Review of Aberrant: Project Utopia

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I'm warning you in advance. This one will be short.

This is one of the experimental small-and-cheap things that White Wolf put out a couple of years ago. I bought it used at half-price, along with a couple of other Trinity suppliments, because this game is one of my guilty pleasures.

What's Inside

For a 24 page booklet, there's more meat than I expected from White Wolf. The title makes plain what the contents are- a set of reports from jumpship expeditions to interstellar colonies. Five went out, but only four reports came through; the fifth got corrupted on the way back to Earth and couldn't be salvaged.

Yes, there is a brief explanation for how that's possible. The teams used a variant of the jumpship technology to send FTL-capable letters in a bottle back to Earth, using the jumpship's FTL drive to get 'em going. That sort of attention to detail is what I like from this game line, which is why I still support it.

It's as simple as it gets. The booklet begins with a cover letter, moves to an introduction explaining the mission--including who got involved with what group--and then breaks down each mission's likely outcome. In sidebars are trivial (to me) but interesting bits about what it feels like for a clairsentient to navigate a jumpship through subquantum space, more important things like the mental state of the Karoo colonists, and vital things like Qin wildlife and the state of Aberrant affairs on Khantze Lu Ge.

Each report goes into more detail. Two of the four reports include filings by at least two mission members, often with conflicting ideas on the situation. All of them have related filings on elements of importance to their situation, including one continuing mystery of some sort.

(Not necessary in order: Karoo- the Upeo and their involvement with the destruction of the last massive Chromatic assault; KLG- the rift in the Aberrant forces; Qinshui- the Qin and their homeworld; Averginus- the political situation behind the Norca's repressive attitude toward the place.)

These reports are current as 2120, which is the default starting year of any Trinity game, so they don't take into account the events of the published adventure modules because those events haven't occured yet. That makes 'em safe for those who fear spoilers about the game's metaplot, and for those that don't want to use it. They give a GM just enough material that he can craft whatever he wants and not make the rest of the non-adventure material useless.

Conclusion

It's a good prop, not bad for the price, and useful for adhearants as well as refusers of the game's metaplot. That's not bad, so I say that you ought to check it out. If you can get a used copy that's as good as new, then definitely get one.