(Note - This is an unfinished post I just want out the door.)
Sonny was dysregulated yesterday, so I cheered him up with some funny cartoons I found on the webs. This was one of them:
As simple as this is, it has great insights for RPG design.
You could take every genre, boil it down to what has been added (or subtracted) to make it emulate that feeling. Also, gives the lie to the idea of generic RPGs that can do anything, unless modable.
Sources
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/vqmxdn/game_developers_be_like/