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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 9777682" data-attributes="member: 6667921">Exactly—and that’s the distinction that matters. Systems like Dungeon World or Daggerheart are built to reward narrative reactivity. The GM’s “offer an opportunity” or the use of spotlights is baked into their core feedback loops.What I’m talking about isn’t importing those systems into D&D or rewriting how CR or reactions work. It’s closer to a behavioral shift for the GM: recognizing narrative openings that already exist in play and allowing players to step into them without mechanical invocation. It’s not a house rule so much as a flexible interpretation of the scene.In other words, D&D doesn’t need to become Dungeon World to capture a little of that energy. It just needs GMs to lean into narrative cause and effect when the moment calls for it, rather than defaulting to the turn sequence as the only valid time for agency.The systems you mentioned, though, touch on something we hadn’t discussed yet—getting more results from every turn taken.In D&D, every turn could move the narrative forward by showing the result of a character’s actions. The caveat is that progress often depends on success. If a character makes an attack and misses, nothing happens. The only real consequence of failure is that the clock extends and everyone waits longer for resolution. The turn is effectively wasted.This, I think, is the core lesson games like Dungeon World and Daggerheart learned early: the story economy can’t afford wasted turns. In Dungeon World, the world responds to player actions regardless of success or failure—every roll changes something. That effectively folds the “adversary turn” into the same action, maintaining flow and keeping the fiction alive.Daggerheart achieves a similar result through flexibility. Dice outcomes ripple across the table, and both GMs and players are empowered to invite participation between turns. The design makes it harder for anyone to disengage because the story keeps moving even when the mechanics pause. More importantly, both systems respect the players’ time and active presence at the table.Just to clarify: when I refer to “narrative,” I don’t just mean the overarching story or campaign arc—it’s the story within the combat itself. We often see fights through the lens of gamers: exchanges of blows until one side falls. Even when we add dynamic terrain or shifting objectives, we can miss that each combat is its own story of immediate struggle—of position, risk, and evolving intent. Each turn, successful or not, should contribute to that unfolding tension beyond “Is it my turn yet?” or “How much longer is this going to take?”When systems or GMs structure combat around that continuous narrative flow—when player actions naturally provoke the world’s reactions in real time—engagement becomes self-sustaining. Expediting resolution by merging cause and effect into the same moment, as these systems do, keeps players proactive and emotionally tethered to the scene. They’re not waiting for the game to come back around to them; the story is already happening with them.That’s the bridge back to my essay’s argument: engagement issues aren’t always fixed by speeding up rounds or tightening mechanics, but by designing (or running) systems where every turn meaningfully contributes to the evolving story. When momentum and consequence are unified, even failure serves the narrative—and no one at the table is left waiting for their chance to matter.</blockquote>

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