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The superhero genre has fallen on hard times. In the 80s, Hero Games was one of the most prolific companies around, and there were several viable rivals to Champions (such as Superworld, Villains & Vigilantes, DC Heroes, Marvel Superheroes, and GURPS Supers, each of which produced a fair number of supplements). I haven't played a superhero RPG in several years, but I remember fondly my long-running Champions campaign, as well as my online GURPS Supers campaign. Superhero RPGs, like the comic book industry, seem to be a boom that has busted.

Now White Wolf comes out with Aberrant. Already it has two strikes against it in my book, because it's White Wolf. I am nothing if not open about my biases: I think the World of Darkness is a pretentious pretext for politically-correct angst, and I think the Storyteller system is klunky, awkward, too grainy, and if most RPGs attempt to strike a balance between realism and playability, or between a cinematic and a realistic feel, Storyteller fails on all counts.

So imagine my surprise at being blown away by Aberrant. While I can usually find something worthwhile, or at least amusing, in any new rulebook, not many games make me immediately want to play. In recent memory, only In Nomine and Legend of the Five Rings succeeded on that score. (Thus knowing my tastes, you can calibrate your own reactions to my opinions accordingly.)

SETTING

Aberrant is not set in the World of Darkness. Better yet, it doesn't even resemble the World of Darkness. There is a certain amount of angst, yes, but the GM is given a lot more latitude in choosing how dark he wants the setting to be. Played straight, Aberrant manages to be a fairly gritty setting that speculates, pretty convincingly, about the effects of having godlike individuals with superpowers roaming the Earth. There are numerous plot hooks that can make Aberrant very dark indeed. In fact, this game is a prequel to White Wolf's Trinity RPG, and according to the official timeline, the superhuman "novas" of Aberrant are going to fight a bloody war with humanity in a few decades. (Reviewer's Note: This is just what I learned from reading Aberrant; I have never read Trinity and am not familiar with it.) However, the writers explicitly tell the GM that he need not feel obligated to follow "canon," and that he can run Aberrant with the setting as bright as the Legion of Super Friends if he wants. Of course an experienced GM doesn't need the writers to give him permission to change whatever he feels like changing, but the fact that the basic rulebook invites GMs to mess around with the official universe, and does not hardwire the setting into a particular viewpoint, is a refreshingly positive thing.

Aberrant is set in the year 2008. In 1998, the first superhumans appeared. They came to be called "novas," and while the initial cause of their appearance is blamed on an exploding space station that showered the entire planet with radiation, eventually the source of their powers is found to be a little node in the brain, right between the frontal lobes. Novas have it, normal people ("baselines") don't. This node gives novas the ability to manipulate "quantum energy," which, as scientists discover, basically gives them the ability to do anything. There is no power theoretically beyond the range of nova abilities, though of course individual novas are finite beings and don't have every possible power.

After some initial, understandable turmoil, a new world order establishes itself. By and large, novas do not put on costumes and become "superheroes" or "supervillains." There are so many opportunities for a nova to become filthy rich legally, there really isn't much reason for one to turn to a life of crime...though of course, novas can be as anti-social as anyone else, giving plenty of other motives to be bad guys.

For the most part, novas have changed the world for the better, and outwardly, the world of 2008 seems to be a bright one, showing signs of only getting better. Thanks to scientific advances gained from the study of novas, and in some cases due to direct nova intervention, most deadly diseases have been cured, technology has become cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient, and wars are largely reduced, thanks to both a greatly beefed-up U.N., and the fact that nations now find it more cost-effective to hire nova mercenaries to fight for them as proxies, rather than fielding large armies which seek to raze cities.

The most prominent organization of novas is "Project Utopia," a U.N.-backed organization that hires novas to keep the peace and improve the standard of living for the entire world. Among other things, Project Utopia has terraformed the Ethiopian highlands, turning famine-stricken desert into lush farmland. Any nova who wants to join Project Utopia receives a starting salary that will make him an instant millionaire, and in return he gets to use his powers to help mankind.

