The Real problem was?

[imported_Magman]

I am on the wiki page for Torg reading it. It list as the first and I suppose main flaw of Torg was that it is too broad. There was too much information for the players to handle with all the invading realms, new rule content for each, and players just didn't know how to handle the different genres during a campaign.

I do not see this as a problem. I once posted regarding that people dislike the fact the storyline ended and the war was over. Somehow people felt that was it and could no longer play. For some apparent reason, people followed the storyline campaign to the letter which goes against all my RPG beliefs. As far as I am concerned, these game give you a background and rule set to use as guides. GUIDES not carved in stone.

I see no reason why you can't simply say the war never ended or forget about having your group transverse all over the world. Keep them centralized to one location. Whichever is most appealing to them, stick with that genre. There are endless stories to be told no matter where you are located in the world.

I do not feel that what they listed should have been the deciding factor in Torg’s demise.

Just my 1 cent on the matter

[Havard]

I agree. None of these were real issues. Meta-plots are problematic, but only because their advantages and disadvantages are rarely explained to the GM. I'd say the real problem was that War's End was not followed up by TORG 2.

Havard

[Kansas Jim]

Perhaps they were looking at it from the business standpoint? Torg was planned from the beginning to run for five years, that's what it did and then, yeah, it died. No more products, no support, nada. And with no new products coming out, stores probably stopped bothering to order the older books and so it disappeared off shelves and the only people who could play it were the old-timers. It wasn't dead to those old-timers, but it was a stone cold corpse as far as everyone else was concerned.

[PCIHenry]

Hello,

True, it was always billed as being slated to run for 5 years, but when you first start off playing I imagine that most would shrug and say, "5 years? Plenty of time to run a campaign." Let's face it, most people's campaigns (unless it was their first D&D which I could see going longer) usually peter out after 5 years.

Now, while I am not nor was I ever privy to the minds of WEG's decision makers back in 1990, it is reasonable to assume that the game might run its course for about 4 years and start to dwindle down by the fifth.

I'm not sure I agree with that since my company's been running a single story-arc (meta-plot) for the past 5 years and it will be wrapping up next year and its only grown.

The problem with a "perpetual" war is that if the PCs are not seeing some sort of advancement of the plot or note that they are having some sort of effect on the war, then they'll shake their heads and say, "What's the point of all this?"

Now one solution to a longer or open-ended war would be to have a few more High Lords than originally planned, call them second tier High Lords with smaller invasion zones that the PCs could boot out of our reality and thus feel that some sort of progress was being made.

The trick is that a certain number of realities are needed/required to keep the feel and tone of a Possibility War going. I can't imagine that a Possibility War with only Orrosh and the Nile Empire left, for example, would be that entertaining or engaging.

Just a few thoughts.

Best,

[asmkm22]

Reminds me of the armageddon plotline of the OWoD stuff. After all is said and done, it's like "what now?"

[hellsreach]

Torg's problem, IMHO, was not the timeline, but the fact that one expects a war -- especially one that is being showcased an a cinematic medium like Torg -- would build up to a great climax. Torg, as is progressed, seem less building to a climax, but simply became stranger and rather tired, as the creative people involved started losing interest.

$.02

[imported_Magman]

the fact that one expects a war

I am not sure Hellsreach is using this in the same context as I am here. But that is exactly my point. Why is/was everyone assuming that the War was a War at all. Storyline: Invading realms bring their realities to earth. Period. This is the world as we know it now, people simply need to survive and stay alive as long as possible. There is no progress that needs to be made, but missions get played out and hopefully most of them are completed successful. people have a few laughs and good times. Of course there will be rewards of some type or people being people would get discouraged to play more.

I recall those days I played D&D, there was no war, no epic grand final campaign to complete. Simply role-play and run with the scenario the GM is laying out. At the end, you might kill a dragon, a few Orcs, but once that is done there is always another task waiting to be started. There was never a conclusion.

Am I wrong to assume that this is how every RPG can and should be looked at? Sure the "ideal" gameplay in the minds of the publisher was to have this as a 5 year campaign. This is your game system now to do with it as you like, simply don't end it ?

