Celebrim
Legend
We're probably not using the term in the same way.
As with most semantic arguments, probably not, though I have just tried to explain exactly how I understand the term. I believe the formal definition of the term involves giving players a guarantee that they will have both agency and be central to the story that they create.
Protagonism, as I use the term, refers to a specific form of meta-gaming where the GM treats PCs differently in-game because they're PCs. If you're playing as The Chosen One, and you get involved in crazy shenanigans because everyone knows you're The Chosen One, then that's one thing. If you're playing as Just Some Guy, and you get involved in crazy shenanigans because you coincidentally look exactly like The Chosen One with a slightly different haircut, then that's protagonism. If you make it to the end of the dungeon, and it turns out the Darth Vader knock-off who was trying to take over the world was secretly your brother, then that's protagonism.
Well, to begin with, I don't think that's remotely close to the idea behind the RPG jargon "protogonism", so you should be cautious that when you use the term that way, most people aren't going to understand you. As I said, "protagonism" means that the player's characters are central to and not merely observers in their own story. With that generally comes agency, which is the ability to make meaningful choices and not merely be swept along to enjoy the ride on the train tracks. The opposite, to deprotagonize the PC's, usually means to fill the game with what are sometimes call "DM PC's" - NPCs that have the role of protagonist in the story and who make all the meaningful choices and are central to the story. So when you describe a situation like "you get involved in crazy shenanigans because you coincidentally look exactly like The Chosen One with a slightly different haircut, then that's protagonism", it's only protagonism in the sense that the if The Chosen One was an NPC and the major story was really about that NPC and the choices they made, then that wouldn't be protagonism.
Secondly, in virtually every game that I've ever been involved in, adventures spring up about the PCs as thickly as if they were Ta'veren in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time". When my friends and I first read those books, we joked about, "Someone has finally given a name in universe to the quality of being a Player Character." D&D has always, both in its rules and its suggested procedures of play, treated the PCs differently in game than NPCs at least to some extent. Notably, as I indicated, it makes the PCs exceptional in ability (and in 1e AD&D, more so even than later editions) and likewise suggest procedures of play around the PCs where danger is so common, that no NPC would survive the world the PCs live in were they to be subjected to the same random dangers. This has the simple reason that one of the worst crimes a DM can commit in my opinion, worse than favoritism, worse than railroading, worse than fudging the dice, worse perhaps even than having villains they break the rules to keep alive, is having nothing happen. Boredom is the worst thing that can happen in the game, and just about the worst attitude a DM can possibly have is that the players deserve to be bored. Anything worse than that, is likely to be repulsive anti-social behavior not specific to an RPG.
As for the sort of "mess with me" behavior you are describing, that's a very different issue than protagonism (or at least tangential to it) and it's much more of a subjective preference than a general sin. It's like 'Adventure Path' versus 'Sandbox': there is no right or wrong answer, just things that are right or wrong for a group, or which are artfully or unartfully done. When a player creates a backstory for my game, it's usually obvious when they are leaving hooks for me to bite in their backstory - mysterious parentage, strange prophesies, a villainous foil or rival, glimpses of some secret held by those close to them, encounters with deities or other strange powers, an abusive childhood, or what not. Generally speaking a player signals to me from their backstory how much they want me to "mess with them". But when they do this, particularly if they leave things very open ended, I tend to ask them, "I see there are things in your backstory you've left unspecified. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you want me to mess with you?" And if they flippantly answer, "10", I say, "Are you sure? Are you really sure you want a 10? Because a 10 indicates that you want to have a moment where you are likely to be forced to make as a character a difficult madness check, owing to the fact that the world you believe exists is not the one you're going to discover you are living in." "The villain is actually my brother" is more of a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 - I'd hardly feel I need to ask permission for that sort of thing. It should be taken as normal. "You look exactly like The Chosen One of prophesy." is more of a 5 - there are probably more players than not who'd be excited to discover they were actually The Chosen One and be given an opportunity to play that. And if they are OK with that, or whatever level they say they are actually OK with, is where I put a limit on how much what they don't know about their character can change how they view their own character.
I should also say that if a player creates as his backstory that he's the prophesied Chosen One, I'll almost certainly not approve the character in the game. But if the player leaves it open ended for me to fill in who he might be, then I'm much more likely to say, "You know, it actually might make a cool story if this character is a Chosen One of some sort.", and work that into the game. There are a couple of good reasons for that, but one of them is that the person leaving it open ended is probably much less of a spot light hog and isn't going to demand the other players treat his PC as the chosen one.
UPDATE: As a term, "Backstory abuse"? Referring to cases where the DM without the consent of the player alters the character of the PC the player is playing is based on filling in for the player an unwanted backstory, or adding unwanted backstory complications to force the player to into the story the DM wants, rather than what the player wants. That is not "protagonism" as the term is usually used, although I can see it could be a crime in cases.
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