The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Let me start by discussing the page count - the $25.95US black and white book was listed as 224 pages, and rumour is that some copies actually include 224 pages. Mine includes only 190. What's missing (if anything) is a mystery.

CONTENT

The book begins inauspiciously: developer Kraig Blackwelder begins the first page (the table of contents is at the back.. I suppose this way it doubles as an abbreviated index) by stating that Aberrant is not a superhero game. The first three pages are devoted to this highly suspect and largely semantic argument, sprinkled with some mildly condescending roleplaying advice. This three-page introduction comprises one of the *four* entries on p.190's table of contents.

The flavour/setting Chapter One: World of Aberrant opens with an amusing two-page take on novas' choice of codenames. However, the next *seven* pages are inexplicably devoted to the practice of registering said codenames. I repeat: Two pages are devoted to choosing codenames and SEVEN pages are devoted to the registration of those names with the appropriate agency. I guess Aberrant really *isn't* a superhero game, or perhaps I missed the four-issue Batman: Intellectual Property miniseries where Alfred fills in copyright forms for the Bat-logo.

The next eleven pages concern the implications of superpowers on criminal law and vigilantism: well-written and reasonably useful, with the exception of a two-page fluff interview in the middle that largely rehashes material that's been covered in other books in the line. Five pages is spent on how status and allies and such are accumulated in the various game factions. This material seems a mix of the stunningly obvious and material rehashed from the books dedicated to each of these organizations. Next is a few solid pages on the everyday concerns of the super-powered. This is followed by a few good pages on super-powered space travel. Some details of mass media and communications are up next: this section is pure fluff, and includes entirely superfluous stats for two NPCs (yes, in the Player's Guide).

Four pages are devoted to the eruption (the traumatic moment at which superpowers emerge). It includes a nice list of events that can trigger eruption, and how the whole experience influences the nova's power development. Chapter One concludes with nine pages on historical novas, starting with five pages of fluff largely concerning crackpots who claim any number of significant historical figures (including Jesus - bizarrely accompanying the Jesus text is a piece of art showing a buff, vaguely demonic looking nova badass...) were novas. This segues amusingly into a section on actually playing novas through history... the suggested examples again combine the insightful with the insultingly obvious (and numerous references to the historical WoD games as recommended reference materials... nudge nudge wink wink).

Chapter Two: Game Systems starts on page 55, without any sort of heading. The flavour material continues into this section, so the transition is essentially invisible (at least until we read about it on page 190). Why not just combine all of the content into one chapter, and so cut the ToC down to a sleek two entries?

Chapter Two begins with Trinity-Aberrant crossover material. Trinity's psions are given a significant power upgrade, and named "psiads". The rules look solid, and the psiads look quite playable. The next three pages contain the errata for the main Aberrant book. Yes, the errata for the MAIN BOOK (published in 1998) are buried in the middle of the game systems chapter of 2001's Player's Guide. Granted, it's nice to finally have 'em.

This section is followed by twelve pages of refinements to chargen, including Merits & Flaws, and alternate points-allocation systems. Overall, this is solid and useful material for both players and GMs. The next dozen pages flesh out backgrounds (good) and new abilities (mostly useless), with some especially interesting material on Eufiber (I'll assume you've read Aberrant here). There are a few pages of new aberrations, and this is some of the best stuff in the book. Next is a bunch of power-customizing material, which is uneven but overall fairly useful,

The real meat of the book falls between pages 100 and 119. This covers a truckload of new enhancements for the Mega-Attributes, which are almost all excellent. Also included are a couple of new level-3 powers, and another truckload of customizations (including extras, techniques, and alternate mechanics) for existing level 1, 2 and 3 powers. This section will be highly useful to almost any PC or GM, and in many cases greatly improves on material in the core book. A notable exception is the Animation technique for Cyberkinesis (again, I'm going to assume some familiarity with the rules). Animation is a technique for a lvl-3 power, it requires Quantum 6, and what does it do? It essentially allows your character to simulate a remote control, and scare people by turning stuff on and off.

