Check out the Deck of Many Things. An item that is in the DnD rule books since the start and includes cards that award XP in the 10’s of thousands.
You can check the sources provided in wikipedia 
So a niché boost in one rpg = the whole rpg genre is ok with boosts?
Buying levels in WoW is one the many non rpg aspects which build up to make modern WoW not a RPG game
DnD pretty much defined RPGs. That’s afaik the origin of the whole genre.
Everything in DND is RPG material
That’s your opinion which you’re perfectly entitled to have.
Still doesn’t alter the fact that having a character boost does not change the game in any way, the quests, combat mechanics, the world etc. are not changed one little bit by it.
The term RPG os so loose that it can be applied to just about any sctivity that involves someone taking on a role that they perhaps wouldn’t play.
For example, a business sales course and the instructor says ‘Lets play a little role playing game where you act as a disgruntles customer and you, (points at someone else) are the salesman that sold the item’.
There you go, nothing to do with Fantasy settings or online or even a game as such, but still roleplaying.
If you want to confine yourself to that sort of rigid thinking then go ahead, but don’t expect anyone else to follow you.
I’d question whether WoW is still considered an MMO.
The game is so far removed from what it was - does it still define as one, and what if anything, does a modern MMO define as?
That item was so scary, because it could equally backfire, and I see your point, but the fact stands, you couldn’t -buy- one with OOC cash, you found one if you were (un)lucky enough, and it turned up in your parties questing…
Blimey, Deck of Many Things, that takes me back…
It was really useful as DM’s tool to either bring a new char up the level (someone new joining the RP for example) whilst keeping it as a RP thing or for punishing someone that pissed the DM off (by not sharing their bag of Doritos for example). the -50k XP one was good for that.
As a DM you could make the ‘random’ card roll a hidden one and award whatever card you wanted.
The term has been watered down for a long time.
If WoW is an RPG, then Overwatch is, too. (Because you can choose to play different characters. And that is what is often used to defend the weak ground for calling something an RPG. … Then look at the Witcher 3. You cannot choose which character to play with, yet it seems much more RPG than WoW.)
A description for WoW I heard years ago that seems to sum it up quite well:
theme park MMO
In part because every damn game these days offers character choices and customization but many are not called RPGs.
Doom was an RPG then. 
You played a space marine and you even saw his emotional reactions to the actions he performed. And you could decide which weapons to use for playing the game; had a lot of flexibility there.
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But, But what sort of DM would ever be so biased as to give a bonus over snack foods, I would never, I never, in all my decades of DM’ing would do such a thing! Unless as I say, it was Roast beef Monster Munch, then frankly, your level one Mage could one shot a Tarrasque. With their fists…
What do you mean lol, skipping the whole leveling process entails an increase in bad players, a less occupied world, etc. It’s impact on the game is big, and again you using the rpg loosely doesnt mean that you can call something a RPG and it being a RPG.
Still a niché boost =/= ok boosts are RPG.
That’s a pretty elitist and self opinionated attitude you have there.
What source of information do you have that having level boosts increase the number of ‘bad players’ ? Do you have access to Blizzards data that you can use to back up this statement ?
And how do you define a ‘bad player’ ?
Like I said it’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it but please stop trying to ram it down out throats by constantly stating the same opinion over and over, and over, it’s getting boring.
However, I would like to ask who appointed you the arbiter as to what is and isn’t a RPG ?
What is playing at the end? It’s about helping us to imagine, that we do, what we can’t do in real world. Only difference between genres - what activity do they help us to imagine. So, we should ask one simple question. What are RPGs about? RPGs are about living in fantasy world.
When game focuses on gameplay and game design too much, it becomes arcade. That’s it. RPG should focus on immersion. We play it to dive into fantasy world and feel, like we live inside it. And in order to do it, we need to have some details, that don’t have any gameplay or game design meaning. Such as talent trees or player houses for example.
Having good story and quests isn’t enough. It’s just about “imagining fantasy world in your head” only. We don’t need game to “imagine fantasy world in our heads”. Game should have tools to stimulate our RP activity. Like racing game has cars and tracks to help us imagine, that we race.
And Blizzard have been cutting all RP elements from this game, because “they aren’t interesting for gameplay” or “bad from game design point of view”. They just don’t understand, that talent trees aren’t about so called “meaningful choices”. They’re about picking our route of improvement, like we do in real world. We don’t have time to be great sportsmen and sciecentists at the same time. So, when we make our next step, we need to make choice, where to proceed.
I guess that it still is a RPG but it certainly doesn’t feel like one. More like a dungeon crawler like Diablo with several RNG layers on loot and absurd powercreep. And they somehow try to make an e-sport out of PvE for whatever reason.
I personally don’t feel, that current development team has 15 years of game design experience. Because their vision of how this game should be designed, is way too narrowed. Yeah, may be character power and challenge are one of the major reasons, why players play this game, but definitely not the only ones. Easy content is boring? The biggest misconception, I’ve ever seen. People do old content exactly because it’s less stressful way to get fun.
I don’t know, how to explain it better, but challenge and competition - aren’t reasons, why I play this game. Instead, this two put stress on me and cause negative emotions only. Call it, how you like, but I just don’t like to lose. That’s it. I’m pacifist. I like quiet and peaceful ways of playing this game.
In terms of gameplay it’s not an rpg anymore and that’s because of gear scaling. It’s counter intuitive to what an rpg is which is usually power progression through gear, stats and skills. In wow right now we’re never allowed to feel powerful and good about our characters. Sure in the storyline we’re the most powerful beings on Azeroth but in terms of gameplay it doesn’t reflect that at all. Just go do a single av and see how the gy guards put up a harder fight then the actual horde players it’s silly.
Yeah, this is also major problem for me. In arcade game enemies always have the same difficulty, so game always stays equally challenging. And this “easy game is boring” misconception forces Blizzard to try to keep their game always challenging, effectively turning it into arcade. But they forget, that major thing, we get fun from in RPG games - is growth of our power vs enemies. We get fun, when we just stomp them. Yeah, it still exists in endgame. But it’s gated behind very long term grinds. For example I started to get fun in Nazjatar only with current 8.3 gear. So it’s very long suffering vs very short period of fun. This isn’t game, I personally want to play.
For me 6.2 was just perfect. I had exactly enough amount of content, casual player needs, and also the best progression curve. A little bit difficult content in undergear, perfect difficulty in average gear, easy in BIS. That’s it. That’s, how I want to play this game.
How is that an elitist and self opinionated attitude LOL?
You have far less time to play the class you boosted and most players dont care to learn the class they play. Skip the whole leveling process and you have all these spells (not in BfA lol) and the average player use them without any idea what they do.
For someone who apparently can identify my statements as opinionated and biased, you seem to not be able to see how you yourself make statements
But then again, I dont gain anything by arguing with you who is so stuck in your own opinion and so close minded that we wont get anywhere with this
I’ve heard this story that scaling negates your character progression, it’s not something I’m experiencing however. Although the mobs are scaled I’m still getting more powerful than them as I level up and get better gear.
As to not feeling powerful, I’m perfectly capable of doing quests that are suggested for 3 players in BFA without any help whatsoever.
This idea that scaling eliminated progression is a myth.