D&D Historian Benn Riggs On Gary Gygax & Sexism

The recent book The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977 talks about the early years of D&D. In the book, authors Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro talk about the way the game, and its writers, approached certain issues. Not surprisingly, this revelation received aggressive "pushback" on social media because, well, that sort of thing does--in fact, one designer who worked with Gygax at the time labelled it "slanderous".

D&D historian Ben Riggs--author of Slaying the Dragon--delved into the facts. Note that the below was posted on Twitter, in that format, not as an article.

D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist. Talking About it is Key to Preserving his Legacy.

The internet has been rending its clothes and gnashing its teeth over the introduction to an instant classic of TTRPG history, The Making of Original D&D 1970-1977. Published by Wizards of the Coast, it details the earliest days of D&D’s creation using amazing primary source materials.

Why then has the response been outrage from various corners of the internet? Well authors Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro mention that early D&D made light of slavery, disparaged women, and gave Hindu deities hit points. They also repeated Wizard’s disclaimer for legacy content which states:"These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed."

In response to this, an army of grognards swarmed social media to bite their shields and bellow. Early D&D author Rob Kuntz described Peterson and Tondro’s work as “slanderous.” On his Castle Oldskull blog, Kent David Kelly called it “disparagement.” These critics are accusing Peterson and Tondro of dishonesty. Lying, not to put too fine a point on it.So, are they lying? Are they making stuff up about Gary Gygax and early D&D?

Well, let's look at a specific example of what Peterson and Tondro describe as “misogyny “ from 1975's Greyhawk. Greyhawk was the first supplement ever produced for D&D. Written by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, the same Rob Kuntz who claimed slander above, it was a crucial text in the history of the game. For example, it debuted the thief character class. It also gave the game new dragons, among them the King of Lawful Dragons and the Queen of Chaotic Dragons. The male dragon is good, and female dragon is evil. (See Appendix 1 below for more.)

​

It is a repetition of the old trope that male power is inherently good, and female power is inherently evil. (Consider the connotations of the words witch and wizard, with witches being evil by definition, for another example.)

Now so-called defenders of Gygax and Kuntz will say that my reading of the above text makes me a fool who wouldn’t know dragon’s breath from a virtue signal. I am ruining D&D with my woke wokeness. Gygax and Kuntz were just building a fun game, and decades later, Peterson and Tondro come along to crap on their work by screeching about misogyny.

(I would also point out that as we are all white men of a certain age talking about misogyny, the worst we can expect is to be flamed online. Women often doing the same thing get rape or death threats.)

Critics of their work would say that Peterson and Tondro are reading politics into D&D. Except that when we return to the Greyhawk text, we see that it was actually Gygax and Kuntz who put “politics” into D&D.

The text itself comments on the fact that the lawful dragon is male, and the chaotic one is female. Gygax and Kuntz wrote: “Women’s lib may make whatever they wish from the foregoing.”

​

The intent is clear. The female is a realm of chaos and evil, so of course they made their chaotic evil dragon a queen.

Yes, Gygax and Kuntz are making a game, but it is a game whose co-creator explicitly wrote into the rules that feminine power—perhaps even female equality—is by nature evil. There is little room for any other interpretation.

The so-called defenders of Gygax may now say that he was a man of his time, he didn’t know better, or some such. If only someone had told him women were people too in 1975! Well, Gygax was criticized for this fact of D&D at the time. And he left us his response.

Writing in EUROPA, a European fanzine, Gygax said:“I have been accused of being a nasty old sexist-male-Chauvinist-pig, for the wording in D&D isn’t what it should be. There should be more emphasis on the female role, more non-gendered names, and so forth."

"I thought perhaps these folks were right and considered adding women in the ‘Raping and Pillaging[’] section, in the ‘Whores and Tavern Wenches’ chapter, the special magical part dealing with ‘Hags and Crones’...and thought perhaps of adding an appendix on ‘Medieval Harems, Slave Girls, and Going Viking’. Damn right I am sexist. It doesn’t matter to me if women get paid as much as men, get jobs traditionally male, and shower in the men’s locker room."

