Where does the Transform Vampires/Werewolves into lawn furniture rote come from?

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

This idea goes back to the very first edition of the Mage: the Ascension player's handbook. Stephan Wieck discusses it in “Turning Vampires into Lawn Chairs and Other works of "High" Magick” in The Book of Shadows (1993; p. 203) as an example of how the loose rule system can produce unexpected results.

Answer 3

I was just discussing this with some internet friends.

I didn't use UseNet in college (94-98) but I did go to GenCon while there (sadly I honestly can't tell you which year we went in that 3 year span, but I was with the L5R RPG booth and a L5R RPG betatester etc, so, we were in the Exhibition room), and in one silly mindset, I went and had buttons made at the buttonmaker. We were big Mage players, and at the time only had the original book. We had been discussing how rediculously OP Mages were, essentially, to Vamps, (e - what would happen if you mixed two systems?) and as they had no Life (the stat, hurr), and weren't Sleepers, they wouldn't generate paradox if you cast completely vulgar spells on them, as long as there were no witnesses. From that discussion came "You'd only need three dots in Matter to turn a vampire into a lawnchair."

So the first button read "Matter 3: You are a lawnchair".

We then ran around Gencon finding VtM LARPers, and tried to turn them into lawnchairs. Because Pixie Sticks and Caffeine.

Some of the LARPers at the con got it and would play along wth the joke (which essentially was to awkwardly pose themselves like a lawnchair at which point I'd try to sit on him - after all, these were cons). Some wuold get insanely uppity and yell. Someone else pointed out "Well, you need matter and spirit, otherwise the vampire would stilll think it was a vampire."

Then my friend was wearing, after another visit back to the buttonmaker, "Spirit 3: You think you are a lawnchair."

Later after that Gencon I had heard that some erratas and stuff were published saying you can't turn vamps into lawnchairs. I'd never seen them myself and never researched it as I was busy at that point getting my degree and it wasn't that important, it was just a highfive to my friend Kris and a "Ha! We got them to make an errata!"

Now, whether we initiated it (news at Gencon can spread FAR to a lot of ears in what's essentially a tight knit community) or I absorbed by somehow unconciously overhearing it from someone AT GenCon, no idea. But I was pretty sure up till today that, to my embarrassment, that Vampires and lawnchairs edit; add "Being blown up into a way bigger deal than it may have been - I know for a fact I was not at GenCon in 93) is all my fault. :(

It was realistically, a hilarious con joke that confronted with people taking things way too seriously, went "horribly wrong".