The Inside Scoop on Gaming

As a fan of Superhero games and a big fan of generic systems, along with the very positive reviews I've seen on this fine web site, I had really high hopes for this game. Perhaps that was the problem.

For those of you who haven't seen or heard of Aberrant, this is a Superhero game set in the near future, where superhumans called Novas start appearing on Earth. Some are dedicated to "evil" and some are dedicated to "good" but most are dedicated to their sponsors. You see, this is our world, and once you are a Nova, you still have to make a living.

The game does very well at creating a world that is believable. If in our time, people started to develop super powers, it would definitely become commercialized in, oh about 15 seconds. There would be Nova support groups and all kinds of things of this nature. The problem with the game is that there really isn't a lot for your character to use their new found powers to do. If you have a corporate sponsor, they certainly don't want to lose their investment with you doing dangerous stuff. But they would want to keep you in the lime light, so your character (at best) may stop some robberies and solve some other crimes. Don't expect to be allowed to get into anything dangerous, though, because then the insurance rates go up.

In my opinion, there are very few plot hooks, although they hint at some conspiracies in the world that you can try to investigate. Most of the concept of the book is much like the rest of White Wolf's games: You were a normal guy, but then something happened. Now react to the fact that you are a vampire/werewolf/superhero/whatever. Now that you've done that, here is a fantastically complicated metaplot that you have to buy every book we publish to identify. Oh, and most of thisare in player's books, so the players will know as much about it as the GM.

As much as I obviously hate to admit it, though, they do a pretty good job getting a feel to the world. There are a lot of really good ideas that could be put into any superhero game (Imagine Spiderman going up against Electrodyne with the power of GE behind him!). I would say that the metaplot as I understand it (I have only read a couple books of the thing) seems plausible, at least more plausible than many of the World of Darkness books.

My real problem with the game is that they tried very hard to make the powers generic enough for people to take them, but simple enough that a second grader could create a character. In my opinion, they ended up with a seriously flawed system with some of the most silly problems that can possibly occur.

Problem one: Mega-stats. These are to make your character really strong, attractive, intelligent, etc. You have to pay Nova points to get these, which is fine. The problem is, the Mega stat description tells you what having each point in the stat gives you. Seems reasonable until you figure out that if you have one point of MegaStrength, and two points of normal strength, you can lift the same amount of base weight as someone who has one point of MegaStrength and five points of normal strength, but will do less damage with a punch. Someone who has one point of MegaIntelligence is just as intelligent as anyone else with one point of MegaIntelligence, no matter what your base stat says. The problem is, it is your base statistic that gives to the best chance to succeed at anything. The MegaStat only allows you to succeed specacularly if it succeeds. So have one point in a Megastat, but only two points in the base stat means that you are less likely to succeed than someone who has more points in the same base stat and one point in the MegaStat, but according to the description, you are just as competent.

Problem 2: Powers. There are quite a few powers and they are well described. They have a fairly simple system for acquiring them, the least powerful powers are 1 point per rank, medium power is 3 points per rank, and the most powerful are 5 points per rank. If you want to limit a power in some way, simply move its cost down one rank. Very simple and straightforward. Here's the problem: What if I want to play someone who has very limited powers, like an alchemist. All my powers have manifested as being able to make potions and little magical constructs. I have a lot of limitations. My powers are not going to be spontaneous at all. I can't just blast someone, I have to be prepared, I need a lot of special materials, and the stuff may not work (I failed to make it properly). With the system presented, I am either really screwing myself because of my effectiveness, or I am going to be really overpowering because now major powers only cost 1 point per rank instead of 5. It took almost no effort for me and one other player to destroy the power system after looking at it the first time.

Fortunately, they are using a better system for rolling and succeeding that doesn't have the flaws that the World of Darkness books had. That is the only thing that made the system even slightly workable, in my opinion. They also didn't come up with really fake clan type constructs to tell you what powers you can get, which is also a big plus.

If you really like superhero games, you may look at this one to get some interesting ideas of how supers interact with the world. The power system and MegaStat system is, in my opinion, fatally flawed, which holds this work down to sourcebook material only. There are many, many better games than this one to play. GURPS, Champions (if you can find it), or anything else will get better results than the system presented in this book.

