Aberrant RPG - Eufiber and Weave

[ChildofHaqim]

Eubfiber has interested me ever since I picked up aberrant, especially now that I've been told there is a skill called Weave in the players guide that does even more with it. I'm having a hell of a time locateing a non-online order copy of that book though and don't know anyone who could tell me about weave so I guess I'm screwed there for now, unless one of you fine folks wants to help out.

Anyway what power do you think was used to create eufiber? Is it ultimately an evil plan by its creator to suck the quantum from/ control all novas!? Is it just disgusting stuff some guy oozes out and models proudly walk around in? DISCUSS...

Damn, I accidentally made my self serveing plee for information bigger than the discussion topic.

[ezekiel]

The Aberrant Player's Guide is the worst Trinity Verse book out there in my opinion (if not worst, then definitely most disappointing) I wouldn't bother buying it unless it was dirt cheap. (The Trinity Player's Guide however is one of the best RPG books out there!)

So Weave:

Basically allows you to do funky stuff with eufiber like growing appendages, tentacles, spikes, camouflage (would be use to move a cape around à la Spawn...) with a wits + weave roll

each success adds a die to the next appropriate roll (acrobatics, damage with a strike, stealth for camouflage, etc)

Tendrils can extend 1meter/dot in Eufiber

that's pretty much it...

My quick runthrough of the Abbie PG:

Intro: pages 1-3 (probably one of the best parts of the book)

Registering your codename: p. 4-12 (8 pages on this!!)

Nova law: p. 13-23 (rehash of Psi-Laws..still kinda good)

miscellaneous junk: p. 24-56 (some of it is mildly interesting, other bits like "Jesus was a Nova!" is just a waste of space...)

The good stuff!: p.56-143 ( finally some good stuff, talking about psychomorphs, using Abberrant and Psychomorpths in Trinity, Mega-Att enhancements, Quantum 6 powers, Abbie Errata, Merits and flaws (I don't like them but I know most of you do..) and an in-depth look at backgrounds. In all less than 90 pages and the only bit worth reading.

Gadgets: p. 143- 148 (The "Quick and Dirty Guide to Gadgeteering" is too Quick to make it worthwhile...better to buy and use A!'s rules...Buying A! would be a better buy anyway, the core Abbie book is good though.)

Total waste of space!!: p. 151-190 (40 pages on new Nova affiliations each one worst than the last! The last two affiliations are The Queer Nova Alliance (Gay and Lesbian nova group) and Teen Tomorrow (The Backstreet boys of Novas, Teen Novas making like Team Tomorrow)

and thats it...two thumbs down...maybe a horizontal thumb for the middle section.

[ChildofHaqim]

Thank you very much for the information. Greatly appreciated. Maybe my money would better be spent on the teragen book. Seriously thanks though, you are an incarnate god baptized in quantum fires.

[phoenix]

you are an incarnate god baptized in quantum fires.

::dry This one worships far too easily, we may have a new Cult of Mal member on our hands.. ::confused

[brilyn]

I pretty much completely disagree with Ezekiel.

I'm not buying the books *just* for the mechanics (as Ezekiel would appear to be), but also for the fluff/flavour/athmosphere.

Page 1-56 is all fluff. If you want background, an idea of what it is to become a Nova in a world of gods and superstars, then this is a GREAT read.

I happen to like the "Jesus was a nova" article. People tend to jump to conclusions when they hear of something new, and this is a good illustration of that. When people hear of your nova, will it change the way they view the world? It shows that for some, the advent of Novas has changed not just the world, but the face of history.

Pg 56-143. Agreed with Ezekiel, this is all good. I don't do Merits and Flaws (if ya wanna be a smoker, be a smoker, but I'm not forcing mechanics down your throat for it....), but the rest ROCKS so much..... ::cool

Gadgets: p. 143- 148 This is a good section. I'm not using it myself, as for my world, Novas are self powered, and tech is tech. But I like the system they have here for non-standard gear.

p. 151-190 Again, I REALLY like these sections. I draw from the groups in here quite extensively, and the groups in here also gave my players good ideas for putting their own together. A lot of this is quite light. The Teen Tomorrow is quite good too, esp for the dark side of Novas + Child labour = scared for life methinks.

