Troupe Play and Sandbox Campaigns

[misha]

I find my own dissatisfaction strange, because the writing prompt style of location design philosophically agrees with how I practically run my games, while clashing with what I want from a pre-written adventure/location.

I think that gets to the heart of it for me--it's not that this type of prep is bad; it's that it's what I already do when I'm getting ready for a session with limited time to prep. But that means it needs to save me time--and that type of 'have some cool ideas' prep is actually pretty quick, almost as quick as reading. So if it's not saving me that much time, it needs to be better quality than what I'd prep myself--but that means it needs to better match my sense of taste than things that I write myself.