Aberrant: 2011 - OpNet - 2008: Approved Systems

[Singularity]

There are a great number of resources available to Aberrant, both published and unpublished, polished and lacking any sort of errata. To start things off, I feel that we should restrict ourselves to the published books and Brainwaves (which was completely developed by the White Wolf developers, IIRC); that way there is a consistent power level being used and was developed by a relatively consistent group of people. Or it would be more simple for me to quote from what I said before:

,,

Quote:

Originally posted by Singularity:

3. Talking about approval of characters beyond the standard rules of creation found in the core book may be a little premature as well if there has been no determination of arbitration. Obviously, the powers and enhancements available in the expansion books would be available at creation time as well (limited to the published books and Brainwaves - sorry, Forceful Personalities as a whole is not balanced in comparison to the other words).

4. As for Merits/Flaws and Strengths/Weaknesses, this will take time to hammer out. Some Merits/Weaknesses can be bought/bought off via experience, others cannot; this might necessitate a list that outlines those that can be bought/bought off. The basics of the Strength/Weaknesses system is good, but we've all found and highlighted a few of the pitfalls of it. For example, I will strongly advocate the removal of Strengthening the duration of a Power to Permanent for reasons I've already expressed in another thread.

So, thoughts?

[Hugin]

Published books and Brainwaves sounds good to me. What I saw of Forceful Personalities seemed far to uneven to accept as a whole.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

I agree with Books and BW. I like FP more than the general public but can live with individual enhancements being taken out as they are desired (or something like that).

[Machina]

I think that more than 30 NP would be acceptable, as long as it's a set number that can't be exceeded (option 2 seemed to endorse a more open-ended character creation).

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

30NP.

But mine is the vote against "only core + brainwaves."

I'm leaning towards making a mega-ugly character and the A! method is IMHO superior to what Abby did. I.e. in A! appearence reflects how noteable you are, so a zombie has a high, not low, appearence so it can have a high Intimidation score.

[z-Carver]

Approved Systems:

1 - This is the fairest system.

1 - This keeps powers fair. A system could be worked out to include other powers. But I think that we should start with the approved powers/books.

[Singularity]

As I alluded to earlier, I think we need to discuss the Strength and Weakness system from the Aberrant Player's Guide. There's an old discussion about this in the Out of Character section of the site, hence I think it's self evident that we should hammer out some of the details now so we can avoid problems later.

I, for one, dislike the ability to strengthen a power's duration, especially to the point of a Permanent duration. Does anyone else have concerns about the Strength and Weaknesses sytem?

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

In general, strengths and weaknesses need review and approval, maybe from the board.

They can add a lot of flavor to a character (Troll's Clones for example), but the system is very open to misuse and misunderstanding (with Suite powers for example).

[The White Rat]

I agree Troll. However, if character sheets are not public, but reviewable only by arbiters, then some other means needs to be worked out.

Maybe have a panel of reviewers who are elected/chosen to do such a thing.

[Singularity]

Regarding characters, we voted unanimously for all characters to be built using the 30 Nova Point characters in the core book. It seems self-evident that all characters are meant to follow that formula.

Further, as I mentioned in other places, the proposal specifically called for 30 Nova Point nova characters who had erupted within the past two months.

Pardon the formatting, but I thought this was something clearly established in my first post and was something we had all settled.

[Neil Preston]

If you toss out/edit the APG, you are tossing out accepted pieces of the game. Is this Aberrant, or isn't it?

If you are going to accept a book, then accept it. If you aren't going to accept it, then why are we accepting any supplements at all?

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Neil Preston:
If you toss out/edit the APG, you are tossing out accepted pieces of the game. Is this Aberrant, or isn't it?
If you are going to accept a book, then accept it. If you aren't going to accept it, then why are we accepting any supplements at all?

The point is that the weakness/strength system is really, really, really poorly done. If you disagree that it's shit then defend it. This is a chance to do things a little better.

