Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
I guess you could describe my preferred style of game as an "hourglass" style - the players playing around at the top of the hourglass would feel like they're playing in a sandbox, and they have wide latitude to make their own path - however, the sand is draining out of the hourglass at the bottom, and there is a single overall metaplot that they will need to eventually interact with (although exactly how they do this will be largely up to them). At a certain point, the sand is draining through the bottleneck, and the players choices are inherently limited, whether its a town that must be defended, a nation threatened, or the potential end of the world...