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Aberrant: Elites

Blood and fury for sale to the highest bidder

I picked up this book at Origins. It was right up my alley. I've just recently started an Aberrant game, and the team is an Elite agency... So, I was hoping for some tips on Elite groups, and perhaps some suggestions on team dynamics... In all, I wasn't too disappointed.

The book is in the standard White Wolf Aberrant format, with the following sections:

• An in-character fiction piece
  In this case, an excerpt from a nova elite's interview for the OpNet. Some hard ethical questions are raised, and it's not bad stuff.
• The DeVries Agency
  A complete profile of the Nova outsourcing agency. It goes for twenty-eight pages, and covers the corporate history, the separation of standard novas from combat elites, relations with other entities such as project utopia and The Directive, a profile of some of it's major clients, what working for DeVries is like from a nova's standpoint and the standard staff character sheets. I was impressed to see more baseline character sheets. Unlike the Project Utopia sourcebook, where only the Nova staff merited a character sheet.
• Other Elite Agencies
  A brief overview of some of the other elite agencies out there, and some of their structure and history. They seem reasonably well fleshed out... Enough that I'll use them in my own game. This took up about 15 pages... more than enough for a quick gloss of the history and ethical basis for each group.
• Elite Life
  This section, which goes for a 12 pages, covers the basics of what you might need to set up your own elite agency, the kinds of agencies out there (who'd have thought about a nova-only escort service?). I was especially happy that White Wolf included a small section on ethical conflicts. This seems to me to be so much at the heart of the Nova Elite existence...
• Devices
  This section, which goes for 12 pages, covers some nova-inspired technology. I know that much of the technology listed in here is going to raise arguments all over the place, as much of the tech detailed is more advanced than some of the material listed in Trinity... I particularly like the ideas behind the mood-control helmet and the nano-tech devices...
• Global Hot-Spots
  While this section really doesn't cover a whole lot, it focuses heavily on the situations in Kashmir and the Congo. It gives a reasonable idea of what to expect and how GMs can use that conflict for their own novas... I was disappointed with this part, though. I'd have liked to see additional hotspots. It's not like there's only ever one or two major trouble zones in the world at any given moment...

  It also touches very quickly on some other minor trouble spots. I was impressed to see that they covered the continuation of the Canada/Quebec situation. And they cover it intelligently and reasonably faithful to the history behind that particular tension.

The final game page has a mock-up of a collectible trading card picture of Totentatz. The idea scares me with the suggestion that maybe White Wolf is thinking of making an Aberrant CCG? I hope not. But then, I won't get into it; that's not my thing.

The final page in the book has credits on one side, and the table of contents on the other. I'm left asking the same question I've asked before:

Who puts a Table-of-Contents at the End of the book?

It's not a particularly intelligent or well-designed option. Stupid idea. But whatever. It's all part of White Wolf's Aberrant Book template. Obviously, the table of contents was an oversight and an afterthought.

I thought the book was interesting. I liked it better than Project Utopia, and about the same as XWF, although this supplies a lot more usable information than XWF. I'm not so interested in the story-arc and world that they're building, so some of the information--particularly about DeVries--won't see much use. However, there was a lot of general material here that I can integrate with all sorts of games that don't necessarily follow the White Wolf proscribed story-arc.

And that's what makes this book so worthwhile.

Some notes on the artwork--While I did like the cover artwork, I didn't like that there was an obvious death on the cover (Whte Wolf has got a whole lot of covers that are wonderful for the threat or the suggestion of death, but nothing so overt and obvious as a spear through the back). I hated the DeVries staff profile artwork. I think they were too simplistic and heavy-handed. The company logos aren't bad, and the other faces (of other elite agencies) are ho-hum. Overall, what little equipment graphics ther eare are the artistic highlight of the inside of the book. Overall, the artwork doesn't measure up to the text.

Overall, some really neat ideas, well done, and engaging.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)