Of course, the world isn't quite that squeaky-clean. First, there are the Terragens. This "organization" is really more of an ideological group, made up of novas who believe that they are a race completely separate from humanity, and that therefore human laws and society no longer applies to them. Terragens aren't necessarily villains -- at least one remains a popular public figure -- but they do tend to attract the sociopathic nova element.

Second, there is the Directorate. Four countries -- the U.S., the U.K., Japan, and Russia -- are not very happy about the U.N. being given so much power, or Project Utopia being given so much autonomy. So they have formed their own group of novas to protect the interests of the "good ol' boy" superpowers.

Third, there is the latest development: the Aberrants. "Aberrant" is derisive slang for a nova. Following the mysterious death of a very popular member of Project Utopia, rumors of a conspiracy are circulating among the nova and baseline population. Some believe that Project Utopia actually harbors a more sinister agenda, and that its members are willing to kill anyone who threatens to unearth its secrets.

As a nova, you might join any of the above groups. Or you could become an "elite," a mercenary working for any number of agencies willing to pay a nova millions for jobs both legal and illegal. Or you could just make your own way in the world.

Plenty of hooks for a campaign.

RULES:

Aberrant uses the Storyteller system, but cleaned up and with a twist. Besides the usual Storyteller attributes, abilities, and backgrounds, you also get to spend nova points on nova powers. These can be both quantum powers and mega-attributes. So you still have a Strength rating of 1 to 5, for example, but if you buy Mega-Strength, then you are effectively on an entirely different scale. Mega-Attributes also come in rankings of 1 to 5, so a character with Strength 1 and Mega-Strength 1 can squash a mere mortal with Strength 5 but no Mega-Strength, but against someone with Strength 5 and Mega-Strength 1 is as weak as two normal characters with Strength 1 & 5, respectively. And someone with Mega-Strength 2 would squash both of them. And so on.

Additionally, each Mega-Attribute comes with "extras" that you can buy. For example, Mega-Strength has extras like Shockwave (smack the ground and create a small earthquake) and Lifter (multiply the amount of weight you can lift geometrically). Mega-Appearance allows extras like Appearance Alteration or Face of Terror.

Quantum powers also come in groups; you can buy Gravity Control, for example, and then within that power buy specific abilities like Gravitic Blast, Gravitic Flight, Gravitokinesis, etc. Then you can buy additional "extras" to further refine these powers. This works a lot like the familiar model of buying powers with advantages or modifiers, ala Champions and GURPS Supers.

The surprising thing about it is that it actually works, and quite cleverly. I'd never have expected the Storyteller system to handle superheroics so well, but the range of powers (including Mega-Attributes) is large enough to handle all the abilities demonstrated by most of your favorite comic book characters, and the scope is flexible enough to handle fairly well even those perennially difficult-to-simulate characters like Superman, Green Lantern, the Hulk, and others who would cost obscene amounts of points in other systems. I wouldn't recommend Aberrant over Champions if you are just looking for a good superhero RPG engine to use in a generic setting, but it is a viable contender.

Aberrant doesn't allow much flexibility in the origin of your powers, since the setting assumes that all powers have one origin. Thus, no gadgeteer, Iron Man or Dr. Strange characters. I suppose if you really want magic, you could import Mage's rules. There also isn't much in the way of classic superhero disadvantages; the closest equivalent in Aberrant is "Taint." Taint is what happens when your body is channeling more quantum energy than it can handle. The more powerful you are, the more Taint you acquire. You can also buy powers at half-price, in exchange for receiving Taint. Too much Taint eventually inflicts mental and physical aberrations. (If this doesn't fit your vision of how superpowers work, the whole Taint concept can easily be ignored.)

LAYOUT:

Aberrant is oddly-sized for an RPG rulebook. It looks more like a thick graphic novel.