One section I LOVED in the start of the book is the list of distances between stellar bodies (Earth, Mars, Pluto, etc), and the Warp successes to get that far. It's quite handy in my current game, and, well, quite cool knowing you can get to Alpha Centauri with x successes...... ::cool

[ezekiel]

ChildofHaqim: You're welcome

brilyn: Yup, the space bit goes into my "mildly interesting" part of the beginning and only covers 3 pages, half a page for mechanics...

The fact that I liked the mechanics part better than the rest is a testament to the weakness of this book. I think the fluff is crappy fluff. The "Jesus was a Nova" stint doesn't add anything to the game, its just a bygone theory. If you want GREAT background info with not too much space focused on mechanics, read the Trinity Player's guide. That's 218 packed pages not one of which is wasted. Most of whats in the first part of the Abbie Guide can be inferred very easily from the Core book

And I'll always hate the 40 pages of affiliations at the end of the book. But that's just my opinion.

Maybe I'm just bitter 'cause the Trinity Guide was so good and I expected as much for Aberrant...

[Slagheap]

Um, I don't think the "Jesus Was a Nova" thing was intended to be take seriously. If you look in the upper right corner of the 1st page you'll see it was printed by the Weekly World News, a tabloid. I think it was inteneded to illustrate the deification of Novas in the eyes of some baselines, and it was working the media angle to illustrate how some might prey upon this.

Just my two cents tho, nothing topical to add.

-Slag

[ezekiel]

Oh I know it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, I just think its a serious waste of space in a woefully underdeveloped book. 2 pages for the "Not meant to be taken seriously" Jesus was a Nova followed by 2 pages of an abstract of the book: Gods, Heroes and Monsters followed by a page of Opnetters comments on it...

Maybe I'm alone on this but who gives a cahoot about all this? They could've developed Terats, the Null Manifesto, Galatea, Utopia Project, Triton Foundation, the Directive...instead they gave us Jesus was a Nova, Queer Foundation and Teeny Boppy Novas.

Sure this was all to be covered in other Abbie books, but that didn't prevent the Trinity PG from covering all the orders despite the order books. It also covered stuff people might actually care about like the UN, living underwater, space colonies, rural life, rogue psions, etc...not silly "Will & Grace is the first show to take advantage of the high speed Opnet!" ( I kid you not, p. 38 but some of the info on the budding Opnet is admittedly not too shitty...) What about p. 40? Mmm, lets fill this page with the char sheets of 2 random novas...

I'm guessing they had a lot of pressure to dole this one out fast to make a quick buck out of abberrant 'cause its the first (and only...I didn't buy any more Abbie books after this) Trinity Verse book I didn't like. Either that or Blackwelder isn't my type of developer (if you think the book was good...)

[Slagheap]

While I agree that the APG is weak at best (mastery and all the lvl 4+ powers are more trouble than they are worth), I'm not so sure it is fair to raise a fist and scream Capitalist Pigs. And we can't shove the blame on Blackwelder, Trinity's beloved Andrew Bates and Bruce Baugh had a hand in writting it.

So on a scale of hit or miss it was a miss, I thought the setting material in the front was pretty good, it acted as a nice slice of life for the period. I personally hate most of the system stuff in there (I love Psiads, but if you build them Aberrant style RITA doesn't begin to describe how hard the system reems them)...

Any hoo it's late and I kinda lost my place, so later

-Slag

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Personally i thought the book was meant to plug a few holes in both trinity and abberant, sort of a $55(aus) errata with substandard 'extra bits'. I liked the book overall however mainly because it was pretty funny and it finally coverred psiads (psychomorphs), again the mechanics are good. As far as the 4+ powers go, they're great from a players perspective but any gm who allows them is begging for trouble, besides who wouldn't punish the hell out of Quantum 8-10 characters the taint is enormous with these pc's and that's assuming they haven't got a few points in node. Sorry just went alittle nuts there... anyway i recomend buying it only after you've read a fair number of other Aeonverse books not neccasarily aberrant only.

[ezekiel]

"I'm not so sure it is fair to raise a fist and scream Capitalist Pigs. And we can't shove the blame on Blackwelder, Trinity's beloved Andrew Bates and Bruce Baugh had a hand in writting it. "

Well, fact is the line was in trouble at that time. I didn't say Blackwelder was a shitty developer, I said he wasn't my type of developer. If people like it and I don't well...then its me, not the book.