Originally Posted by
Tanarii
Conversely, it gives the players a way to determine "what do I do next" in a way that interfaces with their goals.
The simple example is game structures for interacting with an urban adventure. If you have a game structure that works like a dungeon, they're going to have to tell you each street they walk down, with encounter checks and distance traveled per turn being important. If you have one that instead is node-based, they can interact with the nodes by telling you which node they're transiting to next. They don't need to understand the entire structure, but they do need enough visibility into this organization to tell you what's next.
Similarly for a wilderness exploration structure, they may need to inform you of destination node and route, or they may need to tell you direction of travel and general activity within each watch (time frame).