[Wakinyan]

Hell if we are going to do things "Better" the toss the system entirely adopted M&M as the system and keep the story. It'd work better after all.

Otherwise if we are going to nit pick our way through the books then we are going to more voting done. Which I guess I am not opposed to but it just means longer to get off the ground.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Singularity: Regarding characters, we voted unanimously for all characters to be built using the 30 Nova Point characters in the core book. It seems self-evident that all characters are meant to follow that formula.

Further, as I mentioned in other places, the proposal specifically called for 30 Nova Point nova characters who had erupted within the past two months.

Pardon the formatting, but I thought this was something clearly established in my first post and was something we had all settled.

It depends on where we put the boldings. I.e. did we vote that all PCs have to be 30 point novas, or did we vote that all PC novas have to be 30 points?

I had thought that we decided that all novas will be 30 points (as opposed to more). That might even be read as a 30 point MAX since it never occured to me that anyone would object to anyone bringing in a 10 point nova.

I don't call it being explained by anyone to anyone that PCs couldn't be psiads or whatever (and since the non-nova clases does mean weaker, they aren't much in demand and aren't thought of). To put this in perspective it's been my experience that a 30 point nova game does also include lesser characters of the lesser classes. If I'm wrong and this is just a misunderstanding on my part, then that's my bad and I'm just trying to make these things crystal clear ahead of time.

[Singularity]

Right, I agree that making things clear up front is a good thing and it was a little remiss of me to rely upon only implicit language.

I agree than characters with less than 30 NP could work and I find that a rule allowing participants to have "less power" tend to work better than rules allowing participants to have "more power" or rules that allow a combination. However, part of the intent here was to create a regulated "starting point" for each character and keeping everyone at the same level of nova points (let alone keeping all characters as the same type) tends to reinforce that goal. Rules for downward departures might be the "next best thing," but why not just go for the best thing?

[Ashnod]

before any characters are created, I think it would be a good idea to have an organized faq or something posted so we all know what the final rulings on all of this are. I'm getting lost in all the threads.

[Singularity]

Agreed, Ashnod. My eventual plan is to collect and organize the product of the polls into a single document tentatively called a charter (yes, Jack, that was a good idea ). From there, we can post the charter in a thread for everyone to reference whenever it's needed.

I would go one step further by having every new character (not just writer/player) for the OpNet - 2008 section to place a post in a dedicated thread explicitly agreeing to abide by the charter document. But I'm a nutty person like that.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Singularity:
Right, I agree that making things clear up front is a good thing and it was a little remiss of me to rely upon only implicit language.

I agree than characters with less than 30 NP could work and I find that a rule allowing participants to have "less power" tend to work better than rules allowing participants to have "more power" or rules that allow a combination. However, part of the intent here was to create a regulated "starting point" for each character and keeping everyone at the same level of nova points (let alone keeping all characters as the same type) tends to reinforce that goal. Rules for downward departures might be the "next best thing," but why not just go for the best thing?

If someone wants to play a closet nova, i.e. a nova who is pretending to be a baseline to the world (perhaps including us), it seems harsh not to let them. There are a lot of stories/options that go with that, gal on the run from the sterilization people, guy secretly working for the Directive, guy totally ignorant that he erupted, taint=8 monster who spends life dormed.

IMHO more variety leads to more options leads to more people taking those options. For example I've enjoyed Edison's "I erupted and all I got was bio-lum" character.

I personally am a powergamer or something darn close so I have no problems with being restricted to the stronger class. However if someone (perhaps one of the people who introduced the baseline/A!/psiad/etc) wants to run with something like that I don't know if I can come up with a solid reason why not.

[Singularity]

I can dig closet novas and that would be perfectly doable with limiting characters to novas.

As for the variety of a "low powered nova," there's a relatively simple alternative to using less nova points: dump the points in "lower powered" things, such as skills, quantum pool, backgrounds, etc.

