Vampire: The Masquerade

I think fun and escapism are the design of most games. Or at least allow you to feel an escape from the world. However, can that escapism from the stress and hardship of daily life lead to murder? Is it the games fault or was it the person? Is the game an excuse to allow this murder to happen? Or is the person already had murderous instinct and the game is just another excuse? This has happened numerous of times, especially over the past twenty-five years, the blaming of unspeakable violence on a game. One incident happened in 1996 when two innocent people were murdered by a nefarious teen.

On the week of Thanksgiving in 1996 in Florida, “Naomi Ruth Queen and Richard Wendorf were found by their daughter Jennifer Wendorf, beaten to death in their Eustis home.”[1] This scene horrified both the police and the people of Eustis, why would something like this happen to a nice family in this nice small town. Jennifer Wendorf told the police that her sister was missing. The police investigated into Heather Wendorf life, her relationship with her parents, and her friends. They discovered that she had befriended Rod Ferrell, a seventeen year old from Kentucky. Rod Ferrell grew in a lower working class town in Kentucky with his mother. He was the typical outcast in a small conservative town. He wore black, liked art, and hated the conservative values of the town. A friend introduced him into the vampire lifestyle when he was a teenager; that is when he became obsessed with the game Vampire the Masquerade. Vampire the Masquerade is a role-playing game (RPG) just like dungeons and dragons. Vampire the Masquerade “is set in a fictionalized “gothic-punk” version of the modern world, where players assume the roles of vampires, who are referred to as “Kindred,” and deal with their night-to-night struggles against their own bestial natures, vampire hunters, and each other.”[2] All the members can use or create a name, create a back-story, and be a part of one of the thirteen clans. This game has rules and orders that all members must follow or they will be kicked out. Ferrell called himself Vesago and claimed to be a five hundred year old vampire. He did not follow the rules of the game, he just like the power he received from his followers. One of his followers was Heather Wendorf. They met in Florida, and he made her a vampire. When he went back to Kentucky, they starting calling each other, and she complained about her parents and her life was hell. He decided to rescue her, with his trusted followers, he drove from Kentucky to Florida. They went to Heather’s house, and to spare the horrific and gory details, he killed her parents with a crowbar. Ferrell and his cult stole the Wendorf’s car and drove to New Orléans, the vampire mecca. However the police caught them and sentenced all of them to life in prison.

Should we blame Vampire the Masquerade for Rod Ferrell being a murderer? Or was he already murderous and the game is just pawn?

In my opinion Rod Ferrell was just an egotistical asshole who wanted to be god. He thought he was immortal, he thought he was god, and he thought he could do whatever he wanted. The game was never the problem, it was all him and nothing else.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Ferrell

[2]  Melton, Gordon (1994). The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (1st ed.). Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press. p. 852.

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