What is a CRPG?
By Edward Willis (http://encw.xyz and gopher://encw.xyz)
Published Oct/2/2023

Though it may be a fool's errand to claim to know the answer to a question
debated over by so many, I'm going to attempt to answer it anyway:

What is a CRPG?

Well, to start with an RPG is a roleplaying game played with pen and paper.
It's generally played around a table with friends. Think D&D, GURPS, etc.
That's also why this form of RPG is often called TTRPG (Table Top RPG), or PnP
RPG (pen and paper RPG) to distinguish it from CRPG (computerized RPG).

These games are an attempt to formalize cooperative imaginative play. They allow
the players to engage in a shared fantasy, usually of performing heroics in
another world, and as different people. Yes, this is an incredibly geeky
past-time.

In these games one player usually, per the rules, is designated the DM (Dungeon
Master), who comes up with the stories, locations, non-player characters, and
anything else not spefically pertaining to the characters of the other players.

Now, even though they all, including the dungeon master, are in a sense playing
the game, the designation "player" does not usually cover the DM. From here on
the word "player" describes those NOT acting as DM.

The players create their characters, giving them a personality, history, and
using the game's creation system to generate their character's statistics and
abilities. All this is written down on paper, usually on photocopied paper forms
designed with places to write down all of the different data the game system
requires. These sheets of paper are called character sheets. Characters are what
the players will play as during the game. Players put themselves into the minds
of their characters and roleplay as them.

The DM controls the game, and player interaction with the fantasy world happens
through the DM. The DM describes current circumstances to the players, like
where their characters are, and what they see, and the players tell the DM what
actions they wish to take. The DM tells them the outcome of those actions, and
the game proceeds in this loop between DM and players. The DM roleplays all of
the non-player characters in the world.

Combat is often an important component of RPGs. The players have their character
sheets to draw statistical details related to combat from, and the DM has books
full of enemy statistics from which to draw in order to build a combat encounter
for the players. Combat in these games is turn based. Each character, player
controlled or otherwise, takes a turn acting during the combat. Once all
characters have taken their turns, they all take turns again in the same order,
and this goes on until combat is completed.

Alright, so having gotten that out of the way, what is a CRPG, in the Western
sense? CRPGs are video games that attempt to duplicate the experience of playing
RPGs as a player. That means creating your own character, and guiding him/her
through the world and its story.

I believe that CRPGs can be divided into three main categories, and they are as
follows, in decreasing order of purity:

1. Turn-Based CRPG
2. RTwP CRPG
3. ARPG

CRPGs in which combat is taken in discrete turns are categorized by that feature
as turn based CRPGs. With these games, physical skill, that is to say one's
ability to press buttons quickly, react, maneuver, or otherwise affect combat
directly through more action-oriented gameplay is eliminated. Just like pen and
paper, the outcome of a given decision is up to the character's statistics (and
perhaps chance, if there is a random component). As such these games do the best
job of replicating the experience of playing an RPG.

The RTwP is "Real Time with Pause". Think games like Baldur's Gate, where the
player can pause the game and give orders within otherwise real time combat.
These games add in elements of physical skill. RTwP games play out in
real time, and as is the case in any real time game, a significant amount of
player skill can be brought to bear to overwhelm the statistical advantage of
the enemy characters. I've seen a player finish Baldur's Gate, with a solo
wizard, without ever leveling it up, and in under three hours. Such videos can
be found uncut on YouTube. These games are not true, or at least not pure, RPGs.
They often feature parties  rather than single characters, and the pause feature
is used as a crutch to help the player effectively control their collection of
complex units effectively against the AI. Movement and combat are borrowed from
the real time strategy grenre. You tell units where to move, and they pathfind
their way there. If you tell them to attack, they will auto-attack the enemy
until it dies. As your character auto-attacks you sprinkle in your character's
special abilities as needed.

ARPGs (Action RPGs) go even further away from tabletop gaming, adding even more
action elements, and speeding up combat, making the game highly dependent on the
player's physical skills with the game, rather than their knowledge of the
system and tactics. Story is often, but not always, de-emphasized in favor of
the combat experience. Think Diablo. In these games you control just one
character, and control their movement directly, without pathfinding. Characters
attack once when you click on an enemy. Even though the character is controlled
directly, with physical skill, the outcome of BOTH whether the player character
hits, and how much damage they do, is controlled by the game's statistical
model.

Games that are often thought of, but are not in fact, CRPGs:

JRPGs. These games do not count as CRPGs in the Western sense. The character a
player plays as is almost always predefined, with its own pre-existing
motivations and personality. Choices related to the personality, morality, or
motivation of the character, and often times any narrative choice at all, is
therefore absent. It isn't your character, it is the developer's character, and
you aren't roleplaying as the character any more than you are roleplaying the
character you play as in a first-person shooter.

Skyrim. Skyrim is not a CRPG, it is an action-adventure game with CRPG elements.
Yes, the weapons have damage stats, and the player has skills that can add more
damage, but the act of hitting itself is entirely down to the player's aim.
Whether the player himself is hit is down to their ability to dodge, weave, and
put up their shield. Lock picking in Skyrim, though it is made easier by
character ability is based on the player's own skill with the mechanic, which is
intentionally made to be as physical as possible.

Breath of the Wild is likewise an action adventure for much the same reasons.

There are of course plenty of other games often mistaken as being some sort of
CRPG, but which are infact not.

Changing terms: In the past, games now called ARPGs were called Hack'n Slash
games. Action RPG refered to CRPGs that focused more, or entirely, on combat,
and had little in the way of characterization or story. Those games now tend to
be called tactical CRPGs instead.

Note: To many computer first, or only, RPG players, the term Roleplaying
Game, refers to the genre of computer games rather than table top games. Whilst 
this usage is incorrect, it is so pervasive that it is hard even when trying to
use the terms properly to keep them distinct. In casual conversation, with
context, it's perfectly understandable, but in other cases it is best to use
RPG to refer to table top, and CRPG to refer to computer games.