Ah but your misinterpreting what some of these rules were for. There are rules for playing games with no towns, no NPCs, nothing but monsters and dungeons and loot. You enter a room, you roll a random encounter, you kill them, you roll random treasure, you repeat until everyone gains a level. Then you start over with higher level random encounters.
3rd edition even created pen and paper D&D rules for Diablo. It was just about killing monsters and getting treasure, just like the computer game. There was nothing else. It was reasonably popular for a time.
Now if you want to say that there is still roleplaying in a game where you do nothing but kill monsters in room after room after room, because you still have choices and play a character, then I agree with you. You still have choices, they are just very limited choices, primarily restricted to combat. Just like certain hack and slash CRPGs.....
3rd edition even created pen and paper D&D rules for Diablo. It was just about killing monsters and getting treasure, just like the computer game. There was nothing else. It was reasonably popular for a time.
Now if you want to say that there is still roleplaying in a game where you do nothing but kill monsters in room after room after room, because you still have choices and play a character, then I agree with you. You still have choices, they are just very limited choices, primarily restricted to combat. Just like certain hack and slash CRPGs.....
It doesn't matter if the dungeons and creatures are randomly generated, in fact this is a very important tool for adapting the story on the fly to accommodate roleplaying. Players choose to do what they think their character would want to do, which often results in them going into some new town, or some area that the GM (or the prefab module) did not anticipate.
And it can even be a lot of fun (and a bit challenging) to run an adventure or campaign entirely by the seat of your pants. The GM plays the part of all the NPCs and creatures in the world and those randomized lists come in very handy for adapting the story on the fly. But there is always a story.
In an improv game, and even in a preplanned adventure, the narrative unfolds organically out of the actions of the characters. The players have characters (not "Monster Basher #1"), and can choose to do anything they imagine their character would want to do. For example, a common event in some of those prefab modules from the 70s is the frightened NPC in a tavern complaining about goblins or dragons or whatever happens to be plaguing that particular town.
When your GM asks you, "what do you want to do next?" that question is overflowing with possibilities. Your next step could mean enlisting the aid of that frightened NPC, making a mortal enemy out of him, killing him, stealing from him, lying to him, blowing it off and going in a completely different direction, or choosing any of an infinite number of a possible actions, all depending on what you feel your character would choose to do.
From your post above, it sounds like you are implying that someone is playing D&D without any characters, without being able to choose what they think their character would want to do. If so, then they are definitely not role playing. You need a role and you need to be able to "play" it, by choosing what you think that character would want to do. Gary Gygax would not approve
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