That my 2 cents - again. :)

[asmkm22]

I like my campaigns to have endings, if for no other reason than a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of "lets try some new characters/games now". that doesn't mean the endings have to be earth-shattering or even all that extensive, but I like there to be some sort of conclusion to everything the characters have worked towards.

The alternative is a campaign history of many small, non-cohesive, adventures. That can be fun in it's own right, but it's not really my style.

[skeloric]

It is true that the war can be open ended, if it were a TV series it would be.
Every week a new episode and no real progress IF the group all agreed that was what they wanted.
Its only when things get stale and predictable that the producers tell the writers to "change it up".
While the system should still ASSUME that the war can progress, perhaps wherever it lands might see it the way I see it and add a "TV and Film tropes" sidebar where they discuss doing the classic trilogy or an ongoing TV series styled game.
Let's not forget: Shows alter format/story at their own risk.
An A Team that is no longer running from the government and are now back to being government operatives just has a different feel from an A Team that helps out a new family every week by crafting up some crazy gadget to take on some villain.
The series "V" has done both styles.
It began as a successful miniseries where the plot evolved, returned as another miniseries with an evolving plot only to finally be made an ongoing TV series where telling the story of the week was more important that maintaining a progression of the plot.

The further back one goes the more sedentary a series gets.
Gilligan's Island has them marooned on an island for the show's entire run, their escape only occurs after the series ended and they return for a reunion TV movie.
Eventually, their island became a resort where people flew in to enjoy the peculiar rusticness of bamboo & coconut technology.

On Bewitched, Darren Steven's mother-in-law never liked him. most of his in-laws did not like him in fact.

People tuned in each week to hear what would come out of Archie Bunker's mouth.

There was the formula and you messed with formula at your own peril as the formula was part of the show's success.

Moonlighting comes to mind.
In moonlighting we had a comedic pair, Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlighting_(TV_series)
While a number of issues contributed to the series failing, number one in many people's minds was the breaking of the sexual tension of the show by "culminating" their relationship.
By achieving their objective, they failed to retain viewers.

So yeah, maybe the war simply needs to be there and not something of which one is actively working towards the end.
Take a page from Hogan's Heroes, their World War Two lasted the entire series run.

[imported_Magman]

The alternative is a campaign history of many small, non-cohesive, adventures. That can be fun in it's own right, but it's not really my style.


That is understandable and your choice. Nothing wrong with how you like to play. But those who say the War Ended so we can't play Torg anymore isn't a valid reason to me why they don't play anymore. You apparrently have a certain style of gameplay you like, which is why you choose to end Torg with the War's End. It wasn't like you wanted to continue to play, but couldn't because the official storyline had ended your campaign.

That was my point in the above rambling.

[slink]

Why is/was everyone assuming that the War was a War at all.
Well, for a start, because that was the concept of the game. Sure, you never need to stick to what publishers offer you, but it was the most revolutionary part (at least from my point of view). It didn't really hold all it's promises, but still, we felt like being part of something bigger than our weekly gaming sessions. The world of the Possibility Wars actually changed, and sometimes we had some influence in it. And there was a big storyline behind it (at least, we assumed there was).

For me, as the gamemaster, it also meant I had access to lots of resources, be it sourcebooks, adventure modules or accessories. War's End not only ended the Possibility Wars, but it was also the end of all new Torg products.

On top of that, the way stuff was published, you could very easily go along with it. You started off with one realm, then got the next and so on. While we played an ongoing campaign, it didn't hurt that much that characters from the Star Sphere or Tharkold were a lot more powerful than, say a Human Jakatt or Orrorshian Vampyer Hunter.
But to start a new campaign, we (or I, as the gm) would have needed to rework a lot of the background and rules in addition to writing up all my adventures on my own. I just didn't have the time to do that.

[hellsreach]

I'm agreeing with Slink. I think one of the best parts about Torg was the fact that is WAS a war -- a progressive war, and you could actually have a impact on the war's progression in a meaningful way.