As for solid reasons to limit things to novas only (and not to be a downer), I don't know how more explicit I can get than two things:

• The proposal is meant for novas only.
• Limiting to novas only keeps things simple.

[Dreamer]

I see Psiads as not only being weaker than novas but targets of novas. most novas will feel the need to do something about the psiad..Just for living.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

People,

If I'm the only one who is going to speak up for the weaker classes then I'm just going to let it drop.

[Ally]

I think we should be allowed to start characters who might not have erupted yet but will through the course of stories. A standard character creation but doesnt get the 30NPs until the eruption. I do not see any harm in that.

[Fortune's Son]

Just curiosity here but why would you think a nova, a lot of novas really, would want to heed the opinions of a baseline? Can you imagine a worthwhile conversation between someone like Satyr and a soccermom? Or Wakinyan and little Timmy whose interests include anime, T2M and wondering if girls are really worth his time?

One of the differences between a TT and Prime is there is no ST to orchestrate plot. Whereas in a TT each character can potentially be the star of his own comic book or at least play a role in a team book, here its more like a multi style cross over. Soccer mom and little Timmy got no game.

[The White Rat]

I like the idea of role playing the eruption. I think that it should an option for those who wish to do that. As for psiads and A!, I'm not too fond of the idea, because these characters are permanently weaker than the norm. An unerupted baseline will at least have to erupt into a 30 NP Nova.

[Singularity]

Writing out eruptions and the like can work quite well as background stories for characters; we've seen this done numerous times in the current fiction section of the board. There's nothing stopping anyone from writing a character's background nor from working out an "in the past" interaction with another character by sticking to the "30 nova point novas who have erupted within the past two months" formula.

Or, in simpler terms: what you're talking about is already possible.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Jack Chance:
Just curiosity here but why would you think a nova, a lot of novas really, would want to heed the opinions of a baseline? Can you imagine a worthwhile conversation between someone like Satyr and a soccermom? Or Wakinyan and little Timmy whose interests include anime, T2M and wondering if girls are really worth his time?

Soccer mom and little Timmy? Based on what we know, probably not. But what if soccer mom's husband is the #8 Elite? What if little Timmy's daddy paid for the PU blood test that proves his kid is an unerupted nova? Are they worth our time now?

Directive agents, Utopian recruiters, DeVries handlers, Mayors, even members of the Church of M. Archangel who want to come here and urge us to repent, all of these are likely to be baselines.

And some of these (specifically the COMA guy... Father Ryan?) have worked well here in the past.

[Timeslip]

For the love of.... [grrrr]

From the very, very start of the very, very first discussions on this idea (in chat, after I had something of a rant regarding power levels on the main board), it was decided and clear that this board would be for 30-point novas that had been around for no longer than a month or two. No old novas, no pre-eruption latents, no psiads, no baselines, no mesmerists... just fresh 30-point novas.

That same point was made extremely clear at the very start of the discussion thread on the topic. So why in the name of all that may or may not be holy is it now being batted about? Want an eruption story? Write it as background.

30-point starter novas. Period.

[Hugin]

And when you consider that ANYONE could be a thirty point nova the argument that such a rule is "limiting" creativity is utter poppycock. It's not creative to need a crutch like an "original" or super-rare origin to set you apart from the crowd.

[Wakinyan]

But I wanted to play a Garou/Mokole'/Gangrel pariah!!!

[Wakinyan]

Also might we want to consider capping the max level of starting permanent taint to 5? This will keep character from being so alien that they cannot interact with the others which is kinda the point of this new section.

[The White Rat]

Darn, I wanted to play a 9 taint, aberrated monster who has to live underground. Wait, I already play one of those. Never mind.