"They can jolly well stay away from wargaming in droves for all I care. I’ve seen many a good wargame and wargamer spoiled thanks to the fair sex. I’ll detail that if anyone wishes.”

So just to summarize here, Gygax wrote misogyny into the D&D rules. When this was raised with him as an issue at the time, his response was to offer to put rules on rape and sex slavery into D&D.

The outrage online directed at Peterson and Tondro is not only entirely misplaced and disproportional, and perhaps even dishonest in certain cases...

Part 2: D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist. Talking About it is Key to Preserving his Legacy....it is also directly harming the legacies of Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz and the entire first generation of genius game designers our online army of outraged grognards purport to defend.

How? Let me show you.The D&D player base is getting more diverse in every measurable way, including age, gender, sexual orientation, and race. To cite a few statistics, 81% of D&D players are Millenials or Gen Z, and 39% are women. This diversity is incredible, and not because the diversity is some blessed goal unto itself. Rather, the increasing diversity of D&D proves the vigor of the TTRPG medium. Like Japanese rap music or Soviet science fiction, the transportation of a medium across cultures, nations, and genders proves that it is an important method for exploring the human condition. And while TTRPGs are a game, they are also clearly an important method for exploring the human condition. The fact the TTRPG fanbase is no longer solely middle-aged Midwestern cis men of middle European descent...

...the fact that non-binary blerds and Indigenous trans women and fat Polish-American geeks like me and people from every bed of the human vegetable garden ...

find meaning in a game created by two white guys from the Midwest is proof that Gygax and Arneson were geniuses who heaved human civilization forward, even if only by a few feet.

So, as a community, how do we deal with the ugly prejudices of our hobby’s co-creator who also baked them into the game we love? We could pretend there is no problem at all, and say that anyone who mentions the problem is a liar. There is no misogyny to see. There is no **** and there is no stink, and anyone who says there is naughty word on your sneakers is lying and is just trying to embarrass you.

I wonder how that will go? Will all these new D&D fans decide that maybe D&D isn’t for them? They know the stink of misogyny, just like they know **** when they smell it. To say it isn’t there is an insult to their intelligence. If they left the hobby over this, it would leave our community smaller, poorer, and suggest that the great work of Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz, and the other early luminaries on D&D was perhaps not so great after all…

We could take the route of Disney and Song of the South. Wizards could remove all the PDFs of early D&D from DriveThruRPG. They could refuse to ever reprint this material again. Hide it. Bury it. Erase it all with copyright law and lawyers. Yet no matter how deeply you bury the past, it always tends to come back up to the surface again. Heck, there are whole podcast series about that. And what will all these new D&D fans think when they realize that a corporation tried to hide its own mistakes from them?

Again, maybe they decide D&D isn’t the game for them. Or maybe when someone tells you there is **** on your shoe, you say thanks, clean it off, and move on.

We honor the old books, but when they tell a reader they are a lesser human being, we should acknowledge that is not the D&D of 2024. Something like...

“Hey reader, we see you in all your wondrous multiplicity of possibility, and if we were publishing this today, it wouldn’t contain messages and themes telling some of you that you are less than others. So we just want to warn you. That stuff’s in there.”

Y’know, something like that legacy content warning they put on all those old PDFs on DriveThruRPG. And when we see something bigoted in old D&D, we talk about it. It lets the new, broad, and deep tribe of D&D know that we do not want bigotry in D&D today. Talking about it welcomes the entire human family into the hobby.To do anything less is to damn D&D to darkness. It hobbles its growth, gates its community, denies the world the joy of the game, and denies its creators their due. D&D’s creators were visionary game designers. They were also people, and people are kinda ****** up. So a necessary step in making D&D the sort of cultural pillar that it deserves to be is to name its bigotries and prejudices when you see them. Failure to do so hurts the game by shrinking our community and therefore shrinking the legacy of its creators.

