The author might make broad sweeping generalizations but the main point is true. A group of PCs is basically a democracy. Such D&D democracy makes roleplaying in strict social hierarchies pretty difficult. PCs will mouth off to kings or wizards or even deities.
I clearly remember how such "D&D PC-ism" influenced the relative flopping of the early Star Trek RPG [FASA, 1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Role_Playing_Ga...]. The main reason? No one wanted to be ordered around by a Captain PC, or by other PC officers that outranked them. Players wanted to be "equals." (While Star Trek TTRPG did have fans and survived for a long while, it never really took off as many hoped it would.)
Another reason, though, is that it did not satisfy the bloodlust of the typical "hack and slash" D&D fans (what are now called "murder hobos" — wandering bands of characters with no allegiances, no lords, no loyalties). These types of players couldn't just use the Enterprise's phasers to hold planets hostage and take all their loot. They couldn't just be space pirates. They thought the universe of Star Trek was "boring." In GDW's Traveller, by contrast, you could definitely (in due time) get a ship capable of hurling nukes at planets. You could be space pirates! Now that was "fun!"
It is often difficult to get many D&D players outside of their modernisms and into a medieval mindset, or into any sort of realistic strictly hierarchical society (as shown, even in Science Fiction).
I've run Pendragon for decades. It can misfire spectacularly if players refuse to put aside their modern mindsets and adopt the concepts of chivalry, feudalism, courtly love and faith (Christian or otherwise) that are central to its themes and historical source materials.
I had a whole session in this past year where I went through the ancient Brehon marriage laws under late pagan/early Christian Ireland. (btw: It's a far cry from "Say Yes to the Dress.")
D&D is more like a typical Renn Faire. A motley assortment of anything from ancient to nearly modern dress. A cross-time saloon of attitudes, weaponry, cultures and so on. What passes for society is made up from kit-bashed models. It rarely makes cohesive sense.
The Star Trek RPG might have done better if it was released today than in 80's. YouTube pen and paper role playing shows have lead to more people being interested in the actual role playing aspect and not just murder hoboing.
One factor in the emphasis on role-playing is that "kill monsters and watch numbers go up while navigating a mostly linear narrative" is quite well addressed by video games... We go to the table to do things we can only do at the table.
I would put the gradual failure of the FASA system more on the same basic problem a lot of licensed RPGs have: it's an elaborate simulation wargame that happens to use the same setting, rather than a game designed to actually feel like the experience of the show. This is extremely common to the point of absurdity, to the point that even official Doctor Who and My Little Pony RPGs have done it.
They've demonstrated an interest in watching talented others do serious role-play (and also acting, which is largely orthogonal); but does that really translate into a desire to try it themselves?
> The author might make broad sweeping generalizations but the main point is true. A group of PCs is basically a democracy. Such D&D democracy makes roleplaying in strict social hierarchies pretty difficult. PCs will mouth off to kings or wizards or even deities.
But D&D (and its descendants) make this particularly likely to happen, right? Take Paranoia as a different extreme. You cannot mouth off to authority figures in Paranoia because it will get you killed in a second, and the rules encourage making you trip and get killed because you said the wrong thing to the wrong person (or Computer).
Note: I was there at West End Games when we launched Paranoia. In fact, I drew the original computer illustration as well as the secret society logos (they were inked by another artist).
A little known story: there was a player in Dan Gelber's social circle who was a total rules lawyer. He annoyed Dan & crew immensely. So Dan created a game where it was treasonous — reason for summary execution — to show any knowledge of the rules. They had a lot of fun killing that player's character over-and-over.
Yeah but then you see how the historical unconscious reveals itself: not in the “true” history trapped in books but the lived memory in the world. Of course modernity has infested all historical understanding, but it also reveals things, unconsciously, about history that a rigorous analysis could never show: and thus to redeem true history is also the bring it to a point beyond historical recognition.
You need both: you need to critical historical understanding, but you also need the real world exercise of collective memory, so that you can break through history to bring about something entirely novel.
I clearly remember how such "D&D PC-ism" influenced the relative flopping of the early Star Trek RPG [FASA, 1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Role_Playing_Ga...]. The main reason? No one wanted to be ordered around by a Captain PC, or by other PC officers that outranked them. Players wanted to be "equals." (While Star Trek TTRPG did have fans and survived for a long while, it never really took off as many hoped it would.)
Another reason, though, is that it did not satisfy the bloodlust of the typical "hack and slash" D&D fans (what are now called "murder hobos" — wandering bands of characters with no allegiances, no lords, no loyalties). These types of players couldn't just use the Enterprise's phasers to hold planets hostage and take all their loot. They couldn't just be space pirates. They thought the universe of Star Trek was "boring." In GDW's Traveller, by contrast, you could definitely (in due time) get a ship capable of hurling nukes at planets. You could be space pirates! Now that was "fun!"
It is often difficult to get many D&D players outside of their modernisms and into a medieval mindset, or into any sort of realistic strictly hierarchical society (as shown, even in Science Fiction).
I've run Pendragon for decades. It can misfire spectacularly if players refuse to put aside their modern mindsets and adopt the concepts of chivalry, feudalism, courtly love and faith (Christian or otherwise) that are central to its themes and historical source materials.
I had a whole session in this past year where I went through the ancient Brehon marriage laws under late pagan/early Christian Ireland. (btw: It's a far cry from "Say Yes to the Dress.")
D&D is more like a typical Renn Faire. A motley assortment of anything from ancient to nearly modern dress. A cross-time saloon of attitudes, weaponry, cultures and so on. What passes for society is made up from kit-bashed models. It rarely makes cohesive sense.