The first half of the book is all full-color setting material; no references to the game at all. It's a collage of excerpts from a multitude of sources that orient you to the background a bit at a time; news clippings, TV interviews, web pages, historical articles, inter-office memos, advertisements, and a couple of pages of comic book art. For the most part, interesting and well-rendered, though I found myself wishing there was some more organization so I could just look things up instead of waiting for each bit of the world to be explained to me when I stumbled across an article dealing with it.

The second half of the book is rules. It explains the Storyteller system fairly well, though I think a little more in the way of system mechanics before the extensive list of super-powers would have been helpful. Also, with all these new ways in which characteristics and abilities and powers interact, some more examples to help us follow along would have nice. The combat section is more detailed than in most White Wolf games, as you'd expect when dealing with superhumans. There appears to be a good variety of maneuvers and tricks one can use. I have not actually playtested the game yet, though, so I can't say how well Aberrant handles one of the most difficult things to simulate in superhero RPGs: allowing superpowered beings to beat on one another without unexpectedly turning characters not designed for such abuse into bloody smears. This is something that Champions does well, at the expense of realism (you can have prolonged super-slugfests, and still be in shape to do it again in the next scene, but it's awfully hard to actually kill someone, even with what should be lethal attacks), and GURPS Supers does poorly (supers will frequently either be able to ignore attacks from another super, or else be instantly killed by them).

The advice to the GM section is sparse, as is additional background material. If you like the setting that's lightly sketched in in the first part of the book, you're pretty much on your own developing it in more detail. No doubt this is how White Wolf expects to sell more supplements for Aberrant.

