(23/41: 1991) ANDREW GREENBERG (c. 1967–)
The First Employee
Andrew Greenberg was the first employee at White Wolf Publishing. Before him, there was Mark Rein-Hagen with a vision, the Wieck brothers with a business plan, and a game called Vampire: The Masquerade that was about to change the RPG industry. Greenberg brought a reporter’s discipline—he had covered lawyers for a living before entering game design—and an editorial hand that would prove essential to turning a revolutionary concept into a sustainable product line.
The credits page of Vampire: The Masquerade, First Edition (1991) reads: “Design: Mark Rein-Hagen” and “Development: Mark Rein-Hagen, Andrew Greenberg, Stewart Wieck.” At White Wolf, “developer” meant line editor—the person who managed an ongoing product line after the original designer moved on to the next game. Rein-Hagen conceived each core World of Darkness title in sequence and then handed it off. Greenberg was the one who caught it.
His professional bios consistently describe him as “the original developer of Vampire: The Masquerade”—never as the creator or designer. For VtM, that distinction is accurate. What the credits page doesn’t show is where the story gets interesting.
The Forty-Eight-Hour Engine Swap
Mage: The Ascension (1993) needed a magic system. Stewart Wieck had created one. It wasn’t working.
The situation was worse than that sanitized version suggests. According to primary source testimony from White Wolf staff, Wieck’s original Mage design was unshippable. Rob Hatch raised the alarm. What followed was a full-staff intervention—the team collectively took the game out of Wieck’s hands and rebuilt it, with different people taking different sections. Greenberg and Travis Williams threw out the magic system entirely and built a replacement in forty-eight hours.
The Sphere system—the one that shipped with the game—was their design. Nine Spheres: Correspondence, Entropy, Forces, Life, Matter, Mind, Prime, Spirit, Time. Your character’s magical paradigm—whether they were a Hermetic ritualist, a Verbena blood witch, or a Virtual Adept hacking reality—determined how you accessed the Spheres, but the underlying framework was the same.
Prior RPG magic systems ran on spell lists (D&D), skill rolls (GURPS), point-buy construction (Champions), or verb-plus-noun combinations (Ars Magica). The Sphere system was none of these. It was conceptual framework as game mechanic—your belief system didn’t just flavor your magic, it defined what was mechanically possible. Two mages with identical Sphere ratings could approach the same problem through completely different paradigms and arrive at different mechanical outcomes.
The Gothic-Punk Assembly Line
From 1991 through 1995, Greenberg served as VtM’s line developer, overseeing more than fifty products that built the World of Darkness into a coherent shared universe. The Storyteller’s Handbook. The Hunters Hunted. Vampire: The Masquerade Second Edition. The Vampire Player’s Guide. Chicago by Night, Second Edition. The Anarch Cookbook. Berlin by Night. Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. Clanbook: Ventrue.
The pace was extraordinary. White Wolf published at a clip that would have fragmented a lesser editorial hand into tonal chaos—dozens of writers contributing to a shared mythology that needed to feel unified. Greenberg was the consistency engine. His editorial direction ensured that a sourcebook about anarchist vampires and a sourcebook about Ventrue political structures felt like chapters of the same story rather than products from different companies.
His credits during this period extend beyond VtM development. He was part of the design teams for both Wraith: The Oblivion (1994) and Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game (1994), contributing significant design work and writing to both. The Street Fighter RPG—an unlikely marriage of White Wolf’s narrative system with Capcom’s fighting game IP—required adapting the Storyteller System for martial arts combat, a mechanical challenge far removed from Vampire’s social intrigue. He also provided significant design work to Werewolf: The Apocalypse. In each case, the credits page says “team.” The work was design.
He also served as White Wolf’s liaison to Wizards of the Coast for the Jyhad collectible card game (1994, designed by Richard Garfield). When the name “Jyhad” proved problematic, Greenberg is credited with coining the replacement: Vampire: The Eternal Struggle—a name the game still carries three decades later.
