It should be pretty well known by all that I consider any game where the players' characters arn not fully able to impact the environment, direct their action, determine the outcome of events in which they play a part, and know that what actions their characters are taking have a probability of success and failure that can be determined by random means, cards or dice rather then the whim of the GM, is something other than an RPG,
Authors of fiction, screen plays, and playwrights create stories. GMs direct game play and in conjunction with the players this generates a story whose outcome is not prescribed.
If people enjoy playing limited roles in an game setting in which there are "untouchables," where they must be marionettes for the GM to move about, well and good. It is just not full RPG activity, and often is little more than amateur theatrics, play acting in a minor and surely inferior story line built as an adjunct to the original authored fiction and relatively meaningless to that work. Still, if it's entertaining to the participants, it is fulfilling its purpose, but it ain't RPGing.
This is a dead horse, actually, as something well over nine gamers in 10 have by their choice of game agreed with me. "Storytelling" games have made their advent, gone nowhere thereafter. What more is there to say?
But if you think that nothing the players say without the back up of dice can change what the GM had in mind for them, then it means that you must roll dice for everything. No more talking with NPCs, just roll your Diplomacy check (or Charisma check, under OAD&D) and be done with it.
