During the challenging days of 2020, when the covid19 pandemic struck humanity and strict lockdown rules were enforced by many governments around the globe, I was trying to think of a way to keep the necessary social distancing, but still enjoy the things I love with my friends.
Since the early 90s, I loved playing role-playing games, both CRPGs (mostly single-player) and pen&paper RPGs, and this is a habit that never got old. During my entire life I was playing (at first) and GMing (since fairly early) several different roleplaying systems and worlds, ranging from heroic fantasy AD&D (the first game I ever played) to cosmic horror Call of Cthulhu, and every shade in between. So trying to play a pen&paper RPG using some of the online platforms, as I did in the past when I had moved far away from my gaming group, was a natural choice, under the circumstances. Unfortunately, it seems like playing RPG using Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds does have significant drawbacks, the most important one being the distractions you have sitting in front of a computer instead of gathering with friends around a table. Don't get me wrong, I am still using Fantasy Grounds to roleplay, mostly with friends from the university, that live in different parts of the world. But this wasn't the answer I was looking for.
So I turned to computer role-playing games and tried to think of a way to blend playing CRPGs with socializing. MMOs would be a solution, but scheduling frequent MMO sessions with friends is not as easy as it once was. Now everyone has a job, a wife, kids, etc. But what if we played a single-player CRPG at roughly the same time, and then convene virtually to discuss it? That sounded right! Before presenting this idea I wanted to flesh it out a bit. How would we choose the games to play? What kind of games are eligible? Do we need to finish a game or just play it for a while? Why call this "CRPG Challenge"?
THE PROCESS
After some thinking, I came up with the following process:
Step 1. Each participant creates a shortlist of games he thinks we should play. There is no restriction as to what kind of game we can play, but it must be available on PC (not all of us have consoles).
Step 2. We have a meeting and go over these shortlists to decide the final game list, containing 12 games. We try to include several different genres and several different themes. Also, we set an order for the games on the list.
Step 3. Everyone plays the games on the list in the exact order, so we can discuss between us, give hints and suggestions, and in general socialize.
Step 4. We try to finish every game on the list within one year.
Step 5. At the end of the year: GOTO Step 1
I presented the idea to several of my friends, and I got mixed responses. Some of them found this whole idea too restricting, and more of a chore than actually enjoying playing CRPGs. But three of them got excited with the idea, and the moment I presented it to them, they started creating shortlists in their heads. So including myself, we had a group of four. The ideal group for a role-playing game, as we all know!
We all had 2 days to create our shortlists, and after some initial discussions, we had a fairly long meeting going over every game on every list. My shortlist was the biggest of all, having 189 games in it! After lengthy negotiations, and several backs and forths, we managed to narrow it down to a list of 51 games. And then things became tough. We decided that each of us will rank the 51 games, and we will use the average ranking as a guiding tool for the creation of the final list. But everyone had a different order in his mind. And everyone had one or two games that he absolutely wanted to play. We tried the "3 out of 4 average" (discarding the lowest ranking for each game before taking the average), the "all four of us have this in our top 15", and at some points, I thought to try the "I had the idea so I should decide" approach. In the end, we used a combination of all the above and finalized the list. And the filler games list. And the epic games list. Yes, we ended up with three lists instead of one.
THE RULES
In order to bring some order to this chaos, we set some rules that could make our lives easier (or harder, depending on the point of view).
1. We will play every game on the master list in the exact order.
2. We don't have to finish every game, but we must at least make a decent effort to play it. So each one of us must devote at least 10 hours to every game, and if after these hours someone is not having fun, he can skip it and continue with the next game on the list.
3. No walkthroughs and cheats. The only hints we can use, are hints that we give each other while playing the games.
4. At any point we can play any game from the filler games list. This list contains shorter games in duration, that could provide a fine distraction when we are stuck somewhere.
5. We can always start a game from the epic games list, and play it in parallel with the games from the master list. This list contains longer games, that are more epic in scale, and would probably take forever to finish (more than 150 hours).
6. If the game is commercially available, we need to buy it. I am a huge advocate of rewarding game developers for their hard work. But if we decide to play an older game that we can't find anywhere, it's OK to download it from some abandonware site.
7. The challenge will be a success if all of us manage to finish every game on the master list.
And so it begins!
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