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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9074788" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Don't have time to comment in deep.  So a quick glossary to confirm what I suspect you likely had in mind and a comment or two:Table-facing procedures:  No secret way of doing anything that only the GM knows or comes up with on the spot.  Its all there and every participant at the table knows it and all the time.  When the state of the game goes from a to b, nothing about that is a mystery.  Sable, clear, transparent, out-in-the-open.  An epithet you've surely heard is "that is board-gamey!"Play Loop:  Step 1 > Step 2 > Step 3 > Step 4 > Back to Step 1.  Rinse & repeat.  While the content of play changes, while the characters change, the stuff you do and who does what stuff repeats.  Over and over.  Until we're done.Orbiting Continuity/Canon/Backstory/Metaplots:  PC-independent stuff that is ultimately the center of play.  At conception of play, this prepped stuff "gravitationally captures" future play.  Future play orbits this stuff.  "Here is the menu of PC-build or evinced-player-interest independent things to do (hooks, goings-ons, intrigues, mysteries, overarching conflicts, side quests)."  "Oh, you declared that action...well let me check my notes to see what happens or whether or not that action is even permissible."  Player:  "Do I know about <NPC, backstory, faction, etc>?"The inverse would be content orbiting PC-build or player-evinced-goal/interest.PC-build dependent:  Content that is generated is not independent of PC build or outright spoken player interest.  For Mouse Guard, content generated engages with a PC Belief, Instinct, Goal, or Relationship.[HR][/HR]Economic modeling is a generic stand-in for any preoccupation where game content (and possibly game engine resolution stuff) is concerned with simulating setting stuff that is independent of conflict-charged content that centers around challenging the thematic aspects of PC build or the evinced dramatic needs that the player has declared for their character.  Players are going to spend time managing decision-trees/declaring actions, and might even allocate PC build resources, that are the equivalent of sorting out exchange rates for currency or extrapolating granular speed : time relationships for overland travel rates to set up a potential intercept point on a map for a caravan or something.  Its the type of stuff and the weight of it upon the balance of play, not the exact example.  On the Settlement entry above.  My guess is your sandbox games don't have 8 of those entries above and that is it.  My guess is you have 8 of those entries above + some level of canonical backstory and continuity (likely multiple of these that are concentric or layered or independent from one another) that marches forward through play that is PC-independent + a stable of PC-independent plot hooks/intrigues/side quests/NPC & or Faction arcs.  You have a fairly high resolution setting conception at the outset of play that is independent of player input and independent of PC-build input and play features players exploring that setting; interacting with people and places and continuity that is related to this stuff that has been pre-generated > PCs going on quests where a sequence of actions and resolution and consequences take place to have this setting stuff change > character advancement > rinse and repeat (except possibly the PCs do follow-on stuff with that setting stuff they just changed because the players have become interested in exploring that to its conclusion).Now and again, you may have a table to generate something live.  But that something generated is, again, PC-build independent (or at least frequently if not perpetually).No?</blockquote>

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