Chicago by Night
Greenberg’s clearest solo design credit is Chicago by Night (1991), which he authored as primary writer for both the first and second editions. The book did something no prior city sourcebook had done: it structured an entire urban setting around a web of NPC relationships and political dynamics rather than a geographic catalog of locations.
The coterie chart—a visual map of who owed what to whom, who hated whom, who was secretly allied with whom—became the template for every VtM city sourcebook that followed. Berlin by Night, Milwaukee by Night, New York by Night: they all followed the relational architecture Greenberg established. The city itself became a system that players could manipulate through social interaction, bribery, and political maneuvering rather than through combat encounters.
This was genuine supplement format innovation. Within White Wolf’s ecosystem, it became standard. Whether it propagated beyond that ecosystem is harder to document—relationship maps appear in later games across multiple traditions, but specific citations back to Chicago by Night are scarce outside the VtM lineage.
The Gothic Stars
In mid-1995, Greenberg left White Wolf. He had started on the design team for Aberrant—White Wolf’s superhero-scale game in the Trinity Universe—but departed midway through development for Holistic Design. The pattern repeated: significant design work credited to a team, individual contributions invisible on the credits page.
He joined Holistic Design, Inc., a small Atlanta studio. The company’s origin wasn’t a contract—it was a question. At the Computer Game Developers Conference, the founders asked what religion would look like in the distant future. That conversation was the germination of both the game and the company.
The result was Fading Suns (1996), co-created with Bill Bridges—who had developed Werewolf: The Apocalypse at White Wolf—alongside fellow HDI founders Ken Lightner and Ed Pike, with contributions from Danny Landers, Keith Winkler, and others. All four founders poured their science fiction DNA into the setting. Greenberg brought Asimov’s Foundation and the gothic political sensibility that had defined his Vampire work. Bridges brought Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. Together they built a science-fantasy setting: a declining interstellar empire governed by feuding noble houses, a powerful Church, and merchant guilds, all set against an inexplicable dimming of the stars.
Greenberg’s frustration with White Wolf’s failure to pursue cross-media IP strategy was a driving force. Fading Suns was designed from the start as a cross-media property: RPG, computer game, LARP, card game, miniatures, fiction—all exploring the same universe from different angles. This “holistic approach” gave the company its name and represented Greenberg’s explicit design philosophy.
The Victory Point System
Fading Suns introduced the Victory Point System, co-designed by Greenberg and Bridges. A d20 roll-under “blackjack” mechanic: add Characteristic + Skill to get a Goal Number, roll a d20, and succeed if you roll at or below the Goal Number. The twist: the actual number rolled becomes your Victory Points, meaning higher rolls within the success range are better. Rolling exactly the Goal Number is a critical success.
The tension between wanting to roll high (for more Victory Points) and needing to stay under (to avoid failure) creates an elegant risk-reward dynamic in a single die read. No prior published RPG used this specific approach.
The execution had problems. Poor organization—combat rules scattered across character creation chapters, crucial information buried in sidebars. A character with maximum starting attributes still fails 25% of the time. A natural 20 always means catastrophic failure regardless of skill. No major subsequent RPG adopted the VPS. HDI itself published a d20 conversion of Fading Suns in 2001, implicitly acknowledging the VPS wasn’t the selling point. The setting was. Greenberg’s strengths have always been in the world, not the dice.
The Wider Design Map
When designers cite influences from this era, they typically credit “White Wolf” or “Mark Rein-Hagen” rather than Greenberg specifically. This reflects the nature of development versus design as the industry understood it. The developer makes the trains run on time. When the trains run perfectly, the passengers credit the railroad company and the engineer who designed the locomotive.
But the attribution gap is wider than even the White Wolf credits suggest. Greenberg’s design work extended well beyond any single company. At Last Unicorn Games, he contributed to the Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG—a different system, a different studio, a different IP entirely. For the Pendragon RPG, he designed the 4th Edition magic system—bringing his subsystem-design instincts to one of the most respected game lines in the hobby. He conceived the original premise for Changeling: The Lost (2007), which Ethan Skemp then developed and designed into a full game. He served on the development team for Scion.
