How to Run Aberrant
By
Winter_Heart
What would you do if you had the power of a
god?
This is the premise of Aberrant,
from White Wolf Game Studios. In Aberrant,
the players take the roles of Homo Sapiens Novus, or Novas. A
human with the proper genetic material, when put under the proper stressful
situation, may erupt and become a nova. The eruption causes a little lump of
flesh in his brain (called the M-R Node) to become active and open the door of
god-hood for him, by allowing him to control Quantum forces. Quantum
forces are the building blocks of the universe, they are gravity,
electromagnetism, soft and hard radiation. If a nova could control all of these
at will, he could do anything he want. Sadly (or luckily?) nova powers
are limited by one’s own expectation. The human body sometimes reacts badly
when it handles too much Quantum, and Taint manifest itself, warping a
Nova’s body and mind and making him an Aberration. Although a quick
overview may leave you with the impression that Aberrant is a super-hero
game, it really doesn’t have to be. Aberrant has a very rich setting,
and enough factions ¾ from the mysterious Directive, to the
deadly Elites and the visionary Teragen ¾ to fit any kind of game. Aberrant,
despite the incredible powers of the main actors, is really about human
drama, consequences and choices. It’s about normal people
entrusted with more power then they would ever have dreamed of, about how those
powers will drag them into the spotlight, about the choices they will make and
if you follow the suggested timeline… how those choices will doom them.
The world of Aberrant, set
in the year 2008, is slightly more advanced then ours, the novas’ presence
having already made a mark on science and technology. There’s nothing
outlandish like spaceports and the like, but much of our day-to-day technology
has evolved to its next logical level (like CDs being replaced by DVDs). Laws
and detainment measures have had to change and adapt to deal with people who
could sometimes unleash as much power as a small tactical nuke at will.
Super-powered athletes perform in new sports, making old-fashioned sports a
thing of dismal interests. A great altruist organization called Project
Utopia has more hired novas than any other group on the planet and is seen
as a threat by many governments because of the potential power they possess.
Wars are rarely waged between thousands of humans in jet fighters and tanks
anymore: why bother when hiring a few nova mercenaries is much more cost
effective? Here it’s important to note that Aberrant is not set in White Wolf
Game Studio’s World of Darkness, but in the Aeonverse. It shares this
world with Trinity (which is set in the 2120) and soon to come Adventure
(set in the early 1920’s). Neither of Aberrant’s sister games is needed
to play, but they could add depth to your story. Because of this, the Aeonverse
setting is already written. There is a darker mood to the game, and if you
follow the metaplot, a full-scale war will spark in 2049 between humanity and
novas, with devastating results. This is why the Aberrant mood ¾ although on the exterior happy, positive and
hopeful ¾ is riddled with conspiracies and underlying threat of darker things to
come. When the heroes of yesterday become so ridden with Taint that they cannot
be considered humans anymore, the call of war won’t be far behind. The setting
however, is very flexible and few events are set in stone, this is a game where
players really have a chance to affect the course of history, politic and
anything else they wish. Maybe they could prevent the Aberrant War, or
start it even earlier…with the powers of godlings, nothing short of your
imagination can limit you.
The Aberrant system is a
very simple one, using 10-sided dice. A character’s skills and powers are rated
on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is abysmal and 5, exceptional. When a character
has to do something that requires some level of skill, he rolls a number of
dice equal to a combination of traits and every die that comes up as a 7 or
more, is a successes. He then counts his successes and will know if he
succeeded or failed depending on how well he rolled. That is the base of the
rule system, as one can see, it’s very simple. It’s also extremely freeform and
encourages and imagination and role playing rather then flipping open the
rulebook every 5 seconds to see what power X does against Target Y. Players who
already know about Trinity will have no problem at all with Aberrant,
as the two game share the same system. The system is similar to White Wolf’s
World of Darkness system, but still different enough for old time players to
read it fully.
