Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
My experience over 40 years of playing RPGs, and playing with somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50-60 people in that time, is that around a third of the people who play are just there for the beer and pretzels socializing. Many don't own and haven't read the rules. Some are passive, and don't initiate a whole lot beyond doing the standard things their character does, and maybe cracking a few jokes. They barely have the bandwidth to know and run their PC, let alone world-build or engage in a deliberate collaboration to craft a narrative. This doesn't make them bad people to have at the table. They're my friends, and they're enjoying themselves and having fun. A whole table of people who need to be guided and prompted all the time would be a drag. But usually there are a couple players who are dynamic and help steer the ship.
I don't really understand the desire to impart playing a tabletop game with high ideals like 'social equity.' We're friends sitting around a table having a laugh. Achieving some ideal of equity and participation playing D&D seems as pointless as it would be achieving equity going mountain-biking, having a BBQ, or playing poker. Any group of people varies - often dramatically - in how engaged and invested they are in any given activity. I don't see why we should expect RPGs to be any different.
I do not think social equity is some high ideal. I think a shared purpose and striving for relatively equitable social relationships is important for any healthy social activity. I will not deeply engage and put energy into something if the people I am playing with aren't going to vibe off it and put in the same effort. If the game is casual let it be casual, but let's just chill together. If we're going to dive deep let's do that too. At the end of the day I just do not see this as different from the expectations from a serious poker game compared to a friendly game.
I have a fair number of friends. Including a significant amount that play board games and roleplaying games. Just because we're friends does not mean we need to do everything together. I have OSR buddies that are not a good fit for my character driven games. One of my friends who hates more gamist OSR play. I play Diplomacy with a group of people that can get pretty cut throat. It's not a great idea to involve more casual players. I have some friends that I would never play more competitive video games with. It's fine. We do other stuff together.
It's cool to have a more chill game if that's what your doing, but that makes deep engagement less rewarding and like socially feasible. When everyone is trying to have their own fun we do not really get to have fun together.