If you are looking for a generic superhero game system, Aberrant is worth looking at, though it may or may not appeal to you. If you like the setting presented here, Aberrant is definitely worth picking up. If you like the basic idea -- high-powered supers in a fairly realistic world -- but don't want to play the setting exactly as presented, I'd say Aberrant remains a worthy entry in the field.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Aberrant
Author: Multiple Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Aberrant Cost: $24.95 Page count: 294 ISBN: 1-56504-626-9 SKU: WW8500 Capsule Review by David Edelstein on 09/16/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Modern_day Conspiracy Superhero	The superhero genre has fallen on hard times. In the 80s, Hero Games was one of the most prolific companies around, and there were several viable rivals to Champions (such as Superworld, Villains & Vigilantes, DC Heroes, Marvel Superheroes, and GURPS Supers, each of which produced a fair number of supplements). I haven't played a superhero RPG in several years, but I remember fondly my long-running Champions campaign, as well as my online GURPS Supers campaign. Superhero RPGs, like the comic book industry, seem to be a boom that has busted. Now White Wolf comes out with Aberrant. Already it has two strikes against it in my book, because it's White Wolf. I am nothing if not open about my biases: I think the World of Darkness is a pretentious pretext for politically-correct angst, and I think the Storyteller system is klunky, awkward, too grainy, and if most RPGs attempt to strike a balance between realism and playability, or between a cinematic and a realistic feel, Storyteller fails on all counts. So imagine my surprise at being blown away by Aberrant. While I can usually find something worthwhile, or at least amusing, in any new rulebook, not many games make me immediately want to play. In recent memory, only In Nomine and Legend of the Five Rings succeeded on that score. (Thus knowing my tastes, you can calibrate your own reactions to my opinions accordingly.) SETTING Aberrant is not set in the World of Darkness. Better yet, it doesn't even resemble the World of Darkness. There is a certain amount of angst, yes, but the GM is given a lot more latitude in choosing how dark he wants the setting to be. Played straight, Aberrant manages to be a fairly gritty setting that speculates, pretty convincingly, about the effects of having godlike individuals with superpowers roaming the Earth. There are numerous plot hooks that can make Aberrant very dark indeed. In fact, this game is a prequel to White Wolf's Trinity RPG, and according to the official timeline, the superhuman "novas" of Aberrant are going to fight a bloody war with humanity in a few decades. (Reviewer's Note: This is just what I learned from reading Aberrant; I have never read Trinity and am not familiar with it.) However, the writers explicitly tell the GM that he need not feel obligated to follow "canon," and that he can run Aberrant with the setting as bright as the Legion of Super Friends if he wants. Of course an experienced GM doesn't need the writers to give him permission to change whatever he feels like changing, but the fact that the basic rulebook invites GMs to mess around with the official universe, and does not hardwire the setting into a particular viewpoint, is a refreshingly positive thing. Aberrant is set in the year 2008. In 1998, the first superhumans appeared. They came to be called "novas," and while the initial cause of their appearance is blamed on an exploding space station that showered the entire planet with radiation, eventually the source of their powers is found to be a little node in the brain, right between the frontal lobes. Novas have it, normal people ("baselines") don't. This node gives novas the ability to manipulate "quantum energy," which, as scientists discover, basically gives them the ability to do anything. There is no power theoretically beyond the range of nova abilities, though of course individual novas are finite beings and don't have every possible power. After some initial, understandable turmoil, a new world order establishes itself. By and large, novas do not put on costumes and become "superheroes" or "supervillains." There are so many opportunities for a nova to become filthy rich legally, there really isn't much reason for one to turn to a life of crime...though of course, novas can be as anti-social as anyone else, giving plenty of other motives to be bad guys. For the most part, novas have changed the world for the better, and outwardly, the world of 2008 seems to be a bright one, showing signs of only getting better. Thanks to scientific advances gained from the study of novas, and in some cases due to direct nova intervention, most deadly diseases have been cured, technology has become cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient, and wars are largely reduced, thanks to both a greatly beefed-up U.N., and the fact that nations now find it more cost-effective to hire nova mercenaries to fight for them as proxies, rather than fielding large armies which seek to raze cities. The most prominent organization of novas is "Project Utopia," a U.N.-backed organization that hires novas to keep the peace and improve the standard of living for the entire world. Among other things, Project Utopia has terraformed the Ethiopian highlands, turning famine-stricken desert into lush farmland. Any nova who wants to join Project Utopia receives a starting salary that will make him an instant millionaire, and in return he gets to use his powers to help mankind. Of course, the world isn't quite that squeaky-clean. First, there are the Terragens. This "organization" is really more of an ideological group, made up of novas who believe that they are a race completely separate from humanity, and that therefore human laws and society no longer applies to them. Terragens aren't necessarily villains -- at least one remains a popular public figure -- but they do tend to attract the sociopathic nova element. Second, there is the Directorate. Four countries -- the U.S., the U.K., Japan, and Russia -- are not very happy about the U.N. being given so much power, or Project Utopia being given so much autonomy. So they have formed their own group