As I mentioned in another site...
"No where ever has it that you have to create your own character to be playing an RPG. In fact the "R" in RPG stands for "Role." You can be given a character out of the choice of the "Dungeon Master" to play back in the old days. Same principles can apply to today's video games. The less choices of playing a character that is more like you, the more you're forced to take on the role of someone else, hence role playing...."
And adding to this, I can create a character just like myself in real life, a character I want to play in the realm of imagination, or it can be a character totally outside of what I'd ever want to be in real life. And even though that playing myself is technically playing a role, role playing is getting into character. So you can get into character with predetermine roles that is not of yourself. And when you are role playing, you are more dependent on the character's stats, not yours while you are also more dependent on what the character will do, not what you would do in real life. So there is nothing wrong with linear storylines in defining RPG's. In fact, there have been modules and supplements written in a linear fashion for traditional "pencil and paper" RPG's. Dude is full if it. And if you agree with him, you are either just ignorant or just full of it as well. Truth.
Hackers are poor nerds who don't wash.
