And that's where I am conflicted, as this limitation could be used to defend Dragon Age: Origins or even Witchers or Mass Effect - afterall, how hard the limitation need to be for the game to move from cRPG, to RPG, to a game with RPG elements. I think at some point it becomes people ways of expressing their experience with the game, rather then academic definition. To me personally, there is a difference is enough to consider Witcher3 and Mass Effects as narrative driven action games/RPG hybrids, and Dragon Age a narrative driven adventure, evoking classic Baldur's Gate RPG. Where's in PoE, as limited as it was, the first test I did is attack the caravan master, and journal entry changed to reflect the choice - and I smiled as it's been a long time since Bioware allowed me to think for myself.
The common way to denigrate a lot of modern crpgs is to say they're dressed up 'visual novels' . But like you've said Wormerine, our DM is a game, a game that was finished before we play it, that's been true of every cRPG since they started. The games that are just 'sandboxes' just have less defined parameters, making them more reactive you the player's input, but less specific with their outcome. I like playing a game with a story to tell, but I don't think either sort isn't a cRPG. Of course we've probably had this conversation before when talking about the Origin/Custom character debate.