Appendix 1: Yeah, I know Chaos isn’t the same as Evil in OD&D.

But I would also point out as nerdily as possible that on pg. 9 of Book 1 of OD&D, under “Character Alignment, Including Various Monsters and Creatures,” Evil High Priests are included under the “Chaos” heading, along with the undead. So I would put to you that Gygax did see a relationship between Evil and Chaos at the time.

Ben Riggs​

Look, folks, we know how a conversation like this goes on the internet. Because, internet. Read the rules you agreed to before replying. The banhammer will be used on those who don't do what they agreed to.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Fair enough, but my own experience tells me they'll sometimes still argue anyway...as would I, were I a player and thought I had a good case.

If they had a good case, I'd hear them out before we get to any decision.

If they see me as an ally it means I've got them right where I want them.

I get you are joking, but that idea of betraying them once they trust you? That's exactly the attitude I try and prevent from happening at my tables. Because if they feel I'm going to betray them, then it all falls apart.

Ideally that's exactly what I'd do: split the players and bounce back and forth between the groups. That's the ideal; more often practicalities dictate that if-when one character is captured (e.g. falls down a chute trap into a cage) and the other characters don't know it, one of two things will happen:

• if the same player has another character in the party I don't tell anyone what's become of the prisoner (until-unless they find out in-game e.g. via scrying or discovery or whatever) and the player runs their still-free character as normal
• if the prisoner is the player's only character in the party I'll pass that player a note saying what's happened; it's then up to that player to decide whether to stick around and watch, but watching is all it would be as giving any input puts that player in a conflict of interest.

It gets really messy when numerous characters get captured; in one memorable instance they all got captured (good ol' chute trap again - I love those things!) except one, and the rest of the session and some of the next consisted of that one character trying to solo the adventure (wiser would have been to go back to town and get help, but whatever) before also getting captured. Fortunately that whole adventure was pre-written as a pure set-up designed to test their capabilities (they failed said test) and they were all let free not long after.

That second point is a non-starter for me. I've been that player forced to do nothing but watch for an entire session. It sucks. It is one of the absolute worst things that can possibly happen in a game of DnD. There is no "conflict of interest" in the player having their own scene and the other players hearing it. Not in any way I can possibly conceive of.

I also never have any game where a player has two characters in the party. That sort of stuff is a nightmare for the style of play we have.

That assumes such things happen and the prisoner isn't just left there to rot.

Depending on the situation, i.e. who has captured them and why, that could just be a slow-motion TPK. Not every capture-the-party situation is intended to lead to an A4-like scenario.

If capture just leads to death, then you just kill them. But since that kills the adventure, that is a poor option in my books. And, yes, I assume that you don't just leave a player in a blank box with nothing to do but starve to death.

This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about when I say that I am a fan of the players, or an advocate of the players. Sure, I could have them captured, dragged to a cell, and inform them they are helplessly held here, impossible for them to escape, and nothing will happen except them slowly starving to death unless their friends save them... but that just all sucks. It gives them no reason to be invested. If I was that player, I would immediately check out of the game. Heck, unless the party rescues me, I might quit the game entirely, because I know that is a choice. I know it is a choice to craft a scenario where I have nothing to do except wait. Heck, I've had that happen TWICE to me as a player, and both times are some of my personal RPG horror stories. As a DM, I craft the scenario to give the player something to do. Even if I don't give them an obvious way to escape, I give them an NPC to interact with, a way to showcase their character's mentality or cleverness while captured.

No PC should be a Damsel in Distress, incapable of any action except waiting for their hero. They are the Hero. They need to retain some level of agency. Yes, even if they lose and get captured.

I noted in what you quoted that I was talking about 1e.

And as those items thus aren't likely to turn over very often...boring.

I - and most players I know - love getting new tinker toys; and to avoid the characters eventually getting buried in them there has to be some means of reducing their number over time. Meltdowns are one such means.

