Quote Originally Posted by shopkins View Post
What you say about different mindsets is interesting. When I was playing Shenmue one of the things that annoyed me was that, despite how much freedom I allegedly had with Ryo, I could not make that sucker stay out past his bedtime unless it was plot ordained. His aunt worried so he went home. That conflict between what I wanted to do and what Ryo wanted to do completely broke the illusion that I was the player character for me. Instead I'm just kind of shuffling him around for a while. Like you say, a lot of JRPGs are like that, and for me they make you feel more like you're watching a character than controlling a character. I think that's a strike against them being accurately called role playing games because the role plays out the same regardless of your input.
The phrase "role playing" doesn't necessarily imply a lack of constrictions, to me. Renaissance Faire geeks role play as people from the time period, and doing so involves "staying in character" which means you can only do certain things. Model UN is role playing (at least the program director described it as such to me when I was in 8th grade), but you don't act how you feel like, you have to stay true to the role of a UN representative from a particular country. Hell, being an actor is role playing, and while your delivery may vary, you usually have to stick to the script.

I like the term Interactive Adventure Novel, because they do have structures similar to novels. Maybe Interactive Tactical Adventure Novel.
An "interactive adventure novel" would be an adventure novel (as in the adventure genre of fiction, e.g. Robert Louis Stevenson) with branching choices in an interactive hypertext form. Such things already exist, and were something of an internet fad in the late 90s.