Character 3 - Aberrant

 Welcome back, readers. I hope you're enjoying these characters and my commentary. Today's character is White Wolf Games' 1999 superheroes in the near future real world game, Aberrant! Set in the near future of 2008, Aberrant takes place in a world where the research satellite/orbital station Galatea crashed to earth in 1998, triggering the creation of superheroes known here as Novas. The first Nova was a firefighter named Randel Portman whose abilities allowed him to absorb the energy of a fire engulfing a school bus in New York, saving the lives of the children on board. Since then, plenty of factions have arisen including super teams and corporations dedicated to exploiting Novas and even a wrestling league (the Xtreme Warfare Federation... this is a VERY 90s game) dedicated to super powered brawling.

Long time gamers may be aware that Aberrant was a prequel setting to White Wolf's Aeon (renamed Trinity because MTV had more expensive lawyers) and itself had a prequel setting called Adventure! In addition, there is a new Trinity Continuum version of the game that recently (in the last year or three) crowdfunded over on Kickstarter. I don't own that version. I own the old version from the 90s. So that's the character creation you're getting today. Thankfully, this is a White Wolf game so there's a super convenient step-by-step chart on page 120 that walks you through character creation.

Phase One: Human

Everyone starts out by building a human character then upsizing them to a Nova. It's something White Wolf would go back to in their Chronicles of Darkness games and then abandon in their second edition Chronicles of Darkness games. Because time, you see, is a flat circle.

Step One: Concept

So here you pick your Concept, your Nature and your Allegiance. Concept is just what it says on the tin: What kinda dude(tte) do you wanna play? Are you a mild-mannered reporter? A private investigator? A super-powered businessperson? A friendly neighborhood spider-person? Pick your description and write it down. It's not set in stone tho, so if you decide later you want to be a less than friendly neighborhood spider-jerk, you can absolutely change it. I haven't made a character who's a big thinker yet, so I think I'll go with Research Super-Scientist as my concept. As for a name, I'm gonna go with something fun and alliterative, despite the Super Serious Real World tone White Wolf often puts in their games so welcome to the world, Sam Stewart.

Nature is only a tiny bit trickier than Concept. In White Wolf games, Nature is how your character sees themself and, mechanically, how they regain spent Willpower. You could be an Analyst who is trying to solve the riddle of the universe and regains WP when they use reason and the scientific method to help solve a situation or they could see themself as a Thrillseeker who's only out to find the next adrenaline high and regains willpower when they put themself into a life threatening situation and lives to tell about it. For most games, Thrillseeker is a really easy way to regain WP. That said, Analyst is the way I'm going.

Finally, there's Allegiance. While the book makes sure to tell us that in the end, every Nova is an island, they are also very prone to group up and form or join societies, teams, xtreme fighting leagues and the like. There are seven of these outlined in the corebook though one is "corporate/other" and another is "individualist" and they all have suggestions on what Backgrounds (we'll get to that) you might spend your points on as a member of that group to reflect your membership in same. Of the five groups that aren't "you work for a company" and "you are a loner, Dottie, a rebel", one is the super cops and ACAB so I won't be joining them and three are various flavors of obvious bad guy so that leaves us with the nominal good guys of the setting: Project Utopia. Project Utopia's stated goal is to employ novas' powers for the betterment of all mankind, nova and baseline alike. Yeah, they call regular folks "baselines". Suggested backgrounds for Project Utopia are Allies, Backing, Contacts, Influence, Mentor and Resources. Again, we'll get to all that.

Step Two: Select Attributes

If you've ever played a White Wolf game, you know that this is where you start putting dots in boxes. There are three areas, Physical, Mental and Social and each of those three areas has three attributes. Physical has Strength, Dexterity and Stamina, Mental has Perception, Intelligence and Wits, Social has Appearance, Manipulation and Charisma. Decide which of the areas is primary and distribute 7 points among the attributes, decide which is secondary and distribute 5 points among those and then the leftover tertiary area gets 3 points to distribute among its Attributes. Oh, and each Attribute gets 1 free dot.

Sam, being a research scientist, is going to put Mental as his Primary and put 3 points into Intelligence and 2 each into Perception and Wits. He's one of the smartest people you'll meet before he becomes a Nova and above average in both his ability to notice things and pick up on things. 

