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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 5127189" data-attributes="member: 26473">In my games political entities can change. There may be big things going on in the setting; earlier in this thread I used the example of a war, plague, or famine. A regime change is a perfectly reasonable example of another such event.The way I run a game, the setting may be changed by the adventurers, if they have the resources and good fortune to do so, but it may also change without specific regard for the adventurers.For example, I'm prepping <a href="http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/le-ballet-de-l-acier" target="_blank">a historical campaign</a>, which puts me in the position of knowing the 'metaplot' for the next 385 years of the game-world. That means the French will participate in the War of the Mantuan Succession, and the Imperial troops who arrive in Italy will bring the plague with them, and the plague will spread across northern Italy and southern France, and the city of Marseille will be quarantined at the same time the magistrates' rebellion is taking place in Aix. If the adventurers are in Italy or the south of France during this time, then they will be affected by the consequences of this, but it they're not, then it may simply be something about which they hear stories and rumors.If the adventurers are in a position to affect change on the 'metaplot' of the campaign, then the metaplot changes. Same campaign example: in 1635, ten years after the start of the campaign, the 'metaplot' says that France will declare war on Spain. However, under the rules we're using for the game, it's entirely feasible for one or more characters to be in a position, such as a royal minister, to influence whether or not war is declared or to determine, as a marshal of the royal army, how the war is fought if it happens, both strategically and tactically.Note that, while I'm using an example from a historical game, the same is true of other games I run. I developed a 'metaplot' for my Traveller game using the yearly and monthly events tables from 1e AD&D Oriental Adventures: I randomly generated results for each world in the subsector, for the subsector as a whole, and for the sector: the adventurers would hear about these events through Travellers Aid Society bulletins, rumors, and so forth, and I would use the information as color to flesh out random encounters with the adventurers during the course of play. At one point the adventurers jumped into a star system days after a major natural disaster (earthquake and tsunami); I knew before the game began that the natural disaster would occur and when, but I had no idea the adventurers would be there so close to when it happened. Serendipity is one of the reasons I enjoy random generation of setting details so much.With the caveat that I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "set pieces," I agree with this.I agree that, the way I play it, a sandbox is defined not by the size of the world, but rather if the world is large enough to provide for the ambitions of the players and their characters.In my experience, sandbox play isn't about wandering aimlessly, and it's not necessarily about hexcrawling large swaths of countryside, either. It's about the players determining the scope of the game through their choices, and a big part of that is setting and pursuing goals for the adventurers.It may be that a game-world in which adventurers can go anywhere they can get to and try anything then can imagine may facilitate that, but I've run successful sandbox games using much smaller settings. El Dorado County in Boot Hill comes to mind.</blockquote>

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