[Singularity]

Along with potentially limiting starting taint to 5, I have two more potential limiting questions to cover within standard character creation:

• Do we want to use all of the merits and flaws?
• Do we want to not allow the use of freebie points to buy any nova traits? (Quantum, Attunement, Dormancy, and Node)

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

1. Don't care.

2. Don't care.

Just tell me when this starts.

[The White Rat]

I would like to use merits/flaws. But I think if you use a flew, it should have some impact on your character. If you are crippled, then it should affect your character post-eruption.

As for freebies, I'm not sure if you are speaking of the 15 bonus points you get at character creation, or something else.

[Singularity]

Quote:

Originally posted by The White Rat:
As for freebies, I'm not sure if you are speaking of the 15 bonus points you get at character creation, or something else.

Ach, yes, they're called bonus points in the Aeonverse games (as opposed to freebie points in old World of Darkness games).

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Singularity:

• Do we want to use all of the merits and flaws?
• Do we want to not allow the use of freebie points to buy any nova traits? (Quantum, Attunement, Dormancy, and Node)

I think traditionally Bonus points can be used at any point of the character creation process. Disallowing them for nova dots is a house rule that comes up on occassion. The big thing is in preventing the use of bonus points for Quantum.

As a general rule this pushs down on the Quantum and/or up on the Taint meters. I suspect we all know the implications and if you are serious about this then it's poll time. I suspect it'd fail but that's just my impression.

Merits and Flaws... can be a problem. Similar to the "weakness/strength" system they need review, although they are much better developed and less subject to abuse. I think the cannon sugestion is to limit flaws to 10.

I like them but I also like to min/max. I have to say that most of the better games I've been in have had the ST pay a *lot* of attention to them and/or put extremely serious restrictions on them. Only one flaw is a fairly common thing that I've run across.

[The White Rat]

In the Core book it allows you to spend bonus points on Quantum, Willpower, and any backgrounds. Buying Quantum and Willpower is the best use of bonus points.

A limit on Merits/Flaws is a good idea.

I like to min/max at char creation because that is the cheapest time to buy stuff.

[Sandcaster]

Dr. Troll, you are correct: the cannon recommendation is to allow no more than 10 points in Flaws. (And that means, for mechanical reasons, the maxiumum possible Merits top out at 25, if one maxed out their Flaws and then spent every single Bonus Point on Merits.)

All things considered, I like Merits & Flaws in Aberrant. They are far, far better balanced and less cheezy than they were in Vampire: the Masquerade.

-

As for spending bonus points on nova Traits... it sort of depends on the power level you want. I think everyone knows that the cheapest way to buy Quantum is to do so with Bonus Points, and it's been a while since I've seen a character (my own included) that didn't have at least one extra Quantum bought that way. Hell, many folks often make sure to have at least 6 dots of Flaws just so that they can start out the gate with 4 dots of Quantum, not having to spend any of their Nova Points on it.

If you want folks to start with lower Quantum ratings (because somehow, I don't think the goal here is really to muck around with the Background nova-related Traits, given how cheap they are with Nova Points), then by all means, prohibit spending Bonus Points on Quantum, or limit it to more more than one dot purchased that way. If you do this, however, I would strongly recommend implementing that starting Taint limit as well.

-

On the topic of the Taint limit, there's another option that might be considered. There seems to be a strong trend to folks starting their characters with 4 or more dots of Taint, and I don't think it's all for the mechanical advantages. Rather, the goal seems to be to have their characters aberrated - and thus at least a touch inhuman - right out of the bag. Something that I think might be a bit interesting would be to limit starting Taint to 3 dots, thus eliminating the "instant freak syndrome". Characters would erupt as superhumans... and eventually grow into aberrated creatures.

It's just a thought.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

RE: Exp & Run off Poll

You could simply take an average of all the votes. For example if there is a three way tie between 3, 4, & 5 then we could average that out to 4 (since that would be the closest thing to an answer that everyone agrees to).

[Harold 'Mythic' Anderson]

A good idea, Troll: care to repeat it in the Experience thread?