Oh boy do I have an answer for you. Steven Erickson, Ian C. Esslemont and their friends spent a decade world building while playing table top games. First Eric

Oh boy do I have an answer for you. Steven Erickson, Ian C. Esslemont and their friends spent a decade world building while playing table top games. First Erickson then Esselmont started pouring over that world into the Malazan series. It is, without question, the largest, most complicated, most inspiring entertaining engaging and satisfying collection of plots, sub plots, sub sub plots, sub sub sub plots, super plots, super super plots and possibly super super super plots. I'm only 2 re-reads in - people who are into their 4th or 5th re-read tell me they are still discovering layers. The downside is that the first book in the series - Gardens of the Moon - is ridiculously difficult to get started with. There's a read-along blog that Tor did that helped me get through it - but it's still a challenge. I had to downgrade from an audiobook to an ebook and then to a paperback because I kept flipping back to remind myself who someone/something was.