Quote Originally Posted by D+1 View Post
Early on it was not really thought of as a roleplaying game at all. It was a dungeon exploration game which differed from other wargames that it was derived from by focusing on one or two individual persona for each player rather than large military units. It wasn't until AD&D (1E) was published that actual roleplaying was being emphasized at all, but it was still heavily an "action" game with individual characters rather than military groups, and lots of reference to the presence of large military groups within the game can still be seen.
Eh.... I don't think that I'd agree with that.

Yes, it switched from being primarily a dungeon exploration game to being one more about "stories", but I really don't think that makes one or the other more or less a "roleplaying" game.

The essence of roleplaying, to me, is:

"You're in this situation, what do you do?"
"I do this!"

What the situation is specifically is fairly irrelevant.

What is true is that the game became less specialized over time, or at least specialized in different areas.