The pattern across all of these is consistent. Greenberg designs subsystems, conceives premises, contributes to teams—and the credits page buries his work in collective attributions and developer titles. He wasn’t only dispatching. He was redesigning engines while the trains were moving—the Mage magic system, the Werewolf contributions, the Street Fighter adaptation, the Pendragon magic system, the Changeling premise, the editorial architecture that held fifty products together. Primary source testimony clarifies what the credits page obscures.
VtM’s cultural impact was enormous—it proved there was a massive market for story-focused RPGs, attracted new demographics including significantly more women and goth-culture participants, and opened the door for the indie RPG movements that followed. Greenberg was one of the people who made that impact possible. The Sphere system he co-designed for Mage became one of the most distinctive magic frameworks in RPG history. Neither fact appears clearly on any credits page.
The Second Career
Fading Suns proved durable. The IP has been licensed through RedBrick (2007), FASA Games (2012), and Ulisses Spiele (2016), who published a 4th edition via Kickstarter in 2020 that remains in active publication. Emperor of the Fading Suns built a 28-year cult following with an active modding community; the Enhanced Edition released on Steam in April 2025 to overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Greenberg’s career evolved beyond tabletop design. He directed video games including Mall Tycoon (2002). He built a second career as an industry advocate: Executive Director of the Georgia Game Developers Association, director of the SIEGE expo, board member of the Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office. He has consulted for Hi-Rez Studios, who remain GGDA members. His teaching—stints at the Art Institute of Atlanta, Gwinnett Tech, and Kennesaw State University—was incidental, a year at each, helping out GGDA member schools when they lacked faculty.
He continues to attend DragonCon annually, paneling on topics from AI in gaming to VR accessibility. Thirty-five years into his career, the through-line remains: gothic settings, political intrigue, and the conviction that games should work across multiple platforms simultaneously.
The Honest Assessment
The original draft scored Greenberg at 20 points—Invention 5, Architecture 5, Mastery 5. That score reflected the public record: a developer who worked within other people’s systems. The designer himself corrected the picture.
He designed the magic system that shipped with Mage: The Ascension—one of the most distinctive subsystems in 1990s RPG design. He contributed significant design work to Werewolf. He co-designed the Victory Point System from a question about religion in the distant future, not from a contract. He was on the design teams for Wraith and Street Fighter. He designed the Pendragon 4th Edition magic system. He conceived the premise for Changeling: The Lost. He contributed to Star Trek at Last Unicorn and Scion at White Wolf. These aren’t development credits. They’re design credits that the public record buried under team titles.
The score rose from 20 to 23 after primary source correction. The second pass—incorporating additional credits the designer himself identified—confirms rather than changes that number. The expanded bibliography shows more design range than the first draft captured, but it reinforces the existing pattern rather than breaking it: collaborative, team-credited, subsystem-focused work across multiple companies and game systems. Consistent craft. Never sole authorship of a complete game engine.
The Scoring Case
Invention (6):
“Smart combination.” The Sphere system’s paradigm-based freeform magic was ahead of the field in 1993—Ars Magica had verb-plus-noun but not paradigm-as-mechanic. The VPS blackjack roll-under-but-higher-is-better dynamic had no prior RPG precedent. Chicago by Night’s coterie chart established a relational supplement format adopted across all VtM city books. The Pendragon magic system and Changeling: The Lost premise show the same instinct applied across different game lines. Multiple instances of fresh synthesis with genuine creative vision. None propagated broadly beyond their ecosystems.
Architecture (6):
“Good craftsmanship.” The Sphere system is a framework that creates emergent gameplay—different paradigms produce genuinely different play experiences from the same mechanical base. The VPS concept is elegant in its single-die risk-reward tension. Both have documented execution problems: Sphere balance across the nine domains, VPS organization scattered across chapters, the punitive natural-20 always-fail. The editorial architecture across fifty WoD products—maintaining tonal consistency under extraordinary production pace—is real craftsmanship. Well-built for purpose, some subsystems underdeveloped.
