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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8403547" data-attributes="member: 71699">P1 moves marginally quicker than N1, attacking them in the square that just-sufficiently-accurately represents their position.N1, acting just-sufficiently-slower than P1 that they will count as having taken damage, triggers their buff. The two are dueling, and the game mechanics represent the palpable hits, fatigue, sweat blurring eyes, luck running out, that come out of that exchange. Mostly likely, players and DM only narrate the highlights. N1 was bloodied somewhere in their rapid exchange of blows, so that they could benefit from the condition to land some hits that counted.P2, conscious of their ability to heal quickly and from range, has acted just-sufficiently-after the others that it makes sense they can cast their spell to help P1. Perhaps the group envisions P2 having an ongoing awareness of their allies so that indeed their decision can and will be triggered by events. P1 collapses and P2's heal lands as they hit the floor, prone but thankfully coming conscious.An alternative to consider is what narrative emerged if P2 rolled a higher initiative than P1, and didn't ready to cast healing word?For me the question isn't whether it is uncontroversial, but whether you find that aspects of the game structure fail to support the kind of narratives you want to create. I can appreciate the problem you describe, but you'll have to take me on good faith when I say that it really doesn't arise at my table. We don't lose suspension of disbelief just because the game structure is turn-based. I'd say that large HP pools and whack-a-mole healing are what do our SoD the most harm, and those will remain even if it takes until the round following to cast the heal.When we know the colour of an object at the edge of our vision, that isn't based on any actually perceived colour: we let our brains gloss over it. Another poster pointed out that in books we read words somewhat sequentially (cognitively, the scanning of words isn't a clean linear progression across the visible text), but from those static symbols we can accept into our imagination simultaneous events.By analogy, I feel the issue is what we are able to gloss over. It's worth calling out lack of simultaneity as a thorn for your narrative. I just don't feel that what narrative is, can be limited as you describe. Games are systems of symbols, symbolic relationships, and dynamics. Our brains happily parse symbols and imagine what they represent. All we need do is change our mechanics just enough to dispel our SoD-break, and narrative will reform.The seeming is the same as the being, in this case. Or to put it another way, imagine that it seemed for you that a plausible narrative emerged from the combat mechanics. How would you tell the difference between that, and a plausible narrative?</blockquote>

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