Pyramid Pick: Aberrant Storytellers Screen

Pyramid Pick

Aberrant Storytellers Screen

Published by White Wolf

Written by Kraig Blackwelder

$14.95

I am not a fan of GM screens. Somehow, they seem like a throwback to the bad old days of gaming when it was the GM's "job" to find new and exciting ways to kill off the player characters. To ensure the success of this noble endeavor, a screen was needed to safeguard the GM's fiendish plans.

Those days are long gone (I hope), but GM screens still exist. Naturally, I was skeptical about the Aberrant Storytellers Screen. However, those tricky fellows at White Wolf packaged a nice 72-page book along with their screen. That little book made all the difference.

The first 46 pages of the book consist of news stories, memos, letters, interviews and other media from the world of 2008. All serve to highlight an important aspect of the Aberrant setting, ranging from corporations to religion. Like the color section of Aberrant itself, these items are written with vigor and wit. It's hard not enjoy them simply as fiction. Fortunately, they also convey important information about the game's setting, almost of which is readily translatable into story ideas.

The book begins with a section about the rise of ViaSoft, a telecommunications giant arising from the merger of Microsoft and Viacom. This is followed up with a look at Novation Enterprises, a toys, games and comics manufacturer. The latter section is especially amusing, as it reveals a great deal about the politics of licensing . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: September 3, 1999

Copyright © 1999 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.