I agree. RPG's were born out of wargames, creating their own genre, out of whole cloth.
The St. Paul group's Braunstein game was an extension of Diplomacy, being the first RPG (assuming Diplomacy is not considered an RPG), but Braunstein was never published. Braunstein was an imagi-nation game, designed to create organic, semi-historic tabletop wargame battles from its RPG-like sessions. The players ran away with it, and the designer thought it a total failure, initially. His players convinced him otherwise, that it was a smashing success. This led to Arneson's Blackmoor game, which led to Gygax creating D&D from Arneson's Blackmoor notes and concepts.
When you study the history of D&D, it becomes apparent how it grew out of tabletop wargames, with Arneson's Blackmoor proto-RPG, and Gygax's "fantasy supplement," in the back of the historical rules booklet, Chainmail.
By grouping RPG's in with wargames, it serves as a reminder of where they come from, and how they came into being. It means little to non-RPG players, but I'm in both the RPG and the miniatures gaming camps -- it is a nice, and appreciated, homage to RPG's origins. Cheers!
