Turns: Understanding the Grammar of D&D

I’ve been thinking recently about the beautiful parallel structures that allow simple procedures in D&D to represent the dungeon, the wilderness and in the city. I think of the grammar of the game as being the same regardless of the terrain or situation. When I say grammar, I mean the rules about the way the actions in a game are put together, regardless of what kind of environment is present, in the same way that the grammar of a language governs the way a sentence is put together, regardless of the words in the sentence. A D&D based game (from OSR to 5.5e) has a grammar that includes fictional space, fictional time, actions, costs, and reactions, all put together in something we call a turn, and understanding the way to put together a turn makes all kinds of things make sense. I originally thought about this through the lens of crawling. When you are crawling, you move slowly, seeking treasure and information, and avoiding hazards and dangers. In the dungeon, you go room to room. In…