Credits

It's all Anton Chernoff's fault.

He was in the middle of planning for Roberta Drew Berry's Twenty Years After when he asked me for some help. His exact words were "you're a sleazy DM, and I need some help." I wouldn't go with "sleazy," but I had been running D&D games for ten years by then.

Anton wanted help plotting how his character could get away with murder. He showed me his character sheet. I was intrigued. Here were details about a weekend long murder mystery game, played in a big bed and breakfast inn in Vermont, where they had the run of the place. How cool was that?

When his game was over, I asked how I could play in the next one. He said that I couldn't, because there was a waiting list, with too many names on it. Roberta and George Berry only ran their games once, and no one ever said "no" to an invitation.

That stank. I really wanted to play.

I had a computer, one of the earliest Macintoshes. 128k RAM, two floppy drives - no hard disk back then - and a 9" black and white screen. There was a nice dot matrix printer that took fanfold paper, too.

I'd seen one character sheet and a bunch of the background materials. (We'd call them bluesheets today.) I'd talked about plot possibilities that Anton might run into during Twenty Years After. Based on that, I said "I can write one of these games." Yes, I was that silly.

I wrote this game in four intense weeks during October and November of 1986. Sometimes, it's good not to know just what you're in for before you start a project. I'd produced a LARP for eighteen players, with all sorts of background material. It was my first. It would obviously not be my last.

The style of this game, the introductory material, and the lack of any mechanics (and no need for any) are all thanks to Roberta and company. She and her murder mystery 'pros' were a significant and important influence. In particular, Anton provided a lot of great advice and feedback.

The next step was convincing enough other people to try playing the game. I invited, cajoled, and asked my friends to take a stab at this. We'd all played tabletop D&D and other games, but nothing like this. It worked. The game was a blast. I would like to thank all of our participants; without their helpful feedback I couldn't run and also try to improve the game.

I've run Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll five times now, each time with different and interesting variations introduced by the players. This scenario has also been produced several other times by friends. Each run results in something new and interesting.

Everybody gets into the act, and it's given us a lot of fun. I must thank Dennis Raynor, Joe Aquino, and Steve McMillan, who captured the quintessential Toxic Waste with their lyrics and music for Hormones On Parade. Their live performance was one of the highlights of my LARP writing career.

The characters in this scenario are purely the result of my warped imagination. Any likeness to anyone you know, living or dead, or to any event is purely a coincidence. All of the game and website materials associated with the Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll murder mystery scenario are copyrighted, and all rights are reserved.