Game With a Bite

LAS VEGAS — In this city of fake volcanoes and phony pyramids, of bewigged Merlins and buff Caesars, it really should not seem odd that a bunch of folks like to spend their Saturday evenings playing vampire.

It does, though.

And they know it.

Still, they do it. They walk around a desert ranch within sight of the Strip’s seduction, slurping deviled eggs and casting spells. “It’s raining fire on you,” they’ll say. Or, “I’m planning on torturing Duncan.” Or, ominously, “Be at the graveyard at 11.”

Snap them out of character--force them to drop their roles as vampires, werewolves, changelings and wraiths--and they concede that yes, friends do think they’re nutty. Parents do worry that they’ve joined a cult.

But they are proud of their fantasies.

More than that, they are addicted, hooked by a global craze known as Mind’s Eye Theater, or Masquerade.

Unlike dice-driven tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Masquerade is live-action, role-playing fantasy. In other words, the game invites players to invent fiendish characters--and then become them for a night.

“This is the closest you can come to being [an evil spirit] without hurting anybody,” said John Virkus, a maintenance worker by day and a black-clad vampire by night.

Introduced in 1992 by a small Georgia game company called White Wolf Inc., Masquerade has caught on with a vengeance, especially among college students. Many major cities in the U.S. have such clubs. It has taken off as well in Brazil, Australia and throughout Western Europe. White Wolf has sold more than 2 million copies of Masquerade and related vampire games.

Here on the dusty fringe of Las Vegas, Masquerade is played with particular gusto. And why not? As Karl Vetter, who hosts the game at his Roadrunner Ranch, proclaims: “This whole town is fantasyland.”

In truth, Masquerade is a lot more gritty than the spangled fantasies of the Strip.

That may be why it thrives here.

The Strip’s re-creations of Rome and Egypt, Oz and Camelot seem to many too sanitized, too predictable.

“I have to wear a certain wig and a certain beard and take on a character that has a set form,” said Jason Dvorchak, who plays a wizard at one casino. Seeking more creative fun, Dvorchak steals away when he can to the off-kilter world of Masquerade.

“You can totally immerse yourself in it,” he said, stomping about one night dressed as a demonic bogeyman in black cape, steel-studded dog collar and demented clown makeup.

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Calling themselves the Blood Moon Social Club, the folks who gather at Vetter’s ranch each month exude a creepy intensity. They don’t actually believe they’re vampires, but they approach the game with such zeal that at times they have to yank themselves out of character to cool off. They take their roles quite seriously: If they are playing a paranoid werewolf, they act skittish; if they are striking down a foe with thunder, they demand that other players cringe at the imaginary storm.

“You get some pretty outrageous fantasy in Las Vegas . . . but this gives you a chance to explore the dark side,” said Asia Smith, a 23-year-old set designer for the Rio casino.

Masquerade revolves around an elaborate illustrated rule book known as “Laws of the Night.” The book explains the quirks of various characters and establishes tribal conflicts, such as a vicious feud between vampires and werewolves.

But the Blood Moon Social Club encourages improvisation.

Thus, a day-care teacher adopts the persona of a blood-sucking belly dancer. A firefighter fancies himself a moping outcast of a vampire. And a middle-aged engineer transforms herself into a spirit-channeling gypsy bent on poisoning a werewolf lair with a plutonium-packed Tickle Me Elmo.

Preparing to immerse himself in the role of a chivalrous werewolf, 17-year-old Nathan Pulley explained the allure: “In high school, I’m a computer geek. Here, I may be still a geek, but I can eat your throat out.”

Not literally, though. Vetter says he enforces strict rules for his Masquerade: no alcohol, no drugs, no physical combat. When challenging each other in battle, players determine the winner using the old paper-scissors-rock game.

The rules seem to keep the game both safe and quiet. Las Vegas police say the Blood Moon Social Club has not caused any trouble.

Masquerade players elsewhere, however, have at times alarmed authorities. Police in Kentucky last year blamed the game for inspiring a teenager to beat her parents to death with the help of four friends who also played Masquerade. And a Virginia man was convicted last year of molesting eight young girls after recruiting them to play Masquerade.

Such stories disgust the Las Vegas players, who insist that the game is just good fun, with no sinister power to twist anyone into deviance. It’s about acting and imagining, they say, not about concocting demonic rituals. No one here sucks blood or sleeps in coffins.

And everyone understands that when they go home at 2 a.m., they leave their evil characters behind. (Some even break out of character mid-game to tend to more pressing concerns, such as grabbing the last piece of cake or feeding an electronic key chain pet.)

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Though players create their own intrigues to keep the plot moving, Vetter pumps in fresh story lines whenever the game threatens to sag. He might invent a sadistic sorcerer who sucks players into a menacing--and imaginary--purple mist. Or he might pass seven magic jewels to a mummy and then tweak the vampires into plotting to steal them. Always, he tries to spark the kind of power grabs that make the game sizzle.

“There’s all sorts of subterfuge and back stabbing involved--it’s a lot like Republican and Democratic politics,” he said.

A comic book store owner who has long loved schlocky horror films, Vetter, 44, stumbled onto Masquerade after years of staging his own role-playing games, many with Western themes. Since his first Masquerade on Halloween night of 1993, he estimates that more than 2,000 people have played the game on his ranch.

And he goes all out to prepare for them.

His wife, Carol, cooks up a buffet dinner of barbecue meatballs for the several dozen players who show up each month--recruited mostly by word of mouth from as far as Bakersfield and Seattle. (The Vetters charge $25 for the food.)

For atmosphere, Vetter drags out his gargoyle statues and the wooden chair he carved that features hellish flames. With stage lights, he turns his gazebo green and his courtyard red. And he sets torches burning by the fake gravestones out back.

Then he dons one of his costumes--a lush red cape and fangs, perhaps--and sets out to meet his fellow undead for a ghoulish evening that he describes as sublimely wholesome.

“People think we’re just a lot of weirdos, but it’s not like that at all,” he said.

As Vetter notes, many players see the game as therapeutic. It is a way for them to escape--for a few thrilling hours--bland real-world lives as college professors and blackjack dealers, store clerks and bank managers, high school students and harried parents.

“I had a very stressful day today. The power went out, and the money didn’t balance right,” said Julia Christensen, an assistant manager at a convenience store. “Here, I don’t have to worry about all that. I’m powerful. And I can relieve my stress in a different way, instead of taking it out on my kids or my husband.”

Similarly, when he steps onto the ranch, Craig Titus relishes the chance to forget that he is an auto parts salesman, a mellow, quiet kind of guy. He pulls on a sequin-studded blazer and looping chain earring and throws himself into the skin of Rolo, a 221-year-old craps-playing vampire pyromaniac.

“I have morals and scruples in real life that I can leave behind at the game,” Titus said. Preparing to stalk off and scheme his vampire schemes, he growled: “I’m not me anymore.”