I think it is somewhat uninspiring to be given a setting like, "Earth has just been invaded by several other realities, the world has not responded. What do you do." I don't know, I find it strange to think that that people of Earth would not have mounted a counter-offensive. I'm not sure if the will to fight back was because of the Cosm's high PE, or the reason for it, but I like to think that there is a correlation. The more people that are resolute in the determination of what is right and wrong, the more people willing to stand up and fight injustice -- with word or with sword, the more people focused on maintaining their vision of "rightness," the more PE you have floating around the cosm. Could all out war have been avoided?

[Kansas Jim]

I think it is somewhat uninspiring to be given a setting like, "Earth has just been invaded by several other realities, the world has not responded. What do you do."
I think the key word here is "invaded". It indicates that there's someone responsible, someone who can be fought and defeated and driven off the face of the Earth.

Compare that to Palladium's RIFTS where huge sections of the Earth were transformed not by invasion but as a consequence of a global disaster. The world has been changed and that's that, you can't fight it. You just have to accept it and figure out what do you do now.

[imported_Magman]

My analogy of the invading realities didn't mean the Earth's population would not do anything to fight against them. That is the most simplistic point of the whole game. Earth vs. these invaders. You can call it a war if you like, but as in everything in life there is always a conflict of some sort. If War is what we call it, so be it. I went to war trying to open a jar of Peanut Butter. I went to war trying to lift the piano up the stairs. I went to war slaying the dragon within the cave.

War is conflict or change. But it does not have to end, you may open that jar of peanut butter, but someone manages to spin it closed again. The piano might have been moved to the wrong apartment, needing to be moved again. The dragon might have been slain, but lurking elsewhere in the cave were unnoticed babies. There is always more that could be said, nothing ever ends.

The storyline and conflict can always be continued with some thought. Especially when it is a RPG. A made up fantasy world where you are pretty much God, and anything that occurs is by your hand. The story is only completed when someone decides it is.

Your vision of mankind repelling back these invaders against impossible odds and their insurmountable determination is a wonderful tale to tell. But it is only one book in an endless shelf of books for mankind. You open the next book in the sequence and perhaps a worldwide catastrophe happens leaving more than half of the population dead. There is absolute chaos and the hope and freedom they fought so hard for is wiped out in the blink of an eye. No longer concerned with invading realities their attention turns toward basic survival. Their world turned upside down (once again) and the evil of life streams the ceaseless will of the realities back into the conflict.

The endless possibility war begins with a new face.


someone responsible

Someone or something is always present and responsibile. It is the basic building block of any story. The idea people are powerless standing on the sidelines with the inability to do anything in my opinion is wrong. Look at our current situation in life with global warming. How can one even begin to battle nature? With innovation and the human will to never surrender or see the impossible. We seed clouds to redirect storms and lower their intensity, we harness wind power for clean energy, advance technology to reduce carbon emissions.... etc. Something can always be done.

In Torg, ending the War if we call it that was only the beginning.

[asmkm22]

That is understandable and your choice. Nothing wrong with how you like to play. But those who say the War Ended so we can't play Torg anymore isn't a valid reason to me why they don't play anymore. You apparrently have a certain style of gameplay you like, which is why you choose to end Torg with the War's End. It wasn't like you wanted to continue to play, but couldn't because the official storyline had ended your campaign.

That was my point in the above rambling.

I think in my groups case, we were all just ready to move on anyway. The War's End just sort of came at a good time I guess, lol.

[Stormchild]

It is true, even if the war has officially been ended, there are still problems to be solved. History tells that. The Napoleon wars were ended with the Congress of Vienna but that laid the ground works for more problems that culminated in the Prussian-French war that led to WWI, WWII, cold war, even the war in Caucausus today is related. This principle was best illustrated in Babylon 5. The war against the shadows was but a sequel of the first war against the shadows and when the second war ended new problems arose that were interlinked with the first.

So, there was no reason to stop playing Torg after War's End (not to mention it was the worst module ever published by WEG). But the charm of Torg was, that we - as players and GMs - could have a hand in the course of events, published every month in the Infiniverse newsletter. Living in Germany I had no chance getting the Newsletter in time to post my replies, so I used it only as resource material. But without any new resource material I had to develop it myself and it lost some of the charm. In addition new players had no ways to find Torg material except when they chanced on some old material.

