[themodelplumber]

It's not that different at all. Especially if you talk to a variety of people about what the game does for them. And not even just simulators. Most computer gameplay is easily modeled as solo role play with fancy tools.

It also makes me think about the huge variety of games that used D&D style stats, back in the day (many still do). I was reading the manual for Sea Rogue for DOS recently (treasure hunting scuba game) and mechanically it's transparently TTRPG behind the scenes for character actions.