The Culture: It's Not Just Fiction That Millenials Struggle With

Friend of the Retreat Brian Niemeier wrote a post the other day about Millenials and how their elders crippled their ability to parse fiction.

Today I offer an explanation of why it's so hard to write fiction that resonates with Millennials.https://t.co/PjLb8Xw3Y1

— Brian Niemeier (@BrianNiemeier) January 15, 2024

Reading accounts of Conventional Play shows that the same problem exists in tabletop gaming.

Characters exist to be cutouts, in the Tradecraft sense, for the player. The fantasy to be engaged in is "I am the enforcer of Death Cult morality" because that is what they have been socialized to do by those entrusted to raise them (as their parents did not) and publishers have implicitly and explicitly encouraged this for most of the last 10-15 years.

This presumption pervades all of Conventional Play among Millenials; the Neckbeardia videos show it, and so does Critical Role's fanbase (and emulators).

It's another reason for why Millenials in particular bounce hard off proper RPG campaign play; that which is derived (in part) from literature they can't parse creates games that they can't parse.