Dungeons, Adventures and Athanor

I have made some opportunities for traditional adventures in Athanor, including the presence of the undercity, the four scions of the Overlord and their fortresses in the vast expanse of ruins at the edges of the city. I have also made some opportunities for wilderness adventure (and further dungeons) in my wilderness map and slowly developing map key. But these only provide some of what I want happening.

Now I need to think about intrigues and backgrounds. In my past days of running superhero games, Storyteller system games, and action/adventure games using Feng Shui, I have GMed games with a strong plot and story element. And these went fine. But I want to give more freedom to my players in discovering and creating plots rather than having them driven by me. I'm just not interested in being the author of a semi-complete plot that the players play in right now. I want to watch what the players make out of the world.

So how do I get more sandbox-ey, but not focus on megadungeons, wilderness exploration, or heavy detail like the old Judges' Guild City State? I'll have to mull that over (somewhere between the lierature review, data project, readings, papers, orientation programs, publications I'm rewriting, and three conferences I'm attending this quarter.... For those of you considering full-time work while doing full-time graduate school, heed my advice: Don't do it!)

So many questions to get the game I want to run to actually take shape....