The next 20 pages are interesting, but far less useful. This section details the godlike powers and abilities available to the select few. The level 4 powers are mostly reasonable, and probably represent the upper limit of power level that most games will deal with. All the same, level 5 and 6 powers, in all their gruesome excess, are detailed. They *are* interesting and well-written, although it seems somewhat ludicrous to assign resolution mechanics to powers like "Universe Creation". The counter-intuitive manner in which Abberant integrates attribute ratings into super-power rolls becomes especially dubious when dealing with these planet-smashing cosmic powers. ("yeah, Mike, roll Dex plus Quantum Inferno to see if you hit Jupiter"). I digress.

The chapter concludes with a couple more pages of solid power-customization rules (why aren't these with the rest of those rules?) and a few pages of nice super-inventor gadget rules.

Chapter Three: Nova Affiliations opens with a two-page comic of a superhero-team battle (see Introduction comments). This time, we do get a chapter heading, although it's on pg 151. The chapter contains nova teams representing the Netherlands, Australia and Japan (no word on whether any of these folks are superheroes), followed by "municipal defenders" (read: nova cops). There's also a space-exploration group, a mental-powers institute, an eco-terrorist group, a gay-rights group, a PR-stunt New Mutants ripoff, and a disaster-survival group (to grossly abbreviate... something this review could use more of).

IMPRESSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The text layout is typical of Aberrant sourcebooks, and is dense but quite readable. As mentioned above, the cover art is very good. Unfortunately , the interior art is mostly mediocre or worse, with by far the best pieces coming from Steve Ellis. The illustrations for the Mega-Attributes and Quantum Powers are especially poor, particularly in comparison to the previous work done by Jeff Rebner.

The book is poorly organized, with no index and an utterly useless table of contents. Unfortunately, the IC "flavour" pages, which worked so well in the core books of Aberrant and Trinity, seem to have become a tool for padding the page count and book price. Page 9 has a sample application form for codename registration . 'Nuff said. And don’t even get me started on the practice of scattering and intermingling the rules and the setting through many books…

Anyhow, the capsule review goes like this: I felt like I got about 35-40 pages of good material, 50 pages of decent material, and over 100 pages of filler for my $26US. There's some extremely valuable stuff in the book, but it should have been half as big and $15US.

