Aberrant RPG - A Game Apart?

[Prophet]

Is it just me, or does Aberrant not fit together as well into the continuum as it should?

A lot of the threads which run through the Continuum start to get disjointed when they pass through the Aberrant timeframe.  Aeon briefly becomes the evil conspiracy (through Proteus but the "paranoid" Aeon endorses it).

Luckily Adventure! managed to explain some stuff (like Divis origins, removing the silly 2nd Gen Nova explanation that I believe Krieg was talking about).

Now, how do you feel about Aberrant's links to the Continuum.  I am looking for honesty here; its not about bashing someones fave game.  I love Aberrant but I am the first to admit some problems with its continuity.  Lets hear the fans talk honestly about the problems with the continuity (if you see any), as well as maybe some ways of reconciling them.

[Senior Mal]

The fact that Aberrant was developed by someone other than Bates clearly shows through with the obvious flaws to the timeline continuity. The thing that really gets me is the note concerning Trinity, stating something along the lines of Aberrant can be a stand alone game and does not need to acknowledge Trinity or Adventure. Thats all well and good, I'm all up for White Wolfs "Golden Rule" principle but for me one of the great things about the Aeonverse is the timeline and that each game helps to explain elements of the others. It works on the same principle of the World of Darkness products, yes you can take werewolves out of vampire game but in so many places thery are intergral to the plot.

Aberrant is a very good game however it is quite clear that inter office politics at White Wolf flawed the game line by not seeing the big picture of all three products storylines working in harmony (as no doubt Bates first envisaged)

[M’ryw "Ed"]

Personaly, I think Trinity has become the odd-ball, like Vampire did for a while after the other WoD games came out, and even quite a bit now. The other two games have a comparable creation system (Creation, Nova Points) as aposed to Trinity's more WoD creation system. Also, I hate some of the power restrictions in Trinity. They seem artificial at times. It does not alow a terrible amount of versitility and creativity, while Adventure and Aberrant games have a lot of creative potential, esspecialy Aberrant.

[CHILL]

I'll throw my two pence (cents or whatever) in here...

Having been involved in either running, playing or writing stuff continuously for the aeon games since 'Aeon' hardcover came out I have to say (following the last post's direction) that I feel that there is no single 'odd one out'

My personal favourite is Trinity - well above and beyond the rest, then Ab, then Adv!  I prefer getting the players to think, rather than fall back on powers and the like...  In fact, I've run entire strings of sessions without any dice rolls whatsoever - its not for everyone, but after some 15 years of roleplaying I prefer it - thats just me....

The fact that Trinity powers are more subtle, less flashy and to be honest, pale in comparisson to Ab and Adv! is exactly what keeps it at the top of my choice of the three games.

Trinity set the scene, was the first book etc.  Aberrant was a great deviation from what Bates set out.  Personally I am not a fan of superpowered games - and Aberrant is a superpowers game.  I (dont shoot me Mal) liken Ab to Werewolf for WoD - ie, the Aeon game that needs shit loads of dice.

Then Adventure! comes along, and there is some 'serious' repair work in there.  Not 'repairing' aberrant - it is more the 'meddian' of both Trinity and Aberrant - its rules, powers etc are (say from a power level, and a 'flashy' level)  somewhere in between Trinity and Aberrant.  It's very well done when you consider how different Trinity and Aberrant are.

now, I'm not dissing Aberrant - I play Aberrant (Snr Mal ST's it), and I think we both agree that Aberrant is a very different beast from the other two games.....  that the developer seemed (IMHO) to 'throw Trinity to the wind' and go off in a different direction, and Adventure seems to 'take the edge' of that a bit.

Just to throw some light onto the whys and wherefores of my thoughts above:

I prefer to play characters that do not require powers and stats (mega - backgrounds - Psi, Quantum or otherwise) to enable versatility......  That's the bit where I come in, not the rules.

I'm certain that those who know my PC's and my numerous NPC's - I always write in some sort of inherent, usually crippling weakness - PC's that get themselves into situations where they need the other characters (no matter how 'hard' my PC is), NPC's (my poor suffering NPC's!) that have things like surfacable streaks of cowardice etc....

That gibberish above is just to illustrate how I think a bit....

