The Dungeon Narrator isn't just running a game - you're the final authority on how the world responds to your players. Traditional games follow the books closely, looking up the hundreds of rules, maybe bending a rule here or there. You? You're writing the missing details in real time for their table.
Here's the shift: A traditional adjudicates rules. A DN interprets reality.
When a player says "I want to shove him off the cliff with my shield," the other games flips through combat maneuver charts. The DN thinks: How big are they? How braced are they? What's the player's momentum? What feels right for this moment?
You're not bound by these books - you're guided by them. Open Dungeons books are your foundation, not your ceiling. But with that freedom comes responsibility. Every ruling you make sets a precedent. Every "yes" or "no" teaches your players what kind of world they're playing in.