There are two problems here two start with: 1) egregiously offensive claims of superiority, and 2) rhetorical fail.
1) Egregiously offensive claims of superiority
You don't get to decide what "fantasy" is. If you don't like a RPG, fine, say so, but you don't get to claim that it is or isn't fantasy. Similarly, you don't get to say that you (or you and your mates, as is usually the case in the OSR) are the arbiters of what is or isn't role-playing; you don't get to say you're better at it because you don't roll dice for intimidate. That's rude.
2) Rhetorical fail
The piece of text you quote (from me) above is my response to a strong claim made in the OP, that D&D 4e is only about combat because all the rules are about combat. My response was to point out to the OP, and to Paladin in Citadel, that D&D 4e has more non-combat rules than OD&D, and that by the rhetoric of the original post, OD&D is more about combat than 4e. As an example I gave stealth and social skills checks.
There is no claim intended that this makes D&D4e better, or that you can't adjudicate stealth in a system without stealth rules. It's a response to a rhetorical claim, pointing out how stupid it is. That is all.
The logic of the OP and Paladin in Citadel was:
1) a game that is only about combat is not role-playing
2) D&D4e rules are entirely about combat
3) therefore D&D4e is not role-playing
Putting aside the extreme rudeness of claiming to be able to define what role-playing (or "good" role-playing is), this rhetoric is bullshit, because it's obvious on an even cursory examination of any D&D rule system that the further back you go, the more combat focused the game gets. Hence my comment about a glorified wargame with some acting tacked on.
Now, it seems that in response to this there is an alternative claim being made, that the more non-combat rules there are, the less the game is about role-playing.
To which, I say - shifting the goalposts much? I also say - what is with this OSR obsession on setting the boundaries of role-playing for everyone else? And I also say: if you can't see how to turn a skill or stealth check into a role-playing opportunity you're not being very imaginative. And I finally say: if you make up a rule on the spot to adjudicate stealth or social checks (morale, anyone?) then you aren't running a system without rules for stealth - you're running a system with arbitrary, shit rules for stealth. Which simultaneously hoists you on your own petard, and gives you a shit stealth resolution method to boot.
Finally, I didn't say "it's not fair to tell me that just because I disagree with you, I'm wrong." I said it's rude to tell me that because I disagree with you I don't understand the game, which is exactly what Paladin said. It's a hallmark of the adolescent debating style of the OSR, incidentally. But that's another story.
Firstly: You're confusing two different things. One, my claim that 4th edition isn't fantasy, and two, my claim that relying on the game mechanics to tell you what to do in every situation isn't the same as freeform roleplaying.
On the first point, sure, I'll concede that it's not very nice of me to say that 4th edition isn't fantasy. But it certainly doesn't feel like fantasy to me. Of course, this is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, so you'll have to pardon me if I don't feel like defending my differing tastes in fantasy.
The second point, of course: I certainly can claim that relying on game mechanics to tell you what your character is doing isn't roleplaying, because it isn't. It's that easy. See how fun that was? It's really a fairly old argument, if you weren't aware, and very famous. Essentially, when the dice determine the outcome of a situation that one could have handled with "role-playing," then it's not roleplaying any more than rolling up your characters' stats is roleplaying. Hell, I'll even go so far as to admit that if you roll "Interrogate" and succeed, you can roleplay out the scene where you successfully interrogate the guy. But you'll notice that regardless, when you're roleplaying you're not rolling dice. The dice and you are on a separate level of play, if you will, and your social interactions don't need to be affected by the dice.
And this is beside the point. You're arguing that because I said that game mechanics aren't needed to tell you how to roleplay, that therefore I am the absolute judge of roleplaying. That's a very rude claim to make. I don't believe that adding more systems weight to the game to handle things that don't need mechanics enhances your experience, and I certainly don't believe that it's a shit resolution. You don't need rules for everything, and there are some things that, when they have rules, are a little bit silly. To use your example of stealth, I fail to see how asking the player where he hides and then deciding if the guardsman on patrol sees him is a shit resolution system. It's almost the exact same thing you do when you roll dice, except that it cuts out the part where there's random chances of failure and success and replaces them with actual thought.
I know it can be hard to think that other people have different opinions, and it can be hard when some of them aren't nice people, or when they're having a bad day. But see, it's for sensitive souls like yourself that I find every other sentence being "but that's ok," or "I've got nothing against GAME X but I dislike SYSTEM Y." In this case, it's "I don't like having systems for social mechanics, stealth, or anything else that can be handled without dice." It's really that simple.
In your system, for example, we'd roll opposing SOCIAL dice (or whatever), and then the highest guy would win the argument, or something. Then, sure, you could roleplay out what happened according to the results of the dice, but why bother with the results of the dice? I know you're probably going to take this out of context, but older editions of D&D didn't have systems adjucating social interactions or roleplaying or whatever because you don't need game mechanics for them, not because they're ignored entirely. You could argue that older editions had more combat focus by the comparitive number of rules, but honestly, I'm not sure that's true. I have the 4th edition books, and the entire Monster Manual, most of the Player's Guide, and an inordinate chunk of the DMG are entirely about combat, terrain, and powers. But I digress.
One more bit, then I've got to go: It's entirely fair to tell you that because you disagree with me that you don't understand the game, because what we're disagreeing on is whether or not older edition games are primarily about combat, and whether the newest edition of game is combat focused. These aren't really up for debate, as the documents are still around, and able to be inspected. As a comparison, I've read complaints on various forums about the length of combat in 4e. Does that or does that not speak to its focus, that people are unsatisfied with combat resolution because it takes up nearly the entirety of play?
As a final thought: If I've missed anything, feel free to let me know. As I've said before, I welcome your thought, but try and make them a little more mature next time. I'm tired of having adolescent arguments with people who don't understand the difference between my opinions and facts.
