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I play RPG. Especifically Vampire the Mascarade. My group have 9 players and 1 Storyteller. I'm one of the players.
We are probably the older vampire group with more books and material of the entire region. We like to play Vampire putting all the vampire climate to the game. For example, we start to play at 9:00 pm and finish at 5:00 am. We one time do Live Action where the people envited to the party don't know we are interpretating characters, it was very funny because they think we were on a real party(and they really are ).

Here is what make me shoked:

Few days ago a Girl was murdered in Minas Gerais(another Estate of Brazil). Her body was found in a cemitery. Six perfurations by Knife, one of them in the neck. The principal suspect flew, and the cops are searching for him. The people in the student party, (where the assasin meet the victim), argued by the cops, say that he(the suspect) were wearing a blazer, tall, about 20 years, blond hair, and indentificate himself by the name Jesus. Than the cops ask his friends about him. They found that he play rpg, his real name weren't Jesus, and his natural hair is black. They also found RPG material in his house. He still hidden, and the cops are searching for him.

I see this today, in the News.

To get the things even worst, I think I know what character he was playing(interpretating) in that party.

Sometimes I think what kind of things this guy have in mind. Totally totally pertubated. What part of the violence is from the game?
I call my friends, the youngest member cannot play anymore because of his parents prohibit him. The storyteller don't want to play Lives in public places anymore. We are all shocked.

[ 10-18-2001: Message edited by: Ivan Cavallazzi ]

Wow... I guess violence in games really affects some people.
Though I think it's the person more than the game. If he didn't play RPGs he would have been affected by something else.

Ivan, whilst I find this tale to be very disturbing I think Vicsun is entirely correct If "jesus" wasn't a roleplayer or live action roleplayer he would still almost certainly have flipped out over something else, say horror films, the occult, playing rock records backwards etc.

Ivan, what a horrible story. A young girl was brutally murdered by an obviously severly psychologically disturbed person.

We must remember though, that role-playing, like movies or music, doesn't make a killer out of person. It might affect the way a person express his disturbed psyche, but they cannot make a murder out of a healthy person. This "Jesus" guy would most certainly have killed somebody in any case, just under different circumstances.

I understand you are all shocked, but remember this indiviuals act, is not connected to role playing or to your activities in general. Unfortunately, I think role playing and live are activities that attract some really weird people. One could argue that many activities attract weird or disturbed people, but I actually think RPG often has a special attraction to disturbed people because it allows you to conceal you real self and still be part of a social context and a group. A disturbed person might take RPG as an opportunity to act out wishes and fantasies, and might also have problems with distinguishing between reality and RPG world. But affecting is not the same thing as causing. IMO RPG does not contribute more to the violence in this world than everything else does. (And I say this although I'm personally totally uninterested in RPG and have never played anything other than a few computer games.)

I hope you can continue to enjoy playing soon

Something similar happened to me when I was a kid. A dedicated roleplayer threw himself off a building and died. When they investigated the case, the media started printing a lot of different theories as to why the boy had jumped. One version was that his favourite character had died. Another said that he believed himself to be a spellcaster and that he had said that he would cast a "feather fall" before hitting the ground. There were some others, but the result of this was that some of my friends were forbidden by their parents to play rpgs. To make things worse, a person from a religious faction started writing articles stating that rpgs were created by the devil to lead children into temptation. This was 19 years ago. I agree with Vicsun, Saruman and CE that it has to do with the persons psyche rather than his or her hobbies.

I see what you all are saying. And I agree with you, at least that was what I think before the murderer. Obviously the violence bugs my reason a little.

Probably I'm so shoked because of the incredible similarity beetween the Murderer(role playing), and the character I think he was playing(that is far notorius in the books, and my favorite one too).

[PS: I don't know if you perceive, but you all are calling the murderer by the character he was playing]

Also because now I perceive some wrong things that we have been doing.
That Live I talk before(where people don't know they are in a Live) should not happen anymore. If I was one of the "humans", and I discover that people were kidding with me I'll not like at all.
And That young member, he is only 16, the books are not permited to people unless they reach 18 years.

Originally posted by Ivan Cavallazzi:
<STRONG>Probably I'm so shoked because of the incredible similarity beetween the Murderer(role playing), and the character I think he was playing(that is far notorius in the books, and my favorite one too).
</STRONG>

Most likely he chose the character because it resembled his own personality and that he used the character to express his own feelings and needs. He could just as well have identified himself with a character in a lousy horror film and acted out his lust for murder through that character.

Well in the east - can't remember what city(hong-kong?), a person in a netcafe, after being shoot by one from his "team" (also from that cafe) in Counter Strike, stood up, found out who had (accedently) done it and stabbed him several times.

So it is nothing to do with RPGs

I still say people always blame what they don't understand when they don't understand - and computergames and RPG is an easy way of "freeing" the society they live in.
Oh he did so and so because he played RPG or to much videogames

I always hate blaming society - because I truly belive that every person governs his own life, but this must be compared to the note that society have becomed more competitive, fast and furious - and some people can't stand against this and simply *snap*.

*can't count all the deaths Pokémon-obsessed kids have gone through*

Originally posted by Xandax:
<STRONG>Well in the east - can't remember what city(hong-kong?), a person in a netcafe, after being shoot by one from his "team" (also from that cafe) in Counter Strike, stood up, found out who had (accedently) done it and stabbed him several times.
</STRONG>

I recall hearing about this, very disturbing