Pyramid Review
Aberrant: Year One
Published by White Wolf
Written by Jim Moore, Dean Shomshak, and John R. Snead
112 pages, $14.95
I've been very impressed with Aberrant's initial releases to date. They've been well written and interesting, providing plenty of ideas for my own games. That's why I've recommended the game so wholeheartedly to friends and colleagues. So, it's with some disappointment that I must report that Aberrant: Year One is a weak supplement -- although not entirely devoid of virtues.Year One details the Aberrant world of 2008 by presenting 14 different cities from around the globe. Each city is first described through a news story about recent events there. This is followed by a discussion of the city's history, important features, and significant inhabitants. This is an excellent approach and should have yielded some very interesting material for players and Storytellers alike.
Unfortunately, I found most of the news stories to be bland exposition (Lagos, Karachi, and Los Angeles are the notable exceptions) without the bite found in previous Aberrant releases. Instead of showing us the world of 2008 through the warped lenses of someone with an agenda, we simply get the straight dope. I have nothing against this approach. Indeed, many Storytellers may find it a welcome break from the sarcastic mugging and edginess of previous releases. Given that, the use of the news story (or memo or interview -- you get the idea) format feels very pro forma, as if it . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 25, 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.