I believe Mario is an IP that works wonderfully well as an RPG. Think of its elements, of its narrative, of its worldbuilding itself. My and, I believe, many other DMs have, almost inevitably, added one or more elements from Mario games into their campaigns. "Money being meaningful to gameplay", one of the, now most common-sense ideas in game design, displays this thesis simply by the fact that in most Mario games, it isn't. Is it that big of a deal, considering that the series has always been, paradoxically, the safest trailblazer ever created by the videogame industry? Gay or not, you can't deny how refreshingly quaint it feels to have this colorful cast in this familiar-yet-novel adventure.