Now this isn't about Xbox or Board Games. I'm going to discuss Pen and Paper, or "Tabletop" games as they're sometimes called. Games like Dungeons And Dragons...
You know... SATAN'S GAME!
Anyway, speciffically I'm going to talk about a game called Aberrant by White Wolf. Aberrant is a Superhero game in a contemporary setting where people who "errupt" transcend the pathetic restrictions of humanity and become "Novas". Novas are super-powered beings who are considered 'god-like'. Now, since the term "Mutant" is copy-written by Marvel Comics, they had to come up with something else. Could they have done better? That's debatable but none the less that's not the point.
Now, Aberrant is played much like D&D. You have a "Game Master" or "Storyteller" who runs the game. This person is like the writer, narrator, God and Jesus all wrapped up into one. They present the story to the gamers, lead them to make choices which affect the outcomes of situations they are put into and also, at least when I am running a game, are trying to kill the gamers at every turn.
Players are given points to give your characters abilities and skills. With these abilities you're given dice which ultimately decide the success of the various tasks you attempt when you don't just try to role play through it. In Aberrant, you're also able to give your character virtually any super power you can imagine! Flight, Wolverine claws, laser eyes? The thing I love about most games like Aberrant is that you're only limited by your imaginaton.
Want to be a character that blows up on a whim without actually dying? SELF-DESTRUCTOR! Yeah... you can do that too.
The gamers play the superhero 'team' or even super-villains if you're feeling evil.
Now for an example of the plot of the last game I ran, just for reference:
After he players erupted, they were united by a NPC (Non-Player Character) named "The Captain" who wanted their aid to save a hero named Ultima, who is kind of like the Superman of this particular story. Captain believed Ultima was abducted by a villanous society named "The Circle" and their purpose for abducting Ultima was unknown.
The team learned that The Circle was lead by three villains named The Baron, Lady Venom and Max Kenneth III.
The team infiltrated various Circle hideouts to try and find information on Ultimas whereabouts, ultimately they were lead to believe that Ultima was sent into outer space. The team was going to have to take a space ship and go into Space themselves to save Ultima.
The game never got that far. I decided I was stick of being the game master, I wanted to actually PLAY the game. I've been GMing for... too long.
I ran a pretty lengthy villains story where one of the players was turned into a child eating cannibal, another player became a drug kingpin based out of Taiwan and other characters divulged in random acts of evil, greed, gluttony and depravity the likes of which only a true super-villain could desire, MUAHAHAHAHA!
In the first game session of this particular story, All the players were broke out of prison by the aforementioned Max Kenneth. Some chose to join him, some chose to give him the middle finger and do their own thing but that didn't stop him from trying to play them all against each other and sabotage them without their knowledge of it. I killed two players in the very first night! It all came to a vicious implosion a few months down the line when every player tried to kill each other and I had to time-warp the game to evade a untimely demise. The game, needless to say, never really recovered after that anyway.
Now I've got a good group of co-workers we've had an Aberrant game going for a few months now and I am burntout, like I said, I want to PLAY, I don't want to be the creator, I want to be the guy that mucks the GM's perfect plans up in MY quest for all that is ... whatever I may be feeling that particular evening.
I've been creating a character for the game and I've decided he will be based off of Christopher Walken
( "Babies... when I'm done with you, you'll all be wearing gold plated diapers!" )
Now since I know my friends, I know the kind of characters they will play.
Two will likely make combat oriented characters because they play D&D all the time and are very difficult to try and wrangle into playing an actual "character"
The other will likely play a loner type who will play nice with the other characters but will mostly divulge his own devices.
This leaves ME to make the character that will likely lead the group: Make the decisions and do the talking and you better believe I'm going to mess with the other players as well as the GM. That's why I chose to make a character that's based off of Christopher Walken, he oozes charisma, he can play any kind of role he needs to play and well he's super cool.
It's going to be fun because it will also be a cheap excuse for me to use my Christopher Walken impression en masse without having to bring it up in a discussion in order to be asked to show it.
I'm not sure what Christopher will be getting in to but it will be fun. I look forward to demanding more cowbell at inappropriate moments and maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll get the chance to push a villainous she-bitch out of a window. A little russian roulette? Who knows! That's what makes Aberrant great. Anything can happen.
All that I'm really left wondering...
What superpowers do you give Christopher Walken?