I always hoped for a new version of the Infiniverse newsletter especially since the advancements of the internet. It would be perfectly suited for an online-newsletter. But with the beginning of broadband internet access Torg as a brand was dead.

On the subject of the War, WEG did not accomplish to give it a real feel of wartimes. Do you remember the media-coverage of the 2 Gulf-wars or the Yougoslavian war? Every day there was a coverage of Bombing raids, battle arenas and atrocities. In the Torg war this was nearly left out (in the start there was some, later it was only covered with new maps). In a war you need war reports. The reports of Storm Knight adventures are needed too, of course, but they are the personal stories of the war, the people stories if you will.

This is also reflected in the adventures. Most of them had no big impact on the war, they seldom changed frontlines. Instead there were a lot of adventures with difficult motivations. It is not easy for a GM to motivate the players into helping one High Lord so that another High Lord does not gain a significant advantage - like f.i. in The Gaunt Man Returns where the Storm Knights have to aid the Gaunt Man himself. I seldom played official adventures and invented my own, as most of them seemed too crappy for my taste (with the High Lord of Earth and Relics of Power as noteable exceptions).

[Stormchild]

But there were other problems, where Torg went wrong.

1) No real personalities. Recently I discussed this with my regular Torg players (though we played some different games too, this group is playing Torg since maybe year 2 of the war) and they came up with this problem. In other RPG settings there are personalities the players meet and cross, personalities that evolve. In Torg there are the High Lords, their Lieutenants and that's basically it. OK, there are some Core Earth personalities too and it is up to the GM to invent and use interesting personalities, so it is mostly my fault, but WEG could have done more in that departement too. Btw does anyone know the name Kenneth Markham? I recently used that name for a new NPC and it instantly rang a bell with my players, though it wasn't intended by me. Did I use a known name subconsciously?

2) Too few stories about the development of the war and adventures in that direction (as stated in the above post)

3) Rules, rules, rules. With every supplement WEG published new rules though the first edition rules where OK (some where needed of course, like Psi and Martial arts f.i. but there was no need at all for the rules in Storm Knights Guide).

4) Lack of Background. The world books left too much to be desired and updates only gave advancement of already published background.

5) Adventures that lacked in motivation and depths (as stated in the above post)

6) No supporting material like novels, board games, Trading card games, comics (Yes, I know, the Tharkold comic. But it never made it to comic stores in germany and that tells a lot as they carry most american comics)

[slink]

1) No real personalities. Recently I discussed this with my regular Torg players (though we played some different games too, this group is playing Torg since maybe year 2 of the war) and they came up with this problem. In other RPG settings there are personalities the players meet and cross, personalities that evolve. In Torg there are the High Lords, their Lieutenants and that's basically it. OK, there are some Core Earth personalities too and it is up to the GM to invent and use interesting personalities, so it is mostly my fault, but WEG could have done more in that departement too.
I agree. Their were characters like Dr Frest, Tolwyn of Tancred and Congressman Decker, but I never really felt comfortable with cameos of them in my adventures...

Btw does anyone know the name Kenneth Markham? I recently used that name for a new NPC and it instantly rang a bell with my players, though it wasn't intended by me. Did I use a known name subconsciously?
Hmm, funnily enough it rings a bell with me too, but I can't put it down. Hopefully somebody can help us out here?

3) Rules, rules, rules. With every supplement WEG published new rules though the first edition rules where OK (some where needed of course, like Psi and Martial arts f.i. but there was no need at all for the rules in Storm Knights Guide).
I wouldn't have minded if they'd managed to publish a compendium of all the rules. But the way things worked you always had to have a bookshelf of Torg books to find that single skill description in the xy sourcebook. How I hate that.

6) No supporting material like novels, board games, Trading card games, comics (Yes, I know, the Tharkold comic. But it never made it to comic stores in germany and that tells a lot as they carry most american comics)
Well, I don't know where in Germany you live, but my comic shop in small Bonn had them. Well, actually, I think, I might have ordered them through Advance Comics or something similar, but that was a standard way of ordering anyway.
And some of the books were really good. I always like "Strange Tales" and especially "Interview with Evil". Btw, I have duplicates of some of the books, so if you want them, drop me a note.