So, to keep completely on topic:

Yes it is the odd one out in a 'sometimes noticable' fashion - but Adventure! takes the edge off it when you look at the Continuum as a whole.

[Mr.Champion]

I like Trinity as a stand alone, but I don't like how its system meshes with the other two systems. I don't really use the meta story as I like to create my own campaign world. In this case with Trinity, I only really find it useful for the tech it offers and even then I would like more. I like the detail in the psi system but not the rigidity. Also with certain Nova powers, Psi abilites become redundent. If Trinity had more rules for robotics, AI, and mecha I would be much more impressed.

[Thingmaker]

M’ryw "Ed" has an interesting point regarding game mechanics setting Trinity apart as the oddball, but I feel that the source material sets Aberrant apart.

The Æon Society for Gentlemen is thematically similar to the Æon Trinity once one discounts the "sinister spin" on Project Re-write. The inclusion of a spiked OpNet node in Field Report: Media was clearly an embedded ad for Aberrant and has no other bearing on the Trinity setting. Project Re-write would be under no suspicion at all if Project Proteus and Director Thetis were not such stinkers.

I am very curios how Aberrant would have turned out if we had simply been presented with the opportunity to play godlings slowly driven mad by thier power, instead of given the rôles of villified godlings. Maybee I'll write up an alternate history sometime before I retire.

[CHILL]

Now that would make for very interesting reading Thingmaker if you ever get a chance to write it.....

[Heritage]

I came into the Aeonverse through Aberrant, so I guess that's probably why it's my favorite, even with it's many flaws.

In a way, I *like* that all the pieces don't fit together well - I find the friction points fascinating, because I like to think that they represent a clash of worldviews based on historical context.

I'm currently running an Aberrant campaign starting in 2048 because I find the info blot that is the Aberrant War very intriguing. It's said that 'history is written by the winners', and in the case of Project Re-Write it is literally true.

So what is the losers' story? What great moments of both heroism and depravity were lost after the Crash? How did humanity, in all it's varied forms, fight together and amongst itself, and what strange alliances were formed in this crucible?

I love that, in a sense, the Aeonverse doesn't add up, that point A does not necessarily lead to point B or later on to point C. From the prospective of each game's timeframe, *this* is how the world works, *these* are the good guys and *these* are the bad guys. They're all true and all false, and we as players and storytellers have to sort it out together in our own campaigns.

I believe that the most interesting heroes are capable of terrible acts, the most interesting villains capable of startling kindness, and the most interesting institutions forced to make compromises to achieve their goals, whether sinister or benign. And to me, the amazing messed-up jigsaw that is the Aeonverse somehow perfectly reflects these contrasts, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Aeon]

I would have to echo Heritage's semtiments here, although the cynic in me tells me that the reason that they do not fit so well together is because they had different developers.  That does not mean that the end effect does not lend itself well to the points Heritage raised and I would have to endorse that kind of thinking.  

Perceptions change and people change perceptions.   :Yin Yang

[Heritage]

Oh, I completely agree, Aeon - continuity is definitly screwed up becuase of the developer issues. I just like to find silver linings.  

[Fallen_Seraph]

yeah but not half as screwed as the WoD has become.....throwing in the crap with Exalted being before the main lot. I like exalted but it has no baring on the Wod

[BurnerMan]

I agree. Exalted is nice enough in it´s own setting, but making it the time before the time of Vamp, etc.,  is silly. It´s like FASA did with Earthdawn and Shadowrun, queen Alaiksha (among others) returning in the era of Shadowrun.....ick.

:0

[Slagheap]

I personally don't think any of the games stand alone.  I do think that Aberrant is very different from Trinity, but I like them both.  And, after you throw in Adventure! I love the way they all fit together.  Sure the games cater to different types of players, but the best part about the Aeonverse is how very much the world does change from time period to time period.  I love the series.  LONG LIVE AEON!

