An Age-Old Roleplayer's Lament

Found this on a WotC page:

A famous baseball radio announcer once claimed that anyone who tuned into his show hated him and every word he said until he gave them the score. I think it’s a little like that in a way for D&D players. Each game session, players can seemingly resent every plot and subplot, they hate every NPC, until finally the sweet release of combat comes heralded in by those two wonderful words: Roll Initiative.

...This is one of the main reasons I dislike D&D.

Mind you, I'm a biug believer in the old writer's adage: start with important action. As true in RPGs as in writing. But the assumption that D&D is nothing but a combat system... that bugs me.

Of course, this comes down to the age old debate of Naritivist/Simulationist/Gamist theory. But the assumption that D&D must be Gamist all the time is what wrecks it for me.

[sigh]