Topic: Hopefully an end to the RPG debate? (but probably not)

So I was thinking about this while walking my dog this morning, as someone who considers RPGs his favorite genre of games but is tired of half the threads on this forum turning into a debate about what is considered an RPG and what isn't. When I foolishly started one myself asking what makes a Western RPG, the artist formerly known as Waltz said something along the lines that the only true RPGs are when you create the story yourself, so even most "Western RPGs" are not actually RPGs. If this is the case, then isn't it impossible to truly have a video game RPG? In a game like D&D you obviously write your own story as you go along, but no matter how many options games like Dragon Age and The Witcher give you (never played them, just using the examples frequently given for "true" RPGs), you can never truly write your own story. Every possible storyline and alternative has already been foreseen by the programmers and therefore coded into the game. If the player truly did come up with their own story, there would be no code for it and the game would crash (I assume, not being a computer expert myself). Therefore, given Waltz's stringent definition of what makes an RPG, there can be no video game RPG because the code has already been written by the programmers. Or maybe something like Petit Computer could be an RPG because you actually do write the code yourself as you go along (from what I've heard, again not having played it myself). Just my thought.

It's not the end, because you just started it up again.

EDIT: Or at least are fueling it.

@Xyphon22 You're not wrong. If paper and dice role playing is the end all concept of what it takes to create an RPG, you could never make a video game a true RPG. The best you could hope for in a video game is a choose your own adventure type experience.

If you really want to put an end to the what makes an RPG discussion, let's just call everything an adventure game and be done with it. lol

This. If you'd like to continue this discussion, the last time this argument cropped up was here iirc. Please feel free to continue this discussion there. Thank you!