Most games of all genres involve role playing. RPG's as a genre have come to traditionally refer to character progression while playing through a storyline.
You can go as far back as you want, to pen and pencil games, and you'll find that to be true. If there's not character progression, then everyone is playing the same "role", and games like that, that tend to focus on obstacles rather than the characters, are generally referred to as action/adventure, or platformer, or whatever else.
Consider: if Mario 64 had let you choose stats to improve based on how many stars you collected, it would probably have been considered an RPG.
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