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[Scattercat]

Storycrafter Syndrome

- Virulent
- Endemic
- Highly contagious

Symptoms
- Vast enthusiasm
- Complex plotlines
- Professed desire for long-term play
- Competent and enthusiastic cast

Progression
- Following at least two and no more than four GM/plot posts, the disease causes complete and permanent loss of storycrafter.
- Non-GM functions may continue for a short time, often making identification of the malady difficult. In most cases, morbidity has set in before diagnosis is made.
- In some cases, sufferers may experience "phantom storycrafter" symptoms, in which there is the brief appearance of GM capability and normal function seems to resume. These symptoms rarely last, and generally have faded completely after no more three or four relapses.

Known Causes
- Finals
- Emotional distress
- "Computer trouble"

Related Reading
- Player Evaporation Virus
- Premature Postflood
- Post-Postflood Depression

[Shay]

Thank god someone has finally defined and cat-aloged this terrible malady!   

Perhaps now a cure can be found.   

[Praetorian]

I have admission.

Hello, my name is Praetorian. And I was a sufferer of Storycrafter Syndrome.

It affected me for a long while, constantly returning whenever something good emerged from the morass that is my creative mind. It destroyed lives and fiddled with hopes and dreams. Fiddled I say.

I have overcome this, with support of family and friends. I am now able to support a story without fear of collapse and can also post coherent plot-lines with forward planning. However, it has left me scarred: Post-postflood depression is a constant curse, now my enthusiasm is interactive.

Be aware of suffers and know that we are people too. Do you know someone who is afflicted with SS? Are you secretly a carrier? What can you do to help and cope?

Don't turn away: become a PA or create a back-up story. If all else fails... just put them out of their misery. A twelve guage is preferable for this. Don't be a 2d player; don't create a Drizzt character; don't rip of Darth Vader.

Keep the dream alive.

Do the right thing. Help SS sufferers today.