Potentially either, thus the question.

Edit:
To clarify, the idea could benefit anything which involves miniatures in a play area of some kind - be it for D&D with a grid, or war games using tactile rulers and talking/tactile tape measures.

When you say RPG I have to ask, do you mean RPG in the computer game style RPG sense or in the pretending to be your character sense? There can be big differences, especially in the amount of detail in combat etc. The first relies on tactics and so on to give it depth, where the second relies on the story for depth more. D&D is sort of in between the two in a way, oddly.

Ramble removed, I'll explain more simply.

There are a few different things you can get from a game -
Story, in most pen and paper RPGs the story is the main purpose of the game. You act out your character and work through it as it unfolds. Other games can have story to them, but they're usually more of a backdrop - they don't really affect what you do that much just a vague justification why you're doing it.

Social - pen and paper games tend to involve groups of perhaps 4 or 5 people ideally. Wargames tend to be one on one, and don't require a GM though you can set up campaigns and/or tournaments to involve more than 2 people.

Combat - all games will probably involve combat at some stage, but in wargames or similar games the combat is the entire purpose of the game. In pen and paper RPGs the combat is usually something that happens because of the story.

D&D seems to keep the social element while offering more combat, and less requirement for story though this will naturally depend on the GM. It has a reputation among roleplayers for being "all action all the time", and having read some of the player's handbook I can see why. It offers potential for story, but with most of the rules being combat oriented and trying to describe as many situations as it can even to the point of what happens if someone is attacked whilst climbing. In contrast most other pen and paper RPGs are more freeform and leave details like that up to the GM depending on the situation.

Mainstream computer RPGs and some muds heavily favour combat over story, while yet more muds and most pen and paper RPGs favour story over combat. If you were thinking RPG in the sense of say mainstream computer RPGs or those muds which are designed along a similar fashion it will naturally lean you away from the story focused pen and paper RPGs like World of Darkness, and to some people D&D might have too much story if you're thinking in terms of games like the mainstream Diablo.