[slink]

But the charm of Torg was, that we - as players and GMs - could have a hand in the course of events, published every month in the Infiniverse newsletter. Living in Germany I had no chance getting the Newsletter in time to post my replies, so I used it only as resource material.
That's what I did mostly, too - for the same reasons.
But I always loved it when a new Infiniverse arrived in my mailbox.

I always hoped for a new version of the Infiniverse newsletter especially since the advancements of the internet. It would be perfectly suited for an online-newsletter. But with the beginning of broadband internet access Torg as a brand was dead.
I never understood why Eric didn't start a Torg 1.5 Infiniverse. It could have started as a blog with multiple posters and develop further into a big database and online application. My feeling was always his ambitions were much too big for his/WEG's ability to deliver...

This is also reflected in the adventures. Most of them had no big impact on the war, they seldom changed frontlines. Instead there were a lot of adventures with difficult motivations. It is not easy for a GM to motivate the players into helping one High Lord so that another High Lord does not gain a significant advantage - like f.i. in The Gaunt Man Returns where the Storm Knights have to aid the Gaunt Man himself. I seldom played official adventures and invented my own, as most of them seemed too crappy for my taste (with the High Lord of Earth and Relics of Power as noteable exceptions).
Although some of the adventures seemed of dubious quality, in the end, all my players are still stating that the Torg campaign was one of the best RPG campaigns they ever played. And I mostly played the official adventures (though with changes).
What I liked most were the dispatches (in Infiniverse, the Cassandra Files and Queenswrath) and the single-act adventures (Full Moon Draw had some brilliant stuff and a lot of the adventures in supplements got played over the course of my 4+ years campaign).
But they also got frustrated over the "no impact" situation in the long run. That was partially my fault, but the published stuff didn't help there.

[Stormchild]

Well, I don't know where in Germany you live, but my comic shop in small Bonn had them. Well, actually, I think, I might have ordered them through Advance Comics or something similar, but that was a standard way of ordering anyway.
And some of the books were really good. I always like "Strange Tales" and especially "Interview with Evil". Btw, I have duplicates of some of the books, so if you want them, drop me a note.


Wuppertal. If I had known, I would have gone to Bonn to buy them, but I couldn't find them in D?sseldorf either. If you have a duplicate of Strange Tales (one of my favourites too, but I lost it in Prague) or the comics, I would gladly buy them. Btw, will you be at RatCon?

[imported_Magman]

People are always bringing up the possibility of having a Torg2.0 being released. If the overall storyline in my opinion is what drove the game to die, how would Torg2.0 be any different than Torg?

Stormchild you brought up some other points of why Torg failed.

No NPC personalities, lack of war updates regarding its direction, lack of background material, and lack a good quality material for motivating players (Sorry if I misinterped any of your points.)

This is going to come across as sarcastic, but I don't mean it to be. Just making it as blunt as I can to get the point across. Just sounds like the Torg community was lazy and wanted everything handed to them in an absolute complete package with little to no work needing to be done. (please do not take it as I am trying to belittle you guys. I know there are sensitive people out there - in all you guys are great!)

That statement I will admit comes mainly from my already said belief that these games only supply a foundation for YOU to create the world you want to exist to play in. If something is missing or lacking, then sit down write up some pages to fill those gaps. As a community working together, getting a system to a point where you feel it no longer is falling short to your expectation shouldn't be that hard. There were a lot of dedicated people to this game and who were very knowledgeable. Most of them seem to possess more than adequate skills to smooth over the missing holes everyone felt existed in the game. People really didn't stepped up (a few did take some steps) but most hoped WEG would somehow conjure a solution to these problems.

Hero Games- a different game, but a RPG none then less. I have a group of friends for as long as I can remember have been playing the Hero system. Never did any of them use a published campaign to play, only self-created adventures. Nor did any of them complain about something being missing from the world. They used some of the key super villain groups in their campaigns but rewrote them as needed. They didn't like a rule, the left it