average, indie games do heck of a lot more interesting things with narratives and worlds these days!

[@SonicSanctuary]

i can see what everyone is saying about mystery being lost and stuff, but like what else are to do? not make more stuff with the IPs? just let them sit forever more... unused and fade away?

[@armata_strigoi_0]

Yes and no. It's a question of diminishing returns. You can only squeeze so much juice out of an orange before you're left with empty peel. Nowadays, so many stories seem desperate to squeeze until they've ground it to dust.

[@claytonpfeifer6166]

Yes. Some things will fade, sure. But just as many will join the leagues of stories that have been with us for generations.

[@Zythryl]

You can continue a story with a second part, like a sequel, without explicitly revealing the answer to the previous mystery of the base story which is being continued. Twin Peaks is a great example

[@SonicSanctuary]

@@Zythryl ah see now there you go

[@driver3899]

Each answer can lead to new interesting questions, maybe revealing what you already know in a new light. Or just slap a 2 on it and have twice as many explosions. Either way seems successful.

[@nojusticenetwork9309]

Nah, just nah. Mystery and intrigue, especially in a game, is only good if there is a promise to find a concrete or plausible answer at SOME point if the players are clever or persistent enough to search for it. Its fine if the inconsequential things are never answered, but those elements that are core to the narrative and characters we follow or play as require this to stand the test of time the greatest RPG's of our time have this figured out. Elden Ring and other FromSoft games are like poison to me narratively. They have a lot of interesting concepts and prompts but ultimately have no true structure or foundation. Just constant mystery after mystery that makes it nearly impossible to be invested emotionally in the narrative. The reason people VaatiVidya and those like him are beloved is because they create a cohesive narrative from the jarbled mess that these games spit out. Give me a Dragon Age, FF7, Persona, Mass Effect, Halo and hundreds more over anything FromSoft tries to do.

[@BazTheBlue]

bro is AI generated

[@strivingcobra]

Dude dropped the hardest edit at the end and thought we wouldn't notice

[@Red21Viper]

So glad I discovered this video. You epitomise perfectly my yearning for such storytelling. My favorite author, and one I would highly suggest to you R. Scott Bakker when asked if he would write about lands mentioned and implied he answered "One thing I can say is that edges of my maps will never be filled in. What characterizes ancient worlds, profoundly, I think, is the degree to which they are encircled in darkness." PS. Lots of love for mentioning The Banner Saga