Aberrant: Mutant High - The Rules

[Dave ST]

(Any edits or additions made will be noted in blue.)

The World

Setting and Mechanics: Aberrant rules, Ultimate Marvel Universe style. The time is present-day(ish), and the place is New York. There is an ongoing superhuman war being waged between the ever-growing numbers of aberrants and the normal human population, resulting in an upsurge of superhuman activity.

Humanity seems to have bridges the gap between skin color and found a new form of racism: the mutant population.

Chat Room: Any use of the Chat Room for this game will be under the assumption that those involved are either in a public Chat Room, or on the School’s private network chatting amongst themselves.

Rating: NC-17. Despite the rather young ages of some of the characters all my games are run as mature games. There may be questionable subject matter, so you are considered warned. Besides, sex, lies, violence, and being a public nuisance is nothing new, I was doing it when I was 16.

[Dave ST]

Making a Mutant

Phase One: The Human

This covers the character creation process in short form; refer to the appropriate sections for details. Available points are listed where relevant.

• Step One: Concept

Choose Concept, Nature and Allegiance

• Step Two: Select Attributes

Prioritize the three areas: Physical, Mental and Social

Choose primary Attributes (7 points)

Choose secondary Attributes (5 points)

Choose tertiary Attributes (3 points)

Or, simply distribute 15 points among the nine attributes.

• Step Three: Select Abilities

Choose desired Abilities (23 points)

No Ability higher than 3 at this time.

Calculate Skill Totals

• Step Four: Select Advantages

Choose Backgrounds (7 points)

• Step Five: Finishing Touches

Record initial Willpower (3), Focus (1), Initiative (Dexterity + Wits),

Movement (walk 7m, run Dex +12m, sprint [Dex x 3] +20m)

Spend Bonus points (15 points)

Code:

Bonus Points
Trait						Cost Per Dot
Attributes						5
Abilities						2
Specialties (max. three per Ability)			1
Backgrounds						1
Willpower						2
Initiative						1
Merit						       -Cost
Flaw						       +Cost

Phase Two: The Mutant

• Step One: Origin

Choose the means by which your character discovered their powers, and what theme they follow.

• Step Two: Power Pips

Spend 30 power pips on Mega-Attributes, enhancements, mutant powers, Focus, Energy Pool, or extra Attributes or Abilities.

Focus cannot be raised higher than 5. Characters do not gain permanent Taint from high Focus scores.

• Step Three: Phase Two Finishing Touches

Record Taint and mutations (if any), change skill totals (if any), changes to initiative and movement (if any), bashing and lethal soak; decide on any physical changes brought about by your mutations.

Code:

Power Pips
Trait						        Cost
*Mega-Attribute	3
*Enhancement	3
*Focus		5
*Level 1 Power	1
*Level 2 Power	3
*Level 3 Power	5
*Level 4 Power	7
*Level 5 Power	9
*Energy Pool	1 for 2
Attribute 	1 for 3
Ability Dots	1 for 3
Willpower	1

* May be bought as a tainted power. Tainted Powers cost half the normal cost (round up), but the impose one point of permanent Taint per dot so purchased. A tainted Level 1 power costs 1 power pip per two dots purchased.

Notice - You cannot spend BG points on Focus. Nor do Power Pips (Nova Points) grant you Background dots. Sorry, being a mutant doesn't make money suddenly appear in your back account.

Submit! (Hehe) - Send all completed characters to this account for approval.

Taint - Characters accrue a +1 Social Penalty per 2 dots of Permanent Taint. Aberrations are generally physical in nature with mental aberrations being rare (but no impossible). Feral mutants (those who display animalistic qualities), gain Hormonal Imbalance: Rage as their first aberration.

Attributes - May not be higher than 5 at creation. After a character is in play they may increase their baseline attributes beyond 5, to a max of 10. For every 2 points after 4 (6, 8, and 10) the character may select one more Quality.

Mega-Attributes are still limited to the Baseline Attribute or their Focus score +1 whichever is lower.

Customize - Customize how you like, this is not a canon game (which is why we'll be playing it by ear). All customizations need approval. If you're not sure how to do this, I'll post an example if you like.

Merits - Merits may be purchased after character creation. All merits must be approved and it acquisition must be backed up by fictions. ‘Fictions’ does not mean writing about ‘training’ for one story. A merit costs twice its cost in experience points to purchase. So a 7 point merit costs 14 XP.

Flaws – Flaws may be bought off with XP. It costs twice the Flaws cost to buy it off, same as merits, above. Characters may be given Flaws at anytime after certain developments within a storyline. It’s likely that we’ll all end up with ‘Enemy’ several times over.

Spending Willpower: Any expenditures of Willpower made during a fiction should be noted in a "code" box within the context of the post in which the point was spent.

Example:

Code:

Spent 1pt of Willpower to gain 3 extra dice on Seduction roll. (6/7)

How much information you include is up to you, but the fact that a point was spent must be noted.

Regaining Willpower: Willpower is regained at the rate of 1 point per RL week. For the sake of simplicity, we will assume that this happens on Sunday.

[Dave ST]

Moderators and You

The Role of Moderators: Mods are not considered players in their official capacity, though they may have player characters. They exist as a means for players to request assistance, intervention, or clarification at any time; to resolve and arbitrate conflicts; to reward good roleplaying; to review and audit character sheets and be responsible for character approvals; to punish rules infractions; to further the storylines and streamline combat and drama, and to control canon and player-created NPCs.

They are not baby-sitters.

Players may ask for the assistance of a Moderator at any time, but by-and-large they should be invisible.