Mastery (6):
“Competent professional, moments of real craft.” Thirty-five years active (1991–present). Design work across five studios—White Wolf, Holistic Design, Last Unicorn Games, CCP-era White Wolf, and as an independent—and at least four distinct game systems (Storyteller, VPS, Star Trek, Pendragon). The forty-eight-hour Mage system replacement demonstrates genuine design capability under pressure. Chicago by Night shows solo authorial control. The broader bibliography—Wraith, Street Fighter, Aberrant, Pendragon magic, Changeling premise—shows consistent craft applied across contexts. But primary mode remains collaborative, team credits dominate, and solo-authored system designs are zero. His own philosophy—”Very few games are the work of a single individual”—accurately describes both the limitation and the honesty.
Adjustments (+5):
- ■ Longevity 20+ years: +2 (1991–present, 35 years of professional engagement across tabletop and video game design.)
- ■ Full-time career: +1 (Game design, development, and industry leadership was his primary profession throughout—White Wolf, Holistic Design, GGDA.)
- ■ Awards: +1 (1992 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Rules—VtM, Greenberg credited as developer. VtM inducted into Origins Hall of Fame, 2007.)
- ■ Branded name: No. Andrew Greenberg requires explanation even within RPG circles. Designers credit “White Wolf” or “Rein-Hagen,” not Greenberg.
- ■ Cross-genre success: +1 (Tabletop RPGs and video games as distinct published design formats.)
- ■ Commercial success: No. VtM’s revenue belongs to Rein-Hagen’s design credit. Fading Suns and Chicago by Night did not individually reach the $10M threshold.
- ■ Design propagation: No. The Sphere system influenced freeform magic design in later games, but direct lineage is not documentable. The VPS was not adopted. The methodology requires documentable evidence.
The Hidden Pattern
Andrew Greenberg builds worlds that run like political machines.
In VtM, the Camarilla isn’t a faction—it’s a patronage network. Every elder owes debts. Every neonate seeks leverage. Chicago by Night mapped these debts as gameplay. In Fading Suns, the Emperor Wars aren’t battles—they’re negotiations between noble houses, Church hierarchs, and guild magnates. The stars are dying, but the real drama is who controls the resources while the lights go out.
Both settings ask the same question: what happens to morality when power structures reward corruption? In Vampire, the Humanity track measures the answer mechanically. In Fading Suns, the passion play framework measures it narratively. In Mage, the Sphere system asks it differently: what happens when your belief about how reality works becomes your literal power? The genre changed from horror to space opera to modern fantasy. The question didn’t.
His frustration with White Wolf’s failure to pursue cross-media IP tells you what he really values. Not the dice. Not even the setting, exactly. The architecture of a universe that can be experienced from multiple angles simultaneously. The dispatcher’s view of the railroad: every train, every schedule, every connection running as one system.
What Remains
A magic system designed in forty-eight hours that became one of the most distinctive in RPG history. A city sourcebook that turned NPC politics into gameplay. An editorial hand that kept fifty products in one voice. Design teams for Wraith, Street Fighter, Aberrant—each buried in collective credits. A magic system for Pendragon. A premise for Changeling. A Star Trek RPG. A gothic space opera that survived thirty years and four publishers. A blackjack mechanic that was cleverer than its presentation. A reporter’s discipline applied to the craft of imaginary worlds.
The public record showed a developer. The designer himself corrected it. Not with inflation—he was the first to insist that design is collaborative, that removing any team member changes the dish. He corrected it with specifics: this system is mine, that one isn’t, here’s who else deserves credit.
That’s the rarest thing in this industry. A designer who tells you exactly what he built and exactly what he didn’t.
The methodology scores what you built. He built more than the title suggested—and more than even the first draft captured. The wider map shows the same instinct applied across half a dozen studios, a dozen games, and thirty-five years. The credits page never caught up.
Total: 23 points. Year: 1991.
Total: 23 points. Year: 1991.
The methodology scores what you built. He built more than the title suggested—and more than even the first draft captured. The wider map shows the same instinct applied across half a dozen studios, a dozen games, and thirty-five years. The credits page never caught up.