Mercurius
Legend
I grew up on the D&D of the 80s, so for me "traditional" was my imprinted default style of play, with the DM creating the setting and story environment within which the PCs interacted. PCs had agency, but the DM had ultimate authority as "author of the world." I personally never ran into problems with this, at least as DM, perhaps because I was always open to negotiation, and generally played with people who didn't constantly want to challenge or re-make the world in their own image. On the other hand, I occasionally did play with DMs who abused this, so it is not that I see "trad" as being without potential problems.
Anyhow, I see all play styles--whether the six outlined in the article or any other way we might want to slice the cake--as being neither good nor bad, but all having potential for abuse. Trad can become problematic with a DM who doesn't care about player agency, or has a "Grand Plan" they want to enact, regardless of the other people at the table. PC/neo-trad can become problematic if you have a player(s) who, likewise, insist on their own fun over that of the other members of the group, and/or are constantly challenging the DM.
Ultimately I find all such labels (play styles, etc) artificial - just shorthand terms for discussion. I find that style of play ultimately comes down to table agreements, both as initially set out and discussed, but also as evolved organically during game play (and perhaps unspoken). Each table has its own culture, and each game and campaign might explore different aspects of that culture and/or expand it. Furthermore, even if a group is largely of one play style, the boundaries are often fuzzy. The key components are buy-in and flexibility; problems arise when any member of the group isn't willing to buy into the shared agreements and/or is inflexible about what the game naturally becomes.
One final thought. I think a lot of interpersonal problems arise when one or more people take the game either too seriously or not seriously enough. Meaning, there's an ideal middle ground, which is quite broad in that it isn't this narrow sweet-spot of perfect engagement, but doesn't fall into extremes of either not giving a crap and treating everything too lightly (e.g. "too cool for school," so let me mess it up for everyone else)--relative to the group as a whole--or taking it so seriously that their engagement in the game is basically a surrogate therapy session - working out their own psychodynamic complexes in the game session. Both tend to muddy the waters and even ruin the primary purpose of the game: shared enjoyment.
In other words, the primary purpose of any game is fun - and for everyone involved. Or at least this is the primary purpose of most role-playing games, such as D&D! Regardless of the play style and their emphasized objectives, all of which should ultimately serve individual and gorup enjoyment. D&D isn't Monopoly, which is supposed to be fun, but often ends up with one person having fun and the rest experiencing varying degrees of waning enjoyment morphing into feeling kind of bummed out by the end (and it could be argued that the original purpose of Monopoly was to illustrate and teach the dangers of capitalism).
The DM's responsibilities include creating a context that has a high probability of being fun for all, even if that doesn't always line up exactly with their creative vision, but players can help this along by being flexible and not needing the game to always reflect their own personal wish fulfillment fantasies.
Anyhow, I see all play styles--whether the six outlined in the article or any other way we might want to slice the cake--as being neither good nor bad, but all having potential for abuse. Trad can become problematic with a DM who doesn't care about player agency, or has a "Grand Plan" they want to enact, regardless of the other people at the table. PC/neo-trad can become problematic if you have a player(s) who, likewise, insist on their own fun over that of the other members of the group, and/or are constantly challenging the DM.
Ultimately I find all such labels (play styles, etc) artificial - just shorthand terms for discussion. I find that style of play ultimately comes down to table agreements, both as initially set out and discussed, but also as evolved organically during game play (and perhaps unspoken). Each table has its own culture, and each game and campaign might explore different aspects of that culture and/or expand it. Furthermore, even if a group is largely of one play style, the boundaries are often fuzzy. The key components are buy-in and flexibility; problems arise when any member of the group isn't willing to buy into the shared agreements and/or is inflexible about what the game naturally becomes.
One final thought. I think a lot of interpersonal problems arise when one or more people take the game either too seriously or not seriously enough. Meaning, there's an ideal middle ground, which is quite broad in that it isn't this narrow sweet-spot of perfect engagement, but doesn't fall into extremes of either not giving a crap and treating everything too lightly (e.g. "too cool for school," so let me mess it up for everyone else)--relative to the group as a whole--or taking it so seriously that their engagement in the game is basically a surrogate therapy session - working out their own psychodynamic complexes in the game session. Both tend to muddy the waters and even ruin the primary purpose of the game: shared enjoyment.
In other words, the primary purpose of any game is fun - and for everyone involved. Or at least this is the primary purpose of most role-playing games, such as D&D! Regardless of the play style and their emphasized objectives, all of which should ultimately serve individual and gorup enjoyment. D&D isn't Monopoly, which is supposed to be fun, but often ends up with one person having fun and the rest experiencing varying degrees of waning enjoyment morphing into feeling kind of bummed out by the end (and it could be argued that the original purpose of Monopoly was to illustrate and teach the dangers of capitalism).
The DM's responsibilities include creating a context that has a high probability of being fun for all, even if that doesn't always line up exactly with their creative vision, but players can help this along by being flexible and not needing the game to always reflect their own personal wish fulfillment fantasies.
