General RPG Rules DiscussionDiscuss the rules of any game except D&D or Pathfinder, such as Arcana Evolved, Mutants & Masterminds, Star Wars Saga, d20 Modern, and the like.
DriveThruRPG/RPGNow are having a sell on Trinity & Aberrant books, so I thought I might pick up some of the PDFs. However, I never really read much of either, especially Trinity, so I thought I'd ask -- which Trinity and/or Aberrant blooks are good & useful? Especially for setting info -- I'd probably use another system (M&M, GURPS, SW, FATE, etc.) if I ran a game in the settings.
DriveThruRPG/RPGNow are having a sell on Trinity & Aberrant books, so I thought I might pick up some of the PDFs. However, I never really read much of either, especially Trinity, so I thought I'd ask -- which Trinity and/or Aberrant blooks are good & useful? Especially for setting info -- I'd probably use another system (M&M, GURPS, SW, FATE, etc.) if I ran a game in the settings.
Well, I only ever bought a few of them (not at full price, thank the gods.) IMO, you could do much better with just about any other system out there. So yeah, something like M&M would be a fantastic upgrade here.
The ones I was kind of familiar with: the main book, some 'reports', and the tech book. Any of these could be mined for stuff, so none would be a total waste of (small amounts of?) money, again IMO.
The rest, I have no idea, but they're probably much the same - some good, bad and mediocre ideas, put together with seemingly very little idea of how best to do so, and an absolute dog's breakfast of game mechanics, apparently for use with them.
Funny Aberrant is my system of choice for simple, easy supoer powers. Different strokes and all. Don't waste money on the terrible d20 conversions. The original rulebooks have some neat ideas. Core book, players guide, teragen handbook are all pretty good crunch and storywise. The Project Utopia book and some others are alright. Aberrant Worldwide Phase 1 and 2 are the adventure books. The lil 16 pagers are pure world scenery. The Hunter S Thompson inspired Fear & Loathing style and the XWF books are both pretty funny. XWF probably funnier if you ever watched much wrestling, esp the bit about Ric Flair ripping into an Aberrant wrestler verbally heh.
I can't speak for the Trinity books much as I only have the core book I think.
I own all the Trinity?Abberant/Adventure stuff, so I'm a big fan, which colours my perceptions a bit. That said, if your not using the system then the world books/field reports for Trinity are the way to go. Lunar Rising & Aurora Austaralis are the best. If you intend to use outer space then you pretty much need Stellar Frontier. Shattered Europe is too tied to the metaplot scenarios and America Offline is just meh. All the field reports are cheap and flavour tastic. Not so fond of Abberrant but again the Abberant (insert title) are the best non mechanics heavy buys. If its cheap, and its only only one book, Adventure is great fun. Hope you enjoy.
I wrote a long reply extolling the virtues of both Trinity and Aberrant, but the server ate it. I now present the shortened answer:
Aberrant: Worldwide Phase 1+2 for metaplot and adventures. Teragen is great. Utopia, Directive, Elites are good if doing specific plots or using them. Aberrants is awfully weak. ReignofFear.com+XWF+Fear and Loathing were kinda useless to me.
Trinity: World+Order books. I liked them all (and used them all). Extra bonus for Stellar Frontiers. Field Reports are lotsa flavour, but make sure you get 'em cheap. Remember to get the final one here: http://homepage.mac.com/bbaugh/asas/Asia_Ascendant.pdf for free. Bruce Baugh was allowed to release the material for free after White Wolf cancelled the line, to get it "out there for fans". Darkness Rising + Alien Encounters are great adventures and the last series has metaplot and metaplot, but then that is part of what made Trinity great.
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I bought all the books when White Wolf was having a half-price clearance sale on their physical copies. Aberrant is the best read of all of them (though I have friends who actually like 4 color superheroes who just hate the world).
I have a Mutants and Masterminds adaption of Aberrant as well as my own Trinity d20 conversion that predates the Trinity d20 book (its based off the original Psionics Handbook).
DriveThruRPG/RPGNow are having a sell on Trinity & Aberrant books, so I thought I might pick up some of the PDFs. However, I never really read much of either, especially Trinity, so I thought I'd ask -- which Trinity and/or Aberrant blooks are good & useful? Especially for setting info -- I'd probably use another system (M&M, GURPS, SW, FATE, etc.) if I ran a game in the settings.
For Trinity, the main book and the Player's Guide are the biggest deals. The Player's Guide is vital, it's like the Unearthed Arcana supplement, full of neat ways to spice up the core game.
The 'splatbooks' then follow, with Luna Rising being one of the best, and one of the few I'd consider vital, as it *oozes* atmosphere, in a way that most of the subsequent splatbooks, IMO, don't. (Then again, maybe it just spoiled me for the rest, being as it came out first. It felt kinda like reading Dansky's Clanbook Nosferatu first, and then picking up Clanbook Ventrue or Brujah afterwards and being majorly let-down.)
I'd also recommend the Tech Manual, although some didn't care for it as much, so that might be a controversial recommendation.
For Aberrant, the main book might be enough to get you started. I believe there was also a Players Guide or something, which might also be a good choice, although it dealt with uber-powers with a global scale (literally, energy blasts that could damage the whole planet, changing the evolution of entire species world-wide, fun stuff), which might not be everyone's cut of tea. Depending on what sort of game you are working on, Project Utopia, the Teragen, mercenaries, etc. Faction books might also be very useful for setting up a game based around that faction.
If you have any small place set aside in your soul for pulp goodness, pick up Adventure! while you're at it. It's good enough to make me sad that it never got a chance.
Trinity and Aberrant are some of my favorite games worlds/systems.
I'd buy as much as possible.
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