You can still use gettok, you just have to place a special token between each for the return... (chr9 is a tab, but you can use any chr you like)

return $+(%var1,$chr(9),%var2,$chr(9),%varN)
var %result = $somealias()
$gettok(%result,X,9)

OR if you dont need the original $1- anymore you can use tokenize

return $+(%var1,$chr(9),%var2,$chr(9),%varN)
tokenize 9 $somealias()