-Slag

[VictorHFrost KSC]

beyond that, all this mess about the setting being disjointed or whatever, eh, seems to me like its people trying to crunch the numbers together more than the story, like that whole brush fire on the ww forums about aberrant vs trinity power levels (btw, slag and i managed to work most of that out using the rules in the main book and tpg) see, the stories are fine, and they flow as long as you realize how huge of a gap there is between timelines. think of the us ten years ago. whats changed? damn near everything. look at anywhere ten years ago. everyone seems to neglect that even half a decade can irrevocably alter how a place or a civilization behaves and feels. between adventure and aberrant you have a 70-80 year gap depending on the game times. between aberrant and trinity its at least that and generally falls into the hundered range. 100 years is a long long time. think 1900. think 2000. are they even remotely the same in any aspect other than people live in both times? see what i'm saying here? its not so much that the games don't fit as its just hard sometimes to visualize how the world behaves over large spans of time, what happens and what is learned. anyway, its late and i'm rambling, later all.

jake

oh and for slag  :baaa

[Joseph]

I don't care.    I'm still a Trinity purist, and Aberrant's story (I don't care about rules, that's the first thing I ditch anyway) doesn't fit with Trinity or Adventure, in my opinion.

That's why I changed everything.  

-Joseph

[Kyros]

S'funny, because I got into the line through Aberrant.  I think that the game's mechanic flaws pale in comparison to the splendor of the setting and concept.  

I just picked up Adventure and decided that I like Divis Mal a whole lot less.  But Max Mercer... he's my new hero.

If you don't think they match... well, that's the curse of using different writers each time.  I don't care.  Any minor discrepancies are easily dealt with and all three games are well worth the effort.

[Slagheap]

Exactly what I think Kyros.  You da' man.

-Slag

[VictorHFrost KSC]

i understand where you are comming from there joseph, i got into the line through trinity as well and its still my fav. but slag and kyros have a point. most of the feeling of seperation between aberrant and the others is due to writing. honestly, i can forgive that one. mainly, i choose to believe that most of the stuff in aberrant has a heavy heavy spin on it. since most of the world data at that time seems to be told through media its likely to me that a lot is exaggerated, left out, or simply downplayed. besides that, the facts in the stories, the stuff that most everyone agrees on, still works. i kinda look at the aberrant war like vietnam, sure the US figured out what was going on, and sure most of us now agree that the whole thing was a giant fubar, but we didn't grasp it all right off. i think this is what trinity represents, a culture not totally ready to deal with its own history. and considering all the opnet crashes and the global economy going down the tubes in between the two games, i think they are lucky to be where they are.

jake

[VictorHFrost KSC]

i understand where you are comming from there joseph, i got into the line through trinity as well and its still my fav. but slag and kyros have a point. most of the feeling of seperation between aberrant and the others is due to writing. honestly, i can forgive that one. mainly, i choose to believe that most of the stuff in aberrant has a heavy heavy spin on it. since most of the world data at that time seems to be told through media its likely to me that a lot is exaggerated, left out, or simply downplayed. besides that, the facts in the stories, the stuff that most everyone agrees on, still works. i kinda look at the aberrant war like vietnam, sure the US figured out what was going on, and sure most of us now agree that the whole thing was a giant fubar, but we didn't grasp it all right off. i think this is what trinity represents, a culture not totally ready to deal with its own history. and considering all the opnet crashes and the global economy going down the tubes in between the two games, i think they are lucky to be where they are.

jake

[Defender]

Like a sizable chunk of posters here, I got into the Aeonverse through Aberrant, the black sheep of the Aeon Trilogy it would seem.  :devil  But in any regard, I kind of like the trilogy as is, warts and all. I admire Adventure's efforts to smooth the most severe continuity bumps, but I view each game as a section in the greater novel, and every great novel has flaws as well as facets.

I guess I could get down with Chill's assessment that Aberrant is Aeon's Werewolf. . .but as for "tons of dice" that doesn't have to be the case. If anything, from where I sit the more powerful a nova becomes the more careful you get. After all, when you can unleash a devastating volley of Quantum energy as easily as you can lift an eyebrow, you tend to be damn careful and damn conservative too. Aberrant has a reputation as a twink game, one that it does deserve, to an extent. Aberrant does have kewl powerz, but when handled with a modicum of maturity the games can be as insightful as any other game in rping today. Running around in tights and blasting things is fine for some, but I prefer to try and answer Aberrant's main question; what would you do if you had the power of a god?

Just my opinion.

-Defender.