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Vamp Town Races (1996 Metro article on the game)

Vein Drain: Alia, a member of the Toreador clan. Photo by Jana Marcus Every Friday night at nine, a band of 50 people dressed in black assembles downtown to plot, scheme, murder and roam the streets of Santa Cruz. But hey, they're so vein, they probably think this story's about them. By Traci Hukill IT'S A TYPICAL FRIDAY NIGHT on Pacific Avenue. Jungle drums sound from street corners, musicians jangle tunes in darkened storefront alcoves, the bubble man dips his magic wand into a pail of suds and waves it gently overhead, making a huge, fragile orb that trembles in the cool night air before it winks out of sight. Striding swiftly through the dawdling crowd, swathed in black and an imperious air, the vampires make their way to the meeting place. Real vampires? Come, now. George Bernard Shaw once said, "We don't stop playing games because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing games." Everyone can play, but not everyone remembers how. The unsmiling vampires stalking down Pacific Avenue remember how, and this is the night they choose to play. Four years ago, White Wolf--an entertainment publishing company specializing in horror games--produced a role-playing game called Vampire: The Masquerade. The game followed a format similar to Dungeons and Dragons, in which players assumed characters with certain strengths, weaknesses and magical powers. Guided by a Storyteller to provide an outline, characters embarked on imaginary adventures. Players sat at tables and rolled dice to determine the outcome of situations. The games were fun, but in a former player's words, they "lacked veracity." It didn't take long for Masquerade to evolve from a sit-down shtick into a live-action game. Games sprang up everywhere--in Santa Cruz and Monterey, in San Francisco, where hundreds of people play a variation of Masquerade called Camarilla; and in Santa Rosa, where the Storyteller offers the game as a safe, legal alternative to gang activity and drug use. That's just in California. Games also appeared across the country, from New Orleans to New York, and as far away as France and Sweden. NEXT