That's your opinion. It is fine as an opinion, but it is not shared universally. WE do give out new toys, just not at a rate where is makes sense to destroy everyone's equipment every so often to clear away their unimportant items. If they are unimportant, I should be doing something with them to make them somewhat more exciting.

Problem started when the DM allowed a Myconid PC in the first place...

No, that wasn't a problem at all.

Let me guess - this is a 5e game that doesn't have handy things like Know Alignment, Detect Evil, psionic mind reading, and other useful ways of spy-catching?

That said, distrust among party members ain't nothing new.

Actually, I actively work and encourage party members to NOT distrust people, including not needing to have a new PC undergo a battery of magical tests just to have the character they want to bring to the group come to the group. But you are missing the larger point. A group that shares a mission, that shares memories, that shares motivations and allies... doesn't easily integrate someone who has NONE of that. I can do it, I have done it, but if I can prevent that annoyance from happening, then I would prefer to keep things running smoothly then have to deal with that.

The information that character would have got would still be relevant. That said, this is an example of a lesson I learned the hard way, repeatedly, many years ago: NEVER hinge a plot around a single character because as soon as you do that character will die (or, as in your case here, retire) at the first possible opportunity.

But if you never hinge a plot on a character, then that character doesn't matter. Who cares what their backstory is, what their motivations are, what their goals are, because you will never highlight it and it will always be useless background noise.

I've played this game, I have been in the game where the DM didn't care about the PCs at all. And since the plot didn't care about my character's motivations, I had a much harder time caring about the plot. And when I DID find something to latch onto... the DM seemed almost offended because I wasn't following their plot "properly".

Look, I get that some people enjoy the "nothing that happened before the first scene at the table matters", but if you don't invest in your player's character, they won't invest in your plot. That may be fine for someone like you who has a multi-decade group that just consistently has met so long it would be weirder for you not to meet. But I tend to have groups crumble within two years at most. And if people don't care about the story, then it happens faster, because there is no reason for them to keep playing. They are an interchangeable piece of ship that is "The Party" so they can leave and it doesn't matter. And once enough people leave, the game dies.

If I'm playing a character and it lasts long enough to matter, as a player I'll find my own ways of tying it into the setting. I certainly don't want the DM doing that for me. Also, the odds are high that my PCs' goals aren't going to be related to adventuring and aren't going to matter much to the rest of the party, who may or may not have their own unrelated goals.

I mean, if the mission is to rescue the princess of Karandia (Human realm) and I'm a Dwarf from Kazan Dum, it's 99% likely I'm only in it for the money no matter how hard you try to get me to care about said princess.

But if you tie things together in a cohesive and engaging manner, then the other members of the party DO care. And, if you have given me anything to work with, then I can figure out a way to get that princess mission to matter towards Kazan Dum. It isn't about the DM forcing you to be tied to the setting, it is about encouraging you to tie to the setting early (because you WILL last long enough to matter, that's the entire point) and then we can build a better narrative than "well, we want gold for reasons that we haven't explained, and they offered to pay us."

Which if that is all you want, that can be fine, but the majority of people I've played with don't care to work for money alone. Heck, half the games I've run, the party hasn't gotten nearly any reward for what they did. Because they cared about doing it, not getting gold coins.

I just don't take any of it as seriously as that. I'm there - both as DM and player - to have fun and laugh, not to get into high drama and role-played angst (though that arises sometimes as well); and I'll take lowbrow gonzo over highbrow drama all day long.

And we take the middle ground. We LIKE the drama, we like the impactful moments of catharsis. We also like being goofy and silly sometimes. But while you can have lowbrow gonzo humor no matter what is happening (trust me, I know. There was a player who insisted on that to detriment of everyone elses fun many years ago) you can't really have drama and high tension without the characters lasting longer than a cinnamon roll at a potluck.

 

[Mannahnin]

TSR drew a number of its ideas about monsters in the mid-late 1970s from the Lehners' Fantastic Bestiary. It identifies Tiamat (on page 189) as a "serpent-monster of chaos." Not gendered, and possibly not a direct inspiration for the account in 1975 Greyhawk, but still might be a factor in how the name got attached to a chaotic monster.

