The problem with a identifying a "neotrad" form of play is every simple: it's predicated on the idea of some kind of post- trad play, something that is distinct from the trad play that has gone before. But the description of "trad" play being offered is pure nonsense. It's a muddle of stereotypes of play from the 90s with little basis in fact, Edwards' criticism of a heavy-handed prederminate "story" as sometimes espoused in games like Vampire, and an assumption that GNS is coherent, universal, and applicable enough to talk about trad typlogies (I would argue none of those are true; GNS is interesting, but not coherent; broad, but not universal; and has known deficiencies which are relevant when talking about playstyles that hinge more on models of distributing fictional duties rather than the purpose, or agenda, of the fiction).
There isn't any such thing as trad, and all the things people try to claim "trad is," were inconsistently and probably uncommonly present in games from the late 1980s to the early 200s, supposedly the heydey of "trad." We certainly did play some Vampire back in the day, but if anyone was trying to map out where a chronicle was "supposed" to go, most people would have said they were trying too hard. The standard way of playing Vampire was "vampires doing what vampires do," with meandering character development, and insofar as a model "story" was presnt it certainly was about addressing a theme, not "telling a story." The refrain throughout the 90s when someone would ask, "How do I keep my players on track?" was "Go write a novel."
Insofar as "trad" means something distinct from "Story Now," it's a question of format, not game. Not even style or intention. The premise of a bunch of players stitting down and "sticking to the module" and the GM "directing" the story is 99% at the social contract level. And I still gag when I hear something called "trad" that was not ever the dominant, "traditional" model of runnning RPGs. You can try to tell me otherwise but I literally can't even track how many game systems I've played or how many groups I've played with. There was a lot of variation. That is very important to understand, every group is so different. But the few groups I was in where the GM had a plan and expected the players to stick to it were the outliers.
What the GM brought was an agenda. The extent to which they may or may not conform to "story now" or "trad" expectations varied, but the simple fact is that what a GM brought to the table was ideas, not a "plot." Typically, if anything heavy-handed occurred, it related more to the GM's sense of genre, or morality, not adherance to a three-act structure or whatever. I've known GMs who would absolutely WRECK a session simply to make a point about "correct" behavior. They would rather put Batman and Green Lantern in jail than let them act "not like superheroes" however that looked in the GM's mind.
