SHOCKING! D&D is, indeed, a role-playing game!

Captain obvious comes to the rescue!

Silliness aside, it is a (somewhat) interesting topic that resurfaces from time to time. "D&D is not a role-playing game", some say, "because you are not role-playing when you're rolling dice". Or something to that effect. Maybe I can't make the best "iron man" version of this argument, but I'll try - and you're welcome to improve the argument in the comments.

It goes more or less like this:

There are two things you do when you play RPGs:

A) playing the mechanics* (using your character sheet, dice etc.);
B) "actual" role-playing - in-character conversation, making decisions as your PC, etc. (without using you dice, token, character sheets, etc);

* Mechanics aren't limited to dice - automatic successes, fate points, jenga towers and even "the DM decides how many HPs the monster has" are mechanics. 

The argument of ten focuses on the distinctions between the two, as if they were two separate things. Something like "D&D is not an RPG because if focuses on A, not B". Maybe "true" RPGs is something like improvisational theater which requires no written rules or even arbiters.

D&D without any mechanics - "I kill the dragon with one blow".

However, the special thing about role-playing games is not "A" or "B", but the LINK between the two. This is one reason why RPGs include both "role-playing" AND "games"; RPGs must necessarily include both. This is what makes RPGs special when compared to the other hobbies discussed here.

For example, you could have a situation such as this:

> The goblin says "get out of my way".
> Player says: "I flex my muscles and tell him that in Cimmeria we eat goblins for breakfast".

No dice rolled, no looking at the sheet - BUT the player is ROLE-PLAYING a strong barbarian warrior, in a way he COULDN'T do if his sheet says "Str 8 wizard". So, the mechanics are IMPLIED even if not being used at the time.

If you have ONLY mechanics, it would make sense to say you aren't playing a RPG. A good example would be HeroQuest (the board game, not the RPG): it has a lot more in common with chess than with D&D.

Great game, BTW

You can make lots of choices in HeroQuest, but ALL these choices you make AS A PLAYER, not as character. You can't leave the dungeon to fight another day, for example, or just go look for a different dungeon to loot.

In RPGs you must make most of your decisions AS A CHARACTER. Here is one common example of this confusion, which I mentioned recently:

GM: You enter the room... there is a strange altar on the middle of it.
Player: Can I roll Arcana?
GM: No. Describe what you're trying to do instead. 

In this example, the player is obviously taking a choice from the player POV, not the character's. What we do is something like:

GM: You enter the room... there is a strange altar on the middle of it.
Player: Do I know if this altar was used for magic?
GM: Probably, there are mystic runes carved in it... (and then maybe roll arcana to identify them, etc.).

But this is not black and white. RPGs will always be a bit of an "hybrid" between "A" and "B". Sometimes, you might use the mechanics without regards for the role-playing ("I use inspiration to make a re-roll"), and sometimes you will "role-play" without any reference to the mechanics ("I ask the friendly vendor how much the cabbage costs"*).

* Notice that if you wanna haggle or lie to the vendor, mechanics might come into play. And this isn't a new-school thing - in OD&D, your charisma score (a mechanic) could determine if a witch would keep you as a lover or killed you.

And this, my friends, in why D&D is, indeed, a role-playing game.