I really like these thoughts about how the combat of D&D contextualized the non-combat roleplaying!
Perhaps this is another way of saying the same thing, but I like Salen and Zimmmerman’s definition of play as “free movement between rigid constraints” (or something like that, from memory).
I think that’s a useful lens for thinking about this! Where does the “free movement” of roleplaying sit in relation to the rigid constraints of the (many layers of) rules in a game like D&D? (Or Apocalypse World?) And how does it change the flavor of the play experience if that play is miles away from the constraints in a vast open space, or pressing hard against them?