Adventure verses Role Play

What do you want in your game?
Reading Five Ancient Kingdom author Jonathan Becker's comments about his creation being an "adventure game" not a role-playing game has me thinking about the difference. The hobby generally refers to role-playing games or RPGs when describing the games we play. Many games start with a description of "What is role-playing?" or some similar topic. Less common is a description of what is "Adventure Gaming"? Herein I offer my (somewhat random) thoughts.
Adventure gaming as distinct from role-playing seems to be a game about adventure, exploring the unknown, getting into conflicts, acquiring treasure and knowledge usually in a fantastic setting all while using one's imagination to visualize the action. The way this is done is with a referee who describes the setting and players who describe what they would like their avatars to do. Dice are rolled to determine the outcome of actions when failure or success can significantly change things. In many ways the adventure game is similar to other tabletop games with the exception that most of the action takes place in the players' minds rather than on a board laid out on the table.
So how is this adventure game distinct from a role-playing game. I think it is in the attitude of the players to their "playing piece" or character. Role-playing outside the game/hobby setting means putting oneself into the role of another person and acting out a situation the way you think that imagined person might do so. In this way, role-playing has much in common with unscripted acting. Many players approach the game from such a perspective. The "character" is fleshed out in their mind to have a distinct personality, beliefs, goals, weaknesses and strengths separate from the player. It makes sense to call play in this manner taking on a role or role-playing.
Many game systems in the hobby can be played while not engaging in such character acting or role-playing. The player may treat the "character" as nothing more than a group of numbers on paper that gives them a "playing piece" or pawn in the game. In such a game little thought is given to the character as a person with a life and personality. The character exists only to do the player's bidding in the game setting (which is really true regardless of how the game is played). Some in the hobby may refer to this style of play as roll-playing referring to the fact that rolling the dice may play a larger role in the game than acting "in-character".
Since the white box, rules have been written for our hobby with many different things in mind. Some seem to favor skill at game play, some favor a more random play where the luck of the dice outweighs any tactical decisions on the part of players. Skill at character design seems forefront in some systems in others characters are rolled for randomly. Yet other systems are specifically designed to support role-play utilizing mechanics and rewards for role-playing the character. All allow for adventure and all allow for roleplay. It is often how play develops at the table that determines where the emphasis in a particular game is placed, though admittedly some systems lend themselves more readily to certain styles of play. Regardless of the rules used, play probably proceeds best when everyone at the table wants the same type of game experience. Helping set expectations might be the real worth of a label such as "role-play" or "adventure game".