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FOR PITY'S SAKE! The primary elements of RPG that distinguish it from all other languages are (1) its source format, and (2) The Cycle. You get rid of those, and why in blazes should you still call it RPG?
Take a look at the first model of telephone released by Bell. Then look at today's cell phones. They don't look anything alike, do they? But they're still called telephones.
Take a look at the cars that were originally made popular in the early 1900's, and then look at todays cars. They look nothing alike, yet are still called cars.
Or on an even more extreme comparison, take the wheel. The original chunk of log to today's aluminum-rimmed, highly engineered wheels with their rubber inflatable tires. Nothing alike, yet still called wheels.
Heck, I don't look the same as I did when I was 3. Yet I still have the same name.
Computers technology is no different.Compare today's 21" flat screen LCD monitors against the green and black, 30 pound, heavy piece of equipment we called monitors back in the 1970s. We still call them monitors, don't we?
Or the little desktop laser printer against the 4 ft cube band printer we used to use. Todays laser printers are faster and have similar duty cycles to the band printers we used in the 70s -- yet they're still called printers.
RPG is called RPG because that's what it is. It has gradually (very gradually!) evolved over the past 40 years. Todays RPG doesn't always look exactly like it did 20 years ago. That's normal -- it's the way the world works. Things evolve and change and improve.
Just because something has changed doesn't mean that you have to change it's name. (Shhhh... don't tell IBM.)
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