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Originally Posted by capnzapp
Erm... the word "role" in role-playing has to me always meant playing a role, a fictitious character, acting out somebody else.
Not roles as in "tank", "damage dealer" or "healer".
While I agree your narrow and restricted definition of role is very fitting for D&D, I find it preposterous to think D&D was called a rpg because of the tactical roles you play within your party.
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These are the roles supported by the game, its rules system and other gaming materials like old style scenarios that were crafted to support playing the roles provided by the rules. That the players moved out of this and used the game to play something else, that they moved the game from role playing into character playing, tells us a lot about the players but little about the DD game and its rules set.
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It was called an rpg because you could use the game to act out roles such as Conan or Gandalf.
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But Conan was played because he was a fighter, and Gandalf was played because he was a wizard. The choice of fiction characters that inspired players was based to a great extent on their functional roles. After all, characters like Conan or even Gandalf are not that deep in psychological terms. What do you think people think about when they think about Conan? About his emotions and personality? Or about his fitness and fighting skills?
Yes, players and game designers would at later stages work on deeper gaming, and would try to come out with mechanics that were less directed at social roles and more concerned with the psychology of the character. But that does not change the basic fact that the origin of our hobby comes from roles defined as social roles, if not professional roles.