After the story pulls your heartstrings, the patron shoutouts portion of the video comes around and hits you with

And I wanna be clear I'm not trying to go "Waow if u play DnD youre basically Complicit™️" or whatever. I'm just kinda yapping to myself.

(Maybe there's another convo to be found in the thin ice that is playing in a bronze age indigenous world without either playing to an orientalizing or noble savage reflection of existing indigenous cultures or positing a prelapsarian Eurotribalism out of an SS officer's fav pulp novel, alas)

And at risk of getting too heady w it, one might read into it that there is posited a choice between traditional societal structures, shared family, culture, tradition; and existing as a relatively free agent at the cost of becoming a neoliberal subject that engages w world as client/plunder

Whereas making a party all either a member of, or otherwise embroiled in the affairs of, a community makes that world a little more than an outside force to be bargained with or fought against for the service of you and yours.

On the other hand, it also helps flatten the world around those driftless wanderers into a canvas to be acted on only, something something murder hobos.

I think the "DnD Found Family of Outcasts" lends itself both to the power fantasy of individuals seperate from their society, and a culture with a, for want of better language, healthy skepticism of filial piety.

Like literally.

Strong floor, indeed.

Willing to give Wired the benefit of the doubt since they're among the least Abjectly Gormless publications; but every time I hear "augh the MACHINE is building a DOOMSDAY THING" it always lends so much credence to it