View attachment 373163

It's only relevant in so far as this thread has wrapped itself around the relationship of "historical" Tiamat to the Tiamat in D&D. I'm only suggesting the possibility that the name Tiamat got attached to something chaotic through a source that TSR folks provably knew, something that didn't exactly have a lot of historical muscle behind it to contextualize historical Tiamat. I didn't interject to defend Gygax against claims of sexism.

Hey there; thanks for weighing in with that source!

But I think you've missed an important part of the discussion and seem to be overlooking an important piece of the evidence, that we've just started discussing in the last day. It's more than "possibly not a direct inspiration for the account in 1975 Greyhawk".

Some folks were arguing that Riggs' use of Tiamat as an example, and the text from Greyhawk that "There is only one King of Lawful Dragons, just as there is only one Queen of Chaotic Dragons (Women's Lib may make whatever they wish from the foregoing)." was weak evidence of Gary's sexism, despite the parenthetical interjection, based on the premise that he would have found the name Tiamat as an example of a dragon of chaos in contemporary mythology texts.

But yesterday I pointed out that she wasn't actually named Tiamat in Greyhawk. She didn't get that name until two years later, in the 1977 Monster Manual.

So the argument that he made the Queen of Chaotic Dragons female because he was modeling her on Tiamat, who is female, seems completely unsupported now. Since at the time he made the comment about Women's Lib, and for two years after that, she wasn't Tiamat yet. She was the Queen of Chaotic Dragons, The Dragon Queen, and The Chromatic Dragon.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Which was written after he created the character.

The only one who knows what Gary was thinking when he made Tiamat is Gary and he’s not answering questions right now.

Ok so you were proving @Vaalingrade's point, I understand.

Your "it's written after" is a totally nonsensical objection. It's written by him, he knows what he was thinking, and he was clearly thinking "This is pretty sexist, but screw the broads who call me on it!".

 

[Mannahnin]

Is this a joke or are you somehow not getting that you are 100% proving @Vaalingrade's point?

This dude literally put a "Haha screw you dumb broads who think equality is important" in the TEXT not the subtext. But your post attempts to put in some ludicrous alternative reason despite that.

Which was written after he created the character.

The only one who knows what Gary was thinking when he made Tiamat is Gary and he’s not answering questions right now.

He wrote that comment about Women's Lib after he created the character The Queen of Chaotic Dragons.

He didn't start calling her Tiamat until two years later. So that was a retroactive renaming.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

He wrote that comment about Women's Lib after he created the character The Queen of Chaotic Dragons.

He didn't start calling her Tiamat until two years later. So that was a retroactive renaming.

I'm confused as to why you're quoting my post here. Was it a typo? I'm aware of the history - you outlined it earlier. Obviously naming the character Tiamat was an attempt to give a bit more life and mythological legitimacy to an existing character, which had clearly been created on a sexist basis.

 

[increment]

So the argument that he made the Queen of Chaotic Dragons female because he was modeling her on Tiamat, who is female, seems completely unsupported now. Since at the time he made the comment about Women's Lib, and for two years after that, she wasn't Tiamat yet. She was the Queen of Chaotic Dragons, The Dragon Queen, and The Chromatic Dragon.

I'm not attempting to support that argument, totally agreed that in the era of Gygax's "Women's Lib" comment she wasn't dubbed Tiamat in the text. I was just throwing in a source that may shed light on why circa 1977 the pre-existing Queen of Chaotic Dragons acquired the name "Tiamat" - it might be because TSR had a source that told them Tiamat was a chaotic serpent-thingy. My point is more that TSR may not have done deep research into Tiamat's nature before choosing to tie the name to the Queen of Chaotic Dragons in Greyhawk. That might be moot in this broader argument.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'm confused as to why you're quoting my post here. Was it a typo? I'm aware of the history - you outlined it earlier. Obviously naming the character Tiamat was an attempt to give a bit more life and mythological legitimacy to an existing character, which had clearly been created on a sexist basis.

