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I don't see anything wrong with assuming a correlation, especially one that tracks with my observed experience. (And, to be clear, I'm talking temperamentally conservative, not politically, as per the OP.) If your observed experience is different than mine, that is of course a useful insight...

You don't need rules to prescribe every outcome. You need rules to decide who has the authority to determine outcomes, and what boundaries to that authority exist, for every scene that arises.

I'll make it a stated assumption. If people were less skeptical, other types of games would be more popular.

And all I'm arguing is that every time you put something into the game that's not changeable by the game's resolution method, you weaken the ability of the game to be described as "player-driven" as opposed to "player-discoverable". I would be happy to describe Skyrim, for example, as a...

Yes? If your attitude is "I know what I like, and I don't need to try other things because I already know I like this way", then I certainly wouldn't hesitate to define that as "conservative and skeptical".

You mean like "even he's bribable, odd he isn't", rolled at the table?

Exceptions to the rule always exist. I know there are plenty of gamers who have tried other approaches and still prefer trad play.

Which, of course, circles back to the thread topic that a large portion of the D&D player base is innately conservative and skeptical of learning about other games with different types of GM and player roles.

No one, in general, is looking for game play where "everything goes their way". The distinction is how complications are generated. Did the DM make them up beforehand, or are they generated as the result of rolls and resolution mechanics? Basically, is the guard unbribable because the DM said...

If a game goes poorly because of the rules, I'd rather just play a different game with better rules!

I think there's two very different framings of what "player-driven" might mean. One is about the DM designing a very large setting without a lot of pre-set scenes, like an adventure path/module does. This is what I tend to the think of as the Elder Scrolls model; where the focus of play is...

And that change in trust is a very important distinction. If there's a problem with how gameplay shakes out when we all followed the rules, then that is the rules' fault. If the GM has ultimate ownership to amend the rules as they see fit and the gameplay doesn't work out, then it's the GM's...

Dungeons are kind of a terrible example. Generally, if the party is in a dungeon, I'm low-key expecting that the focus of play IS on map-and-key exploration of a pre-determined space. Unless the game has specifically been telegraphed as using the dungeon as a framing device for a different...

Or, to slightly reverse this, if I as a player think that a GM decision led to unsatisfying gameplay, I don't have to accept "But it was realistic!" as a satisfactory defense of the decision-making.

Considering the fact that the topic of the thread is the essential conservatism of broad swathes of D&D players. The essential continuing conservatism of the D&D player base is the idea that the point of play is map-and-key exploration of a predetermined space/setting in order to "solve" a...

I’m trusting the game designer to deliver an experience that me and my table will buy into. I’m not looking for “the game I want”. I’m looking for a good game. I try not to play the same game for years and years at a time.

Yes, because those rules are, ideally, transparent and visible to the entire table.

The nice thing about formalized rules is that by agreeing to play under them, all the participants accept that implicit accountability to follow them. There’s little to no social awkwardness in saying “Actually, that spell only goes 60’, so that action won’t work.”

https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-is-your-personal-appendix-n.703373/

I would throw out classes before I threw out magic items. Character growth through discovery should be the core of D&D.