Aberrant
Aberrant Playtest Review by Nightshade on 15/07/01 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 2 (Sparse) A great concept bogged down by really bad system ideas. Product: Aberrant Author: White Wolf Category: RPG Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Cost: Page count: Year published: ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: no Playtest Review by Nightshade on 15/07/01 Genre tags: Modern day Conspiracy Superhero	As a fan of Superhero games and a big fan of generic systems, along with the very positive reviews I've seen on this fine web site, I had really high hopes for this game. Perhaps that was the problem. For those of you who haven't seen or heard of Aberrant, this is a Superhero game set in the near future, where superhumans called Novas start appearing on Earth. Some are dedicated to "evil" and some are dedicated to "good" but most are dedicated to their sponsors. You see, this is our world, and once you are a Nova, you still have to make a living. The game does very well at creating a world that is believable. If in our time, people started to develop super powers, it would definitely become commercialized in, oh about 15 seconds. There would be Nova support groups and all kinds of things of this nature. The problem with the game is that there really isn't a lot for your character to use their new found powers to do. If you have a corporate sponsor, they certainly don't want to lose their investment with you doing dangerous stuff. But they would want to keep you in the lime light, so your character (at best) may stop some robberies and solve some other crimes. Don't expect to be allowed to get into anything dangerous, though, because then the insurance rates go up. In my opinion, there are very few plot hooks, although they hint at some conspiracies in the world that you can try to investigate. Most of the concept of the book is much like the rest of White Wolf's games: You were a normal guy, but then something happened. Now react to the fact that you are a vampire/werewolf/superhero/whatever. Now that you've done that, here is a fantastically complicated metaplot that you have to buy every book we publish to identify. Oh, and most of thisare in player's books, so the players will know as much about it as the GM. As much as I obviously hate to admit it, though, they do a pretty good job getting a feel to the world. There are a lot of really good ideas that could be put into any superhero game (Imagine Spiderman going up against Electrodyne with the power of GE behind him!). I would say that the metaplot as I understand it (I have only read a couple books of the thing) seems plausible, at least more plausible than many of the World of Darkness books. My real problem with the game is that they tried very hard to make the powers generic enough for people to take them, but simple enough that a second grader could create a character. In my opinion, they ended up with a seriously flawed system with some of the most silly problems that can possibly occur. Problem one: Mega-stats. These are to make your character really strong, attractive, intelligent, etc. You have to pay Nova points to get these, which is fine. The problem is, the Mega stat description tells you what having each point in the stat gives you. Seems reasonable until you figure out that if you have one point of MegaStrength, and two points of normal strength, you can lift the same amount of base weight as someone who has one point of MegaStrength and five points of normal strength, but will do less damage with a punch. Someone who has one point of MegaIntelligence is just as intelligent as anyone else with one point of MegaIntelligence, no matter what your base stat says. The problem is, it is your base statistic that gives to the best chance to succeed at anything. The MegaStat only allows you to succeed specacularly if it succeeds. So have one point in a Megastat, but only two points in the base stat means that you are less likely to succeed than someone who has more points in the same base stat and one point in the MegaStat, but according to the description, you are just as competent. Problem 2: Powers. There are quite a few powers and they are well described. They have a fairly simple system for acquiring them, the least powerful powers are 1 point per rank, medium power is 3 points per rank, and the most powerful are 5 points per rank. If you want to limit a power in some way, simply move its cost down one rank. Very simple and straightforward. Here's the problem: What if I want to play someone who has very limited powers, like an alchemist. All my powers have manifested as being able to make potions and little magical constructs. I have a lot of limitations. My powers are not going to be spontaneous at all. I can't just blast someone, I have to be prepared, I need a lot of special materials, and the stuff may not work (I failed to make it properly). With the system presented, I am either really screwing myself because of my effectiveness, or I am going to be really overpowering because now major powers only cost 1 point per rank instead of 5. It took almost no effort for me and one other player to destroy the power system after looking at it the first time. Fortunately, they are using a better system for rolling and succeeding that doesn't have the flaws that the World of Darkness books had. That is the only thing that made the system even slightly workable, in my opinion. They also didn't come up with really fake clan type constructs to tell you what powers you can get, which is also a big plus. If you really like superhero games, you may look at this one to get some interesting ideas of how supers interact with the world. The power system and MegaStat system is, in my opinion, fatally flawed, which holds this work down to sourcebook material only. There are many, many better games than this one to play. GURPS, Champions (if you can find it), or anything else will get better results than the system presented in this book.