Purely to contextualize DarkCrisis' comment that I was replying to. Since their comment was a direct response to you, including yours made theirs more understandable.

I'm not attempting to support that argument, totally agreed that in the era of Gygax's "Women's Lib" comment she wasn't dubbed Tiamat in the text. I was just throwing in a source that may shed light on why circa 1977 the pre-existing Queen of Chaotic Dragons acquired the name "Tiamat" - it might be because TSR had a source that told them Tiamat was a chaotic serpent-thingy. My point is more that TSR may not have done deep research into Tiamat's nature before choosing to tie the name to the Queen of Chaotic Dragons in Greyhawk. That might be moot in this broader argument.

Sure, I get you. Always appreciate additional historical context and sourcing, especially from a scholar I respect so much. I was disappointed not to be able to join the after stream chat with you, Paul, and Dan a week and a half ago.

It just seemed that based on where you jumped in and who you were responding to, that your comment seemed positioned to resurrect that argument, even if it wasn't your intent. Maybe that was a misinterpretation on my part (morning and under-caffeinated).

 

[Staffan]

This ties into one of the worst elements of geekdom (any geekdom, really), unfortunately. Unbridled, unrestrained, pointless nitpickery and a sense of identity unhealthily tied to the object of obsession. Geeks are, often enough, some of the most knowledgable folks in their field of interest. That, sadly, often engenders a certain level of arrogance (not to mention parasocial relationships, a tendency to see perceived attacks and simply react, etc.). The "Well, akshually." stereotype embodied by comic book guy in The Simpsons has a strong basis in reality. Then what happens when you get geeks together? Do they think, "Hmm, I am surrounded by my peers, many of whom will know as much or maybe even more than me." Hell naw. It's debate, nitpick, desperate attempts to win, to score points, to scream, "Well, AKSHUAALLLY!" the loudest.

 

[Lanefan]

That second point is a non-starter for me. I've been that player forced to do nothing but watch for an entire session. It sucks. It is one of the absolute worst things that can possibly happen in a game of DnD.

That's exactly why I often encourage players to have two characters on the go: if one dies or becomes unplayable for a while, you've still got the other one.

There is no "conflict of interest" in the player having their own scene and the other players hearing it. Not in any way I can possibly conceive of.

The conflict of interest comes if the captured-character's player is having input to what the rest of the party does. Having their own scene (kept secret from the other players, of course) is fine.

I also never have any game where a player has two characters in the party. That sort of stuff is a nightmare for the style of play we have.

But as noted above, it does solve the "have to sit out all night" problem; and in a moderate-lethality game where characters aren't guaranteed survival (particularly at low level) this can be a useful feature.

If capture just leads to death, then you just kill them.

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Keep in mind that in the type of games I run (and prefer) the adventuring party aren't the only adventurers out there. They have friends and associates elsewhere (often these are PCs of the same or different players), and when a group fails to return from the field some associates might start wondering why, and take measures to scry them or otherwise determine their fate.

Which means, if a party ends up stuck in prison there might be another adventure not far down the road, for different characters, where the main mission is to get 'em out before they die or get eaten or are sacrificed or whatever.

Assuming, of course, the missing characters are liked-by-others enough for people to care.

But since that kills the adventure, that is a poor option in my books. And, yes, I assume that you don't just leave a player in a blank box with nothing to do but starve to death.

It kills that adventure, sure, but does not kill the overall campaign.

This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about when I say that I am a fan of the players, or an advocate of the players. Sure, I could have them captured, dragged to a cell, and inform them they are helplessly held here, impossible for them to escape, and nothing will happen except them slowly starving to death unless their friends save them... but that just all sucks.

It's supposed to suck, to a point, as it's clearly a "loss" condition.

My baseline assumption is that you'll already have other PCs in the setting somewhere and-or will be willing to roll one up if it seems your current character is stuck where it is for the long term or is dead without hope of revival for a while.

