Ok, so, I got this whole story, this tale of
the Scarlet Cobras all alive in my mind, but you see, there are many ways of telling a
story, and it’s not always simple to choose the right one. As I previously said,
I’m deeply fascinated by anime, mangas, comics in general and most importantly for
this issue, role-playing games. Given this background, you could suspect I just had the
great idea of creating a comic of this whole story told in RPG style, but you see, aside
for the fact that I would probably have to spend all my life in slavery to repay the
millions of copyrights I wasted in this collection of characters, I do not even know how
to hold a pencil in my hand, so, the anime and comic thing is wasted before we begin the
argument (to my greatest displeasure). I’m however more confident with the
composition of a written work, having spent much of my school time ignoring teachers to
write my tales; anyway, this in no way made the telling of this story any simpler. In
fact, when I was faced by the necessity of coming up with a clear plot that had to give
birth and conclude the story and world of the Scarlet Cobras even in a hundred, or even
two, or three hundred pages, I was deeply discouraged. All of the characters are alive,
really, if you want to believe me, and writing a story that could bring an end to the
story itself, in any way conceivable, would mean ending my characters as well. But, you
see, they are not such good characters, this is not such a good story because it’s
all about some really cool superheroes saving the world and living happy ever after, but
instead it’s all about what it feels to be the last to fight a war against nearly
half of the world, and needing to win. If I told a story, any story, where the
characters accomplished such feat, I would have simply ended the whole world at once,
exchanging it for a peaceful, beautiful one where my heroes and the world itself had
nothing to tell anymore… Well, I know what you are saying: if you cannot tell a story
with a beginning and an end, you can’t tell a story at all, so, what kind of
storyteller are you, anyway? That is not completely true, I mean, obiouvsly a story
must begin and end, but not necessarily such end must close any further possibility of
evolution or even change deeply the great work beyond the curtain; but to do so, to tell
little episodes, showing the characters involved in little stories, paying more attention
to the general feeling of the world and to that of the characters themselves, instead of
setting up a great plot that draws the whole attention and then erase it all after it is
done, that is the way of telling anime… or mangas… or comics in every way…
which leads us to the point discussed earlier (that of the pencil…). Luckily for me,
it is also the way Role-Playing Game adventures are told… And I played RPG for over
ten years, thing which gives me the means to accomplish such job better that the
pencil-holding thing… At this point what I did should be clear: I just set up a
storytelling RPG where I could have my players live this wonderful world instead of
listening to it. So… In the end, what the heck has all this babbling to do with this
goddam website? Yeah, the question for which you entered this area… The final answer
needed all the stuff I told you (and probably, if you haven’t read the Hall Of Fame
section, you are still missing many links in my babbling), since it shows very well how
complicated can be understanding this world. It takes much more than some good
storytelling, I should have told the whole story beforehand to all of my party members,
but they were not there to hear me tell them the story of the Scarlet Cobras, but to play
RPG in a world unknown to them. So I decided to mix the story background with the
"real" world they were playing in, offering them an "Online Link-Up",
provided by the Scarlet Cobras themselves, where they could learn what they where
interested in about the world with a simple click and some patience, and besides, it had
to be an interactive source of information and relation about their story. What you are
reading and scrolling is the chronicle of my players adventures while playing the campaign
using  Werewolf: the
Apocalypse, from White Wolf games, rule system, the Mission Room is effectively the choice
of adventure they want to undertake, the Equipment Room is the equip they choose to have
before entering the missions, the Report Room is the collection of the adventures already
completed and so on. This provides a sort of On-line manual for this One-of-a-Kind
Campaign that is really much far away from what you could read in an Official Rule-Book;
also, I felt that, although I didn’t really created anything in RPG terms, what I was
facing was some kind of deep revolution compared to the relatively traditional World of
Darkness that White Wolf generated, and I wished to collect this work online, because I
feel it is so much different from the "standard" that, in its own madness, it
could be an interesting experiment for everyone. I liked the original game in the first
place, but I felt it was missing something… On the bad side, I could say that what I
wanted was some more "Spectacularity", on the good side, perhaps, there is the
fact that I wished simply a definitely Heroic Campaign. Of course, since I’m a big
Manga fan, this also meant that a torrent of anime characters would eventually sweep in
the chronicle, but, to be true, I don’t care that much, in fact, I’m quite happy
with that, I don’t see it as a bad side to this work actually (and if you look
closely to White Wolf production, their late works are all spiced up with manga graphics
and all the like). Ultimately, I think that such a Campaign world could prove a really
interesting change of pace even for the more experienced player who wish to take a deep
breath from the political scheming that fills the WoD, so, since I think this should be an
experience that should not be missing in the compendium of a good RPG player, I wish it to
be "Open to Public" |