A few of the pitfalls of the games
are inherent to the setting. Sadly, with so many interesting and often
awe-inspiring abilities and powers, characters may have a tendency of being
little more than their powers. Players may not see beyond the powers and miss
the human drama. A Storyteller need to stress that this is a game about people
with power and not a game about super-powered people. Otherwise, once the
initial “wow! I can shatter a building with my mind!” thrill passes, the games
will become very boring and pointless. In the latter case, it would be better
if the player thought about how the ability to shatter buildings (and probably
other things as well) would affect a normal person. For example, what will be
this character’s perception of law enforcement if cops can do nothing to stop
him? How will he react the next time somebody insults him? A good look at comic
book might help; successful characters (like Spider-Man or Batman)
have been around for so long because of their great character depth, not only
on how cool they are. If your players already know the powers they want but
have no idea who there character will be, this maybe a bad start. The
Storyteller can solve another problem easily by adjusting the power level of
his group and series. Not all novas are killing machines or invincible.
Characters of any power level from Superman to Daredevil can be
created in Aberrant, and it’s important to build your chronicle around
your players’ characters and not the other way around. If you have a group of
mega-socialites or mentalists, sending them in the middle of a Quantum powered
war of lightning and mega-strong novas probably won’t make for a good story! By
the same token “Muscle Man” probably won’t get very far in a game centered on
back door deals and politics. It’s important to find a proper challenge level
for a particular group. This may seem like really obvious advice and it is
applicable to all RPGs, but it’s even more important in Aberrant. A very
good solution to this problem however is to make sure your group of player
characters is diverse in power and personalities, so that everyone can shine in
a different situation. If all your players seem to be gearing up for some
super-powered-earth-shattering brawls, however, then by all means, send them
into that Quantum powered war!
What really got me going for
Aberrant were the great powers of the Novas, but that they still humans’ needs
and failings. I also liked the way that, since the Nova/human ratio is
1/1,000,000, every Nova is unique. Every one of them matters. Every action you
take can bring you fame or infamy. You’re always walking a tightrope. That is,
if you care about the public perception of your action, after all,
there’s nothing that prevents you from bathing in the sordid glow of your
infamy (except maybe other novas). It’s a great way to explore the consequence
of power: at first, of personal powers and the dilemma they impose and later,
of the power you exert over the masses by being a public figure, a role model
or an icon. Most of us will never be famous, and unlike many other RPGs where
the players work in the shadows, here, you can have a feel of what ‘fame’ is
like. Also, unlike many other RPGs (and quite a few of White Wolf’s game) which
have a clan architecture that defines your character powers and
weaknesses, Aberrant has no such groups. Every nova is unique in his
abilities, and while he can join a faction, these factions only identify his
social and political ideas (and even inside the factions, not everything is
black and white).
Aberrant also raises a number of philosophical
questions: where does one draw the line between humanity and nova-hood? If you
can read minds, is doing so a violation of privacy? And with the media being
what it is, are novas only ‘superstars’ or are they false idols being
worshipped? It’s a game of endless possibilities that can go anywhere you want.
The game I ran was a ‘classic’ Project
Utopia game. The players were part of Team Tomorrow Auxiliary, a team of
novas charged with solving troubles over the world, under the orders and
supervision of Project Utopia. The team was very diverse (for those
interested, one mind-reader, one super-strong brick, a fire manipulator, a
gravity manipulator and a super-fast runner) and had been put together for that
very reason. The directors of Project Utopia thought such a group would
have all ground covered. They started as investigators for a sordid murder in
Philadelphia, where they learned just how dangerous their powers are. The
Gravity Manipulator deflected a rocket (the murderer was a cyberkinetic, a nova
with the power to control machines, who had taken control of an US Apache for
the showdown) away from him and the rocket smashed into a nearby building.
Meanwhile the fire manipulator destroyed the machine’s rotor, making it crash
down in the street. In the heat of battle, they hadn’t realized the casualties
and damages they were causing just by defending themselves. They did manage to
make up for their mistakes before the end of the chronicle, however, saving
their reputation when they stopped a mad nova from releasing a
world-encompassing bacterial plague that would have killed a good 1/8 of the
human race. Let just say the welcome they received after that exploit was
extremely different from the one the “Philadelphia Debacle” earned them.
In closing, Aberrant is a
very deep game with a lot of context and shades of gray. It requires a lot of
effort from the players and Storyteller to be a great game. This makes it ill
suited to be an introduction into the world of RPGs. However, if you’ve been
around before, this particular challenge is well worth picking up.
Does
Aberrant sound like fun? Check it out here!
Aberrant and
all associated terms are property of White Wolf Game Studio and this article is
not intended as a challenge to these or any other copyrights.