by Sean Wilt

I had a chance to review the Aether RPG Game by Aether Gaming Systems. The author of this game was Kevin Rohan. I should state that the copy to the game given to me had a couple of printing errors in it. First, the numbers of the pages were placed inside, rather than outside, the spine of the book. Secondly, there were some issues with the cover. Kevin has corrected those errors so I will not hold that against him. With that disclaimer stated, I will concentrate on four different areas: style, substance, rule mechanics, playability. I will give each a rating of 1 - 5, with one being the worst and five being the best.

Style:

When I refer to style, I mean how well does the book look. It is a matter of art, layout, and writing. When it comes to art, there is no art. The pages of the Aether book have a border around them. The cover is purple with gold lettering and there is a "gold die" as the logo. Beyond that, there is no use of art. The layout of the book is good. Everything is organized into chapters. Page numbers, a table of contents and an index serve as aids to finding the material you are looking for. The writing is "mixed", in my opinion. When I use the word "mixed", I mean there are good and bad points to consider. The good points include the advice given for running games and his explanations of various things, such as weapon caliber, real world physics, etc. The bad points include grammar/spelling errors in this book. While they were not enough, in my opinion, to prevent me from reading the book, they could turn people that demand grammatical perfection from enjoying this book. The author also seems a bit defensive towards those that do not like RPGs. He takes great pains to defend the fact that the book exists and that there are people that like "role-playing." I would like to tell him that Aether is for role-players, not people that look down on that hobby. Therefore, I would give the book three stars. I do this because I do not demand many works of arts in my RPG books. I prefer good layout and writing.

Substance:

When I refer to substance, I am looking at the setting of the book. I believe the author wanted Wellstone City to be a modular city. That is, he wanted people to be able to make it into whatever they wanted without feeling as if they were breaking away from the source. He does have a website where more material can be gathered. Wellstone City is a corrupt city with some unique elements, such a sea monster among other things. With all of this said, what is contained within the twelve pages or so about Wellstone City is good, but I wanted another twelve pages. I wanted organization charts, rosters for the various important people in each faction, etc. As a lazy "narrator", I wanted more information to work with. Instead, I received a summary. I felt like if I could understand these different groups more, then I could better enjoy the setting. I am giving Aether three stars because while the material about the city (setting) was good, I wanted more.

Rule Mechanics:

For this criteria, I am seeing how extensive the rules and character creation process are. I felt like the author spent most of his time on this section. There are plenty of rules from everything to character creations to weapons. He took the time to explain himself as he laid out the rules of the game. I felt like he covered all of the bases, as if player A asked, "I want to do this...", then the "Narrator" could use the index, find the rule, and continue on with the game. There were parts I had to reread but only because of the detail involved. I am giving Aether 4 stars for the extensiveness and ease of find and using rules.

Playability:

This term should be self-explanatory. It refers to the player being able to use the rules without too much confusion. I found that while the rules explained a lot, they were also unwieldy. There were a fair number of charts to refer to (I wonder if a "game screen" might have helped but since it did not come with one, I cannot take this speculation any further.) This is only my personal opinion but I believe that, in RPG design, there is the constant balance between breadth of rules and playability/ease of use. I believe the author leaned towards breadth and depth.

Looking beyond the rules, I had to wonder 'what is the difference in being a bouncer in one corrupt "club" area vs. one in aether.' Do the bouncers have to join a certain "organization" or pay someone for the privilege of having the job? Do they work as muscle in other situations? I could pick out any template and ask similar questions (I could have also asked more questions as well.) As a result, there is nothing special about the templates. Due to the slight unwieldiness and the lack of distinctiveness in role-play, I am giving 2.5 stars.

Overall:

Right away, I can tell that the "simulationist/gaming gamer" would like Aether far more than the "narrative" gamer. Recognizing my personal bias, I lean towards the "narrative" side than the "simulationist/gaming" side of the RPG hobby. I would recommend Aether to someone who is looking for a system to play a modern day game. I would also tell them that the appendix on Wellstone City is a good start but there would have to be some work done to fully flesh out the setting.

If I spoke to someone who wanted a "narrative" game (e.g. White Wolf), then I would tell them Aether has 90 pages or so of rules and 12 pages or so of setting content. At that point, I would let them decide for themselves.

As I stated earlier, there is a website with free content. I cannot say whether it will fill in the gaps or not. If you are interested in purchasing Aether, you will have to go to Lulu.com, set up an account, and then purchase it there. Once again, I would like to thank Kevin Rohan for giving me the chance to review Aether.

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