I agree, this reads like a reporter interviewing someone to get them to define terms they made up. This didn't sell me on why I should want to use one style of play over another, just wistful "torturing" themself wondering if anyone still uses this mysterious style of play. It's not mysterious. As you said, it's just Play to Find Out.

I think it would be more useful to show the strengths and weaknesses of PtFO and as well as more scripted gameplay, because each has a place in RPGs, and knowing when to use one over another is a great skill for GMs to practice.

If it reads like a recipe blog it may be for SEO reasons

Which terms? Defining “high-trust trad” is the whole point of the article, so that one should be covered.

I kind of agree. I feel like it's an evolution of the medium stemming from more new DM advice being a big focus and set pieces, which I think are awesome and can lead to fun memorable stories. These high trust adventure design he mentions I do like as well, but I have to admit that they can be intimidating. It's generally how I've seen Chronicles of Darkness adventures written, and they're kind of intimidating, especially when I was a new GM, because they rely on more improvisation and storytelling ability than a new GM might have accumulated.

Modern adventures, which describe more paths and possible consequences, branches, and options explicitly, I think give more support to newbies. While it's true we didn't have that scaffolding decades ago, I don't think making games more approachable is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's great, our hobby has never been more popular.

On the other hand, I'm probably going to write my next adventure in a more HTT style now that I have all these ideas rolling around in my head lol. I actually liked this article and the way the terminology made me think deeper about some things.

I had similar thoughts. The term “high trust” Is misleading here although I understand why he chose it.