[RPG] Where does the Transform Vampires/Werewolves into lawn furniture rote come from

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I remember the 90s when Mage players would tell Vampire players that a Mage can very easily transform a Vampire or Werewolf into lawn chairs, and that they could get quite a good collection. I didn't know much about Mage those days, and I always supposed that was covered in some supplement.

These days, after reading some Mage books, I'm not so sure.

Was that infamous rote published in an official book? Which?

If not, anyone knows its origin? How did it spread so fast?

You can find the rote on page 610 of M20 as a kind of a joke. But I'm asking about the old days.

Best Answer

In first edition Mage, vampires fell entirely under the sphere of Matter, and changing the shape of matter was available at fairly low levels. (This was referenced in Book of Shadows, the Player's Guide to Mage, in a subhead: "Turning Vampires into Lawn Chairs and Other Works of 'High' Magick" -- although it wasn't a rote.) The notion that a starting mage could, with a wave of his hand/wand/athame, completely destroy a vampire — who, at the time, had no way to defend against it – was variously seen as a sign of how Mage was a broken system or that Vampire players were whiny gits.

As for how the meme got started, as with many things in the 1990s, it started on Usenet. In 1994, in a thread on alt.games.whitewolf, ironically, about how Wraith wasn't a sales hit (compared to games like Vampire), a poster named Jack Dracula wrote, in defense of Mage:

But this is also one of the best features. No D&D spell lists, this inspires creativity and role-playing, rewarding creative gamers for their quick thinking. What that does unfortunately do is attract powergamers who want to turn vampires into lawn furniture, but they are just as quickly turned away by either ST Balance ("The Nephandi turned -me- into a lawn chair?!") or the lack of Power-Gamer Reward (No new level to get, no dragon hoard to plunder, no next level of the dungeon.)

In Second Edition and beyond, this was changed so that Vampires required both Life and Matter, but the notion of mages dispensing with vampires easily by transforming them into patio furniture persisted thereafter. (Werewolves always required Life, and in later editions Spirit, so I don't know what the players were thinking in that regard. Still, as part of the question, it gets an answer.)

How did it spread so fast? At the time, a lot of the people who wrote and worked for White Wolf hung out with posters on a.g.ww and on various online game sites like the Storyteller Circle MUSH. Jack Dracula was a frequent inhabitant of both places, and it gained currency just like the "whiskey flask" problem with Paradox. It was an inside joke that grew, and that's why people still reference it two decades later.

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