The other option - and I've done this many a time when it's known to all what became of the player's character(s) - is to hand over an adventuring NPC (there's almost always at least one in any party) to the player to run for the short term.

No PC should be a Damsel in Distress, incapable of any action except waiting for their hero. They are the Hero. They need to retain some level of agency. Yes, even if they lose and get captured.

Sometimes the game takes away or denies agency as either a direct effect or a side effect of in-game events. This has to be accepted by all; and being a "Damsel in Distress" with hopes of being rescued is far preferable to some other possible outcomes.

And just because it's a PC doesn't by any means imply it's a hero. Protagonist, sure, but hero? That's up to the player as to how heroic the character is.

Actually, I actively work and encourage party members to NOT distrust people, including not needing to have a new PC undergo a battery of magical tests just to have the character they want to bring to the group come to the group. But you are missing the larger point. A group that shares a mission, that shares memories, that shares motivations and allies... doesn't easily integrate someone who has NONE of that. I can do it, I have done it, but if I can prevent that annoyance from happening, then I would prefer to keep things running smoothly then have to deal with that.

The world is out to get the PCs (or it will be after they've pissed off enough of it), and if they're that trusting they're wide open to betrayal. All kinds of drama-space and intrigue possibilities to mine there.

But if you never hinge a plot on a character, then that character doesn't matter. Who cares what their backstory is, what their motivations are, what their goals are, because you will never highlight it and it will always be useless background noise.

A character's background is just that: background. It's there to, if the players wants/needs such, help inform roleplay and give the player some talking points. Once in a while a background might become relevant in the field e.g. a PC who was an armourer before adventuring can fix armour far better than the average Joe, but that's it.

I've played this game, I have been in the game where the DM didn't care about the PCs at all. And since the plot didn't care about my character's motivations, I had a much harder time caring about the plot.

Sorry, you probably don't mean it this way, but that comes across as something of an "it's all about me" take. It isn't; and there's nothing saying that between retirement (a player can retire a character at any time between adventures, it's allowed), death, or other in-game events the character you're playing right now will still be around in a week or a month or a year. The party, however, almost certainly will be; and so that's at whom I aim the plot.

Look, I get that some people enjoy the "nothing that happened before the first scene at the table matters", but if you don't invest in your player's character, they won't invest in your plot. That may be fine for someone like you who has a multi-decade group that just consistently has met so long it would be weirder for you not to meet. But I tend to have groups crumble within two years at most. And if people don't care about the story, then it happens faster, because there is no reason for them to keep playing. They are an interchangeable piece of ship that is "The Party" so they can leave and it doesn't matter. And once enough people leave, the game dies.

First off, player turnover is (one hopes!) far less common than character turnover. Players who care about the story beyond just how it affects their own character(s) are going to keep coming back, rolling up new characters as and when needed in order to keep playing. It's the attitude of "my character is all that matters to me" that directly causes the problems you cite here.

But if you tie things together in a cohesive and engaging manner, then the other members of the party DO care. And, if you have given me anything to work with, then I can figure out a way to get that princess mission to matter towards Kazan Dum. It isn't about the DM forcing you to be tied to the setting, it is about encouraging you to tie to the setting early (because you WILL last long enough to matter, that's the entire point)

The very fact that my character's survival is guaranteeable like that is itself a big turnoff. Where's the life-and-death stakes? Where's the risk? Where's the relief in realizing I/we survived another battle or another mission where others maybe did not?

And (to haul this just a little closer back to the topic) I suspect Gygax thought the same. D&D is at its heart a war game; and in wars, people die.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The conflict of interest comes if the captured-character's player is having input to what the rest of the party does. Having their own scene (kept secret from the other players, of course) is fine.

That is literally not a conflict of interest. You're just misusing the term completely to the point where it's actively confusing. You're doing something totally unnecessary entirely for your own personal benefit. It doesn't benefit the group or the game. It's the equivalent of writing up huge amounts of background you'll never actually use - except in this case you're doing it at the table.