Aberrant Player's Guide Das Butt
Item type: RPG Product Name: Aberrant Player's Guide Author: Bruce Baugh, et al. Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Aberrant SKU: WW8505 Cost: 25.95US Page count: 224? ISBN: 1-56504-687-0 Ratings: Style 3 (Average) Substance 3 (Average) Review type: Capsule Review	Let me start by discussing the page count - the $25.95US black and white book was listed as 224 pages, and rumour is that some copies actually include 224 pages. Mine includes only 190. What's missing (if anything) is a mystery. CONTENT The book begins inauspiciously: developer Kraig Blackwelder begins the first page (the table of contents is at the back.. I suppose this way it doubles as an abbreviated index) by stating that Aberrant is not a superhero game. The first three pages are devoted to this highly suspect and largely semantic argument, sprinkled with some mildly condescending roleplaying advice. This three-page introduction comprises one of the four entries on p.190's table of contents. The flavour/setting Chapter One: World of Aberrant opens with an amusing two-page take on novas' choice of codenames. However, the next seven pages are inexplicably devoted to the practice of registering said codenames. I repeat: Two pages are devoted to choosing codenames and SEVEN pages are devoted to the registration of those names with the appropriate agency. I guess Aberrant really isn't a superhero game, or perhaps I missed the four-issue Batman: Intellectual Property miniseries where Alfred fills in copyright forms for the Bat-logo. The next eleven pages concern the implications of superpowers on criminal law and vigilantism: well-written and reasonably useful, with the exception of a two-page fluff interview in the middle that largely rehashes material that's been covered in other books in the line. Five pages is spent on how status and allies and such are accumulated in the various game factions. This material seems a mix of the stunningly obvious and material rehashed from the books dedicated to each of these organizations. Next is a few solid pages on the everyday concerns of the super-powered. This is followed by a few good pages on super-powered space travel. Some details of mass media and communications are up next: this section is pure fluff, and includes entirely superfluous stats for two NPCs (yes, in the Player's Guide). Four pages are devoted to the eruption (the traumatic moment at which superpowers emerge). It includes a nice list of events that can trigger eruption, and how the whole experience influences the nova's power development. Chapter One concludes with nine pages on historical novas, starting with five pages of fluff largely concerning crackpots who claim any number of significant historical figures (including Jesus - bizarrely accompanying the Jesus text is a piece of art showing a buff, vaguely demonic looking nova badass...) were novas. This segues amusingly into a section on actually playing novas through history... the suggested examples again combine the insightful with the insultingly obvious (and numerous references to the historical WoD games as recommended reference materials... nudge nudge wink wink). Chapter Two: Game Systems starts on page 55, without any sort of heading. The flavour material continues into this section, so the transition is essentially invisible (at least until we read about it on page 190). Why not just combine all of the content into one chapter, and so cut the ToC down to a sleek two entries? Chapter Two begins with Trinity-Aberrant crossover material. Trinity's psions are given a significant power upgrade, and named "psiads". The rules look solid, and the psiads look quite playable. The next three pages contain the errata for the main Aberrant book. Yes, the errata for the MAIN BOOK (published in 1998) are buried in the middle of the game systems chapter of 2001's Player's Guide. Granted, it's nice to finally have 'em. This section is followed by twelve pages of refinements to chargen, including Merits & Flaws, and alternate points-allocation systems. Overall, this is solid and useful material for both players and GMs. The next dozen pages flesh out backgrounds (good) and new abilities (mostly useless), with some especially interesting material on Eufiber (I'll assume you've read Aberrant here). There are a few pages of new aberrations, and this is some of the best stuff in the book. Next is a bunch of power-customizing material, which is uneven but overall fairly useful, The real meat of the book falls between pages 100 and 119. This covers a truckload of new enhancements for the Mega-Attributes, which are almost all excellent. Also included are a couple of new level-3 powers, and another truckload of customizations (including extras, techniques, and alternate mechanics) for existing level 1, 2 and 3 powers. This section will be highly useful to almost any PC or GM, and in many cases greatly improves on material in the core book. A notable exception is the Animation technique for Cyberkinesis (again, I'm going to assume some familiarity with the rules). Animation is a technique for a lvl-3 power, it requires Quantum 6, and what does it do? It essentially allows your character to simulate a remote control, and scare people by turning stuff on and off. The next 20 pages are interesting, but far less useful. This section details the godlike powers and abilities available to the select few. The level 4 powers are mostly reasonable, and probably represent the upper limit of power level that most games will deal with. All the same, level 5 and 6 powers, in all their gruesome excess, are detailed. They are interesting and well-written, although it seems somewhat ludicrous to assign resolution mechanics to powers like "Universe Creation". The counter-intuitive manner in which Abberant integrates attribute ratings into super-power rolls becomes especially dubious when dealing with these planet-smashing cosmic powers. ("yeah, Mike, roll Dex plus Quantum Inferno to see if you hit Jupiter"). I digress. The chapter concludes with a couple more pages of solid power-customization rules (why aren't these with the rest of those rules?) and a few pages of nice super-inventor gadget rules. Chapter Three: Nova Affiliations opens with a two-page comic of a superhero-team battle (see Introduction comments). This time, we do get a chapter heading, although it's on pg 151. The chapter contains nova teams representing the Netherlands, Australia and Japan (no word on whether any of these folks are superheroes), followed by "municipal defenders" (read: nova cops). There's also a space-exploration group, a mental-powers institute, an eco-terrorist group, a gay-rights group, a PR-stunt New Mutants ripoff, and a disaster-survival group (to grossly abbreviate... something this review could use more of). IMPRESSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS The text layout is typical of Aberrant sourcebooks, and is dense but quite readable. As mentioned above, the cover art is very good. Unfortunately , the interior art is mostly mediocre or worse, with by far the best pieces coming from Steve Ellis. The illustrations for the Mega-Attributes and Quantum Powers are especially poor, particularly in comparison to the previous work done by Jeff Rebner. The book is poorly organized, with no index and an utterly useless table of contents. Unfortunately, the IC "flavour" pages, which worked so well in the core books of Aberrant and Trinity, seem to have become a tool for padding the page count and book price. Page 9 has a sample application form for codename registration . 'Nuff said. And don’t even get me started on the practice of scattering and intermingling the rules and the setting through many books… Anyhow, the capsule review goes like this: I felt like I got about 35-40 pages of good material, 50 pages of decent material, and over 100 pages of filler for my $26US. There's some extremely valuable stuff in the book, but it should have been half as big and $15US.

Aberrant Player's Guide