Back in the late 90's. there was a World of Darkness Larp in Berkeley. It ran every Sunday night, allowed an astoundingly wide variety of character types, and, due to difficulties in finding a name that fit, was usually referred to simply as "The Sunday Night Game," often abbreviated to SNG for brevity. I was on the staff of this LARP for a year and a half. In pure frustration over the amount of on-the-spot rulings that the Staff were being required to make during game, I set out to codify the rules. My accomplice in this endeavor was fellow staffer & long time friend Seanan McGuire.
In & among swatting chunks of rules mechanics with the editing stick, we tackled the Sissiphian project of compiling, defining, cross-referencing, and indexing Merits & Flaws. This quickly snowballed into: "Grab every White Wold book we can get our hands on, translate the merits & flaws to LARP, and compile the definite list." We spent many hours in the upstairs bedroom at the Stewart's house, arguing about point values & punctuating each others' sentences.
By the time I left game, the list was over 40 pages long. It's never been finished. It never will be finished. I picked it up last year, when I started planning this game. Since then, I've been polishing it, editing it, and hitting it with a virtual club as I tried to get it into a useable form. It's not perfect, but it's useable. White Wolf has published a lot of material over the last four years, so I know I'll be adding to it in the future. But I can post it now.
Working on this list has been hard. Seanan now has a day job, more time
commitments than any sane person would agree to, and is working on her
fourth novel. She doesn't have time to spend six hours a week locked in
a small room with me and a stack of gaming books. I've given it my best
shot, but I feel like Guildenstern after Rosencrantz exits at the end of
the play.
This list is dedicated to Seanan.
If not for her efforts, it would not exist.
The brilliant parts are ours.
The stupid mistakes are mine.
Many grateful thanks also go out to Leslie & Jim Stewart, who have put up with our yelling & swearing at each other in their house for many, many hours over the years. You raised a great crop of kids; some related to you, some not. Thanks for being there.
