I had been waiting for this supplement to come since I first read pages 54-55 of the Aberrant rule book. The sequence where XWF Champion Duke "Core" Baron takes on Rob "Superbeast" Steele intrigued me, and provided a neat glimpse into the marketing of Novas (the super-humans in White Wolf's sci-fi universe). Having been a wrestling fan in 1980's, it seemed logical to me that someone would develop a similar arena of competition for Novas. Well, someone did, and that arena is the XWF, and this supplement does a decent job of showing Aberrant players just how it all works.
This supplement is one of White Wolf's low cost, $4.95 jobs, complete with a nice glossy cover depicting the XWF's cool logo. Incidentally, XWF stands for Xtreme Warfare Federation, which is essentially a combination of superhuman professional wrestling and shoot-fighting.
The introduction consists of a five page piece of fiction written from the POV of an OpNet journalist savvy in the ways of the XWF. The narrator witnesses the build up to a match featuring XWF champ Duke "Core" Baron, and in the offing manages to impart to his readers a good deal of information about the strange culture of the league, and the fanatical devotion of its fans.
After another piece of media fiction (an N! interview with a nova), a lexicon of XWF terminology is presented, followed up by a the "meat" of the book (perhaps in this case we should use the term "lunch meat," as any gaming supplement this small lacks the substance of its larger cousins). We get in short order, the XWF's history, structure, primary venues and broadcasts, arena make-up, rules (there aren't many), and finally, the combatants. In this section one is given a nice picture of the hierarchy of XWF fighters, from the lowly "jobbers" whose duty it is to lose to their more powerful and sometimes less photogenic bretheren, to the top contenders of the Black Circle (the highest tier of competiton in the XWF).
Five of the XWF's top fighters are profiled in the supplement, with enough stats provided to use them in a fight. Not giving anything away, I will say that Duke "Core" Baron is a nova badass. Ahem. Also profiled are the movers and shakers of the XWF's Executive Committee, with enough detail around which to build usable plots. Current wrestling fans may be surpised to learn that a certain nature Boy is still rather active in 2008, and could play a pivotal role in the future of the XWF.
The supplement closes with a few new maneuvers often encountered in the combat zones of the XWF, with my favorite being the ubiquitous piledriver.
Aberrant: XWF delivers the goods. Players will have enough information to fully incorporate the XWF into their storylines, and it is done with style. Rob Hatch's writing provided more than a few audible chuckles as I devoured it over my lunch. Steve Prescott's interior art was serviceable, and actually pretty good in some spots. As I began writing this review, I thought that the Substance of the product was merely average, but I'm going to change that. For what the XWF is, Aberrant: XWF provides more than enough information and inspiration around which to build interesting stories. I'm not sure I would have wanted 75 or 100 pages on this--24 seems just right.
Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
