Alright.  Here is where I post about me, the ST.  There is a lot to say, yet I have no real idea what I want to reveal.  From the top, I suppose is as good a place as any to start.  I have been playing and storytelling Vampire: the Masquerade since 1994.  I got introduced into the world of darkness by another player years ago on IRC.

I had been in a long running DnD game that after a time, I had just been fed up with.  The mechanics were blocky and unrealistic.  The straw that broke the camel's back for me was having a character get creamed by a twinked out dwarf warrior, when all I wanted to do was run away from the scene in the first place.  To defend myself, I made an attack, scored a natural critical, and only did 7 points of damage.  The DM ruled that because I had done only 7 points to a character that had 120, it was barely a scratch, and thus, my 11th level character met their demise.

Shortly thereafter, one of the players, aware of my plight, explained to me how everything in the World of Darkness had 7 health levels and that theoretically it was possible to take down the most powerful of the powerful with a switchblade knife.  I was hooked, and haven't looked back since.

I consider myself the very best Storyteller there is when it comes to a vampire game.  I am sure a lot of people see and hear that and think, "yeah right, whatever" or some alternate form of the same phrase.  I also suspect that for the majority of players and storytellers they consider themselves the same, and I know that if anyone has had experiences similar to mine, they will rightfully be suspicious of my claims.

To that, I can only say that I understand.  I understand because I too have seen countless storytellers and players who claim to have been doing this for twenty years.  Yet at the end of the day, it's clear that they have no clue what they are doing, still can't create a basic, baseline character, feel the need to make ultra-twinks, and then get all butt hurt when their super powered elder gets outwitted by a new player in the game with a new character.

That will never happen with me.

I repeat, that will never happen with me.  When I say that I have been an ST with the world of darkness since 1994, I mean it.  I am legit.  I take a great deal of pride in my work and hobby.  I have had articles and book reviews posted on the White-Wolf web page, and have turned down an offer to intern back in 2001-2002 when I was living in Arizona.  My original chronicle, Braddock by Night used a fictional setting.  Everything was created by me, and to this very day many original concepts from that game come through.  21 years is a long time to dedicate to something like this, and it is for that reason above all others that I continue striving to make sure I have the very best Vampire the Masquerade game there is.