Hello and welcome to the RPG section of the monthly highlight thread. This month, we'd like to highlight one of the more popular RP's currently ongoing, Night at the Castle.
An interesting vampire-themed RPG involving cowboys, succubi, beast warriors, samurai, priests, seamstresses and boxers- and that's only the player characters. Night at the Castle has been a fun romp filled with twists and turns and some hilarious character interaction.
First, we'd like to share with you what the thread creator, Kuma_From_Argentina, has to say about this story.
I started the thread with the idea of making a standalone adventure to include the new players in the forum. Yet this idea quickly turned into the start of a storyline I was developing at the time, which will include several threads. I picked the Vampire theme for very simple reason, I was really excited for the New Jojo season about to start and decided to use it as inspiration (I ended up using Dio Brando as the look for the Vampire King, but only that) So I put the information in an OOC Thread (Out Of Character) to see if it generated interest. 4 players asked to join, Samjaz, Fehafare, Vapovile and Lobos del Rayo, all of them with at least one character on the story.
After knowing who was going to participate I carefully estimated the threat level of the enemies I could place against them, I established an average of their power levels and crafted the adversaries for them. Not weak enough to be defeated easily but neither too powerful for them. Obviously I made some more powerful than them but with some sort of weakness to be exploited as in any game, the bosses have a pattern or a weak spot and clues were given for it. I consider that foreshadowing said weak spots is an important part of the job of a thread maker, so I keep putting clues, some hidden some more in plain sight for them to discover. Now they are currently on the final third of the thread, with three really hard boss battles against 3 very different villains before reaching to the conclusion.
There was an underlying mystery around the thread that some players caught earlier (thanks to knowing my writing style) while other took more time to find out the dangerous truth about the story. As I said this thread will kick start a series of threads that are part of a larger story, but in itself it can be a standalone, I try that all my threads are, to include the largest amount of players possible. Currently I’m also writing another thread “Osaka Ablaze” That is the sequel to a previous thread called “Oh Son Where Art Thou” both centric on the capture of one my characters and currently the attempts to rescue him.
If I could make this thread from scratch I would only modify a couple of small details and improve the pacing, but I’m pretty confident this one is one of my best works, or at least one of the threads with tighter narrative I have ever made. Not everything went as I planned originally, but I consider that threads should be allowed to evolve organically and not being a railroading mess, meaning the thread maker should establish the stage, but the players should decide how to play out the events, the thread maker should also do it as a player and adapt to the situations that appear instead of forcing his ideas over others.
Kuma's an experienced RPer that's been around the site for a few years now. He's a skilled storyteller that knows how to control the flow of information to the players, dropping hints and clues before the big reveals that change the very premise of the story, as well as tying individual story threads like this into one overarching epic that the rest of us can't wait to see play out.
Lobos_Del_Rayo, another one of our players, was also asked about his feelings towards the RP. To quote Lobos:
I originally joined A Night at a Castle because Kuma created it and he is easily one of the best "dungeons masters" on the Vice. His NPCs are creative and perfect for the varying players and his characters always bring some extra into the story. My character, Crow Cementerio a bounty hunter from the US, joined in the Vampire slaying because he is tracking Gen Shishioh (Kuma's Character) after the events in Japan (Oh Son Where Art Thou? and Osaka Ablaze). I also introduced another Bounty Hunter who quickly earned the title Uber Priest; the character is a Priest/Bounty Hunter from the European Branch of the same organization that Crow works for his named is Jericho Strife and he uses the power of God to enhance his strikes. So far Kuma has not let the players down with the enemies, one of my favorite moments is when Crow and Haruko (Vapovile's Character) to create a electrified spider-web like net that fried some of the vampiric guards. Currently Crow, Jericho, and Haruko are facing off against one of Kuma's mini bosses a Vampiric Alchemist on the side of a cliff. I'm looking forward to the end to see where this all goes.
The RP is currently entering its final act with the players divided into two groups, assaulting the castle with the penultimate bosses before we face the enemy within its walls. We look forward to reaching the conclusion of this great game and would like to invite any who are interested to give this thread a read as we approach the climax, and perhaps even join us in another RP in the coming month of July.
We'd like to invite everyone to check out the Monthly Vice RPG awards. Check out June's awards ceremony hosted by Chronowolf!
Credits:
The original character designs seen in the title card are made by Rokuro
About the Authors
 | Sam "SamJaz" Turner is a British psychology and crime student who loves anime, games and RPing. Most importantly, he loves a good story, regardless of the source, and is a retired heavy duty fan fiction author. Follow him @Samjazbreaker |
 | Mario Mentasti (Kuma_from_Argentina) is an Argentinian scriptwriter and all around geek, Anime, Western Animation, movies, Live-action series, video games, and Role Playing Games. One of the veteran RP players in the forum and member of the Hall of Fame. |
 | Bryan Flynn aka Lobos_del_Rayo: Your average everyday web designing nerdy guy. Writer and Anime enthusiast also a guy with opinions on anime, video games, comics, cartoons, tv shows, and more. Anime Vice RPG Hall of Fame Member. |
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