of novas to protect the interests of the "good ol' boy" superpowers. Third, there is the latest development: the Aberrants. "Aberrant" is derisive slang for a nova. Following the mysterious death of a very popular member of Project Utopia, rumors of a conspiracy are circulating among the nova and baseline population. Some believe that Project Utopia actually harbors a more sinister agenda, and that its members are willing to kill anyone who threatens to unearth its secrets. As a nova, you might join any of the above groups. Or you could become an "elite," a mercenary working for any number of agencies willing to pay a nova millions for jobs both legal and illegal. Or you could just make your own way in the world. Plenty of hooks for a campaign. RULES: Aberrant uses the Storyteller system, but cleaned up and with a twist. Besides the usual Storyteller attributes, abilities, and backgrounds, you also get to spend nova points on nova powers. These can be both quantum powers and mega-attributes. So you still have a Strength rating of 1 to 5, for example, but if you buy Mega-Strength, then you are effectively on an entirely different scale. Mega-Attributes also come in rankings of 1 to 5, so a character with Strength 1 and Mega-Strength 1 can squash a mere mortal with Strength 5 but no Mega-Strength, but against someone with Strength 5 and Mega-Strength 1 is as weak as two normal characters with Strength 1 & 5, respectively. And someone with Mega-Strength 2 would squash both of them. And so on. Additionally, each Mega-Attribute comes with "extras" that you can buy. For example, Mega-Strength has extras like Shockwave (smack the ground and create a small earthquake) and Lifter (multiply the amount of weight you can lift geometrically). Mega-Appearance allows extras like Appearance Alteration or Face of Terror. Quantum powers also come in groups; you can buy Gravity Control, for example, and then within that power buy specific abilities like Gravitic Blast, Gravitic Flight, Gravitokinesis, etc. Then you can buy additional "extras" to further refine these powers. This works a lot like the familiar model of buying powers with advantages or modifiers, ala Champions and GURPS Supers. The surprising thing about it is that it actually works, and quite cleverly. I'd never have expected the Storyteller system to handle superheroics so well, but the range of powers (including Mega-Attributes) is large enough to handle all the abilities demonstrated by most of your favorite comic book characters, and the scope is flexible enough to handle fairly well even those perennially difficult-to-simulate characters like Superman, Green Lantern, the Hulk, and others who would cost obscene amounts of points in other systems. I wouldn't recommend Aberrant over Champions if you are just looking for a good superhero RPG engine to use in a generic setting, but it is a viable contender. Aberrant doesn't allow much flexibility in the origin of your powers, since the setting assumes that all powers have one origin. Thus, no gadgeteer, Iron Man or Dr. Strange characters. I suppose if you really want magic, you could import Mage's rules. There also isn't much in the way of classic superhero disadvantages; the closest equivalent in Aberrant is "Taint." Taint is what happens when your body is channeling more quantum energy than it can handle. The more powerful you are, the more Taint you acquire. You can also buy powers at half-price, in exchange for receiving Taint. Too much Taint eventually inflicts mental and physical aberrations. (If this doesn't fit your vision of how superpowers work, the whole Taint concept can easily be ignored.) LAYOUT: Aberrant is oddly-sized for an RPG rulebook. It looks more like a thick graphic novel. The first half of the book is all full-color setting material; no references to the game at all. It's a collage of excerpts from a multitude of sources that orient you to the background a bit at a time; news clippings, TV interviews, web pages, historical articles, inter-office memos, advertisements, and a couple of pages of comic book art. For the most part, interesting and well-rendered, though I found myself wishing there was some more organization so I could just look things up instead of waiting for each bit of the world to be explained to me when I stumbled across an article dealing with it. The second half of the book is rules. It explains the Storyteller system fairly well, though I think a little more in the way of system mechanics before the extensive list of super-powers would have been helpful. Also, with all these new ways in which characteristics and abilities and powers interact, some more examples to help us follow along would have nice. The combat section is more detailed than in most White Wolf games, as you'd expect when dealing with superhumans. There appears to be a good variety of maneuvers and tricks one can use. I have not actually playtested the game yet, though, so I can't say how well Aberrant handles one of the most difficult things to simulate in superhero RPGs: allowing superpowered beings to beat on one another without unexpectedly turning characters not designed for such abuse into bloody smears. This is something that Champions does well, at the expense of realism (you can have prolonged super-slugfests, and still be in shape to do it again in the next scene, but it's awfully hard to actually kill someone, even with what should be lethal attacks), and GURPS Supers does poorly (supers will frequently either be able to ignore attacks from another super, or else be instantly killed by them). The advice to the GM section is sparse, as is additional background material. If you like the setting that's lightly sketched in in the first part of the book, you're pretty much on your own developing it in more detail. No doubt this is how White Wolf expects to sell more supplements for Aberrant. If you are looking for a generic superhero game system, Aberrant is worth looking at, though it may or may not appeal to you. If you like the setting presented here, Aberrant is definitely worth picking up. If you like the basic idea -- high-powered supers in a fairly realistic world -- but don't want to play the setting exactly as presented, I'd say Aberrant remains a worthy entry in the field. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty)