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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7059689" data-attributes="member: 16586">As an aside, anyone who is interested in sandbox gaming with an emphasis on a living breathing world should really check out <a href="http://www.sinenomine-pub.com/" target="_blank">Sine Nomine Publishing</a>'s products. They utilize real modular design, include an elaborate set of random tables utilizing a tagging system to generate content, and use fractal design to represent things like factions. One really cool subsystem they include is the faction turn which you can use to play out different factions maneuvering against each other. It really helps to model changes happening in the setting over time. It starts out as lonely fun, but if players get to the point where they are controlling their own factions you get to include them.Sine Nomine and Red Box Vancouver are doing some really innovative stuff within the OSR space. Stars Without Number, Godbound, Red Tide, The Nightmares Underneath, Metamorphica, and The River Knife module series are all evocative and extremely well designed.Another cool technique is the use of countdown clocks, originally seen in Apocalypse World for fronts. The idea is that you assign a goal to an NPC, faction, or whatever and at regular intervals tick up the clock. Player actions can of course tick the clocks up or down. Blades in the Dark extends this to a method to deal with PC long term projects. Basically progress bars.</blockquote>