For his Secondary Attributes, I'm going to choose Social which leaves Physical as his tertiary. Sam is a people person, but he definitely skipped the gym more than he should have. I'll put two points each into Charisma and Appearance because Sam is a handsome, friendly fellow, and one into Manipulation because he's just average in twisting you to his whims.

Like I said, that leaves Physical as the tertiary with 3 points to spend. I could just put one point into each attribute, but it's more fun to have flaws. Sam gets 2 points in Stamina, and one in Strength leaving him to rely on the one free dot in Dexterity. He pulls some all nighters, but our boy is a clumsy guy.

Step Three: Select Abilities

Unlike previous White Wolf games, the abilities aren't also divided into three categories in which you spend dwindling amounts of points. Instead you get a pool of 23 points to spend as you desire among the Abilities. Abilities, like Attributes, are rated from 1 to 5 with each point in them giving you a die to roll in skill challenges, combined with the attribute they're associated with you will have a pool of 1 to 10 dice because UNLIKE attributes, abilities can have zero dots. No free dot in everything here because nobody has learned how to do everything. So like I said, you get 23 dots to spend on the various abilities and no ability can start higher than 3 dots.

Looking through the list of Abilities I think Sam is going to take the full three dots in Science and Engineering because that's his jam, two dots each in Endurance, Awareness, Academics, Bureaucracy, Computer, and Rapport and spend the remainder on one dot each of Brawl, Drive, Subterfuge, Command and Etiquette. He's got the skills to live his life in the world and do his job very well and maybe not die horribly if he's called into the field.

Step Four: Select Backgrounds

White Wolf loves their backgrounds. They can be anything from "you know a guy you can ask favors from" to "you have a research lab" to "you put 5 points in Resources and are now the richest man in your country". 

Well, Aberrant doesn't have Lab, but it DOES have:

• Allies - cool NPC buddies you can ask for help
• Attunement - your powers normally only affect yourself, but with Attunement you can stretch resistance to your powers to other things. So if you turn into a pillar of living fire and have Attunement then when you turn back into a fleshy meatbag you won't be a nekkid fleshy meatbag because your clothes burnt to ash.
• Backing - your standing or rank in an organization. Maybe you're a CEO or a sergeant or something. Put points here to reflect that status.
• Cipher - You'll never guess my secret identity... if I have enough points in Cipher. Because it makes investigating my Nova harder.
• Contacts - people you know who can give you info or aide. Less helpful than Allies, but more plentiful.
• Dormancy - You can turn your powers down and look like a normal person. At high enough levels you can have an Incredible Hulk form AND a Puny Banner form.
• Eufiber - This is real gross. There's a Nova who secretes this miracle substance that's used in everything from the setting's equivalent of fiber optic cables to clothing. So you have a living colony of this stuff and you can use it to make your super suit. It's like Attunement but it can only be your clothing BUT it can also store Quantum points, the game's power points. 
• Followers - They're like Allies and Contacts, but instead they're regular people who work for you. Or worship you. Skin it however you want.
• Influence - Your pull and status in society. Fame, basically.
• Mentor - A more powerful or experienced Nova who can help you out. 
• Node - So all your super abilities come from this little grey lump in your brain. The more points you have in this background, the more Quantum you can spend in a turn, but at higher levels there are drawbacks.
• Resources - Your level of wealth.

So yeah, I have 7 points to spend on those backgrounds, up to 5 points per. Way back in step one we noted that Project Utopia gives access to Allies, Backing, Contacts, Influence, Mentor and Resources but there's no reason to feel limited to those. Sam, being a top notch super scientist is going to put 2 points in Backing to show that he's not an entry level grunt in the organization, 2 points in Resources because he makes a decent living, 2 points in Node because he's got a VERY well developed lump on his brain, and 3 in Eufiber because he ran a study on the gross stuff and it took a liking to him.

Step Five: Finishing Touches

This is a lie, there's a whole second part to character creation after these "finishing" touches. BUT I DIGRESS. At this point you record your initial Willpower (3), Quantum (1), Initiative (Dexterity + Wits), Movement speed and spend your 15 bonus points. I'm going to spend a couple of points on Ability specialties. Here's how that works: like I said before, when you need to make a roll to perform an action you build your dice pool equal to the relevant Attribute + Ability. So let's say you're in a car chase and you need to roll drive. You roll Dexterity + Drive. UNLESS you have a specialty in drive that's relevant like, for instance, "Hot Pursuit". In that case you just get an extra die added into your pool. Anyway, like I said, I'm buying a few specialties. Sam is a good all around engineer but he specializes in Energy Sources. He's a great Scientist but he's specialized in Quantum Theory and Physics. At a cost of 1 point per specialty, that leaves us with 12 points.

I'll raise Dexterity to 2 at a cost of 5 points, purchase a point of Influence to reflect Sam's standing in the community as a respected scientist for 1 point, and buy a point each of the Computer, Engineering and Science Abilities to use up the last 6 points.

Phase Two: Nova

See? I toldja it was a lie. Now that you have your character sketched out you determine how they became a Nova and what incredible powers that unlocked for them.

Step One: Origin

You just decide what happened to trigger your abilities. Maybe you were bitten by a radioactive spider. Maybe you were in a car accident. Maybe you touched your first boob. This is event that triggered the little node in your brain and caused you to become a Nova. But uh... if it was the boob touch thing, I would lie about that. Sam's latent abilities made themselves manifest 3 years ago while he was studying quantum energy in a lab experiment. There were unforeseen complications, containment was lost and scientist Sam Stewart was bathed in Quantum Energy and became... The Null Hypothesis. Yeah, that's the name he chose. Sam is kinda a nerd.

Step Two: Nova Points

So remember before, with the Bonus Points? This is like that but instead of regular degular stuff you spend these 30 Nova Points on super powers and such. Each power has a minimum Quantum level so you can buy that up with these points as well if you want one of the rarer or more combat-focused powers. 

Okay so I definitely want Sam to have the Disrupt power which lets him turn off other Novas powers, that's why he's the Null Hypothesis see, because he can nullify other Novas. Alright so Disrupt has a minimum Quantum of 3 and we only have 1 dot of Quantum so first we'll have to buy up Quantum at a cost of 5 points per dot. It's literally the most expensive thing to buy because it's the power stat in the game. So that's 10 of our 30 points gone to Quantum. And another 3 because we actually have to buy the Disrupt power and it's a level 2 power and that costs 3 points per dot in that power so we are down to 17 remaining Nova Points and have one super power. Go us!

Now we've already been hinting that The Null Hypothesis is a pretty smart feller so in addition to his Quantum Power, we'll also be buying up a couple levels of Mega-Intelligence. These can add dice to any Intelligence roll or lower the difficulty of any Intelligence roll and I can also buy Enhancements for more fun. A Mega-Attribute costs 3 points per dot and we have 17 points left. In addition, Enhancements are 3 points a pop. So I'll give Sam 2 dots of Mega-Intelligence and the Enhancements Analyze Weakness so he can look at a situation or thing or person and determine how it's likely to fail and Mental Prodigy: Engineering which gives him a bunch of bonuses to engineering rolls. So that's another 12 points down leaving us with 5.

I'll bump Disrupt up to level 2 for 3 more points and spend the last two on Willpower dots.

Step Three: Finishing Touches

For real this time! If you bought up any attributes or changed your initiative or anything like that with Nova Points, this is when you record those changes. I didn't so I won't. And that's our character. Genius scientist Sam Stewart was studying the new Nova phenomenon for his employers at Project Utopia when the containment field his mentor, Professor Possible, created failed flooding the lab with lethal levels of mysterious Quantum Energy. This awakened the dormant node in Sam's brain allowing him to Disrupt the energies flooding the lab thus saving his coworkers from a slow, painful death. Or possible a quick, painful death. The science in Quantum Death Rays is still pretty new. Anyway, lives were saved and a new Nova was born. Now he uses his knowledge of science and engineering to create seemingly impossible clean, environmentally friendly energy sources at a low cost. And save lives when rogue Novas attack which, honestly... can't they think of anything better to do with their godlike powers than rob banks and disrupt society?

The Null Hypothesis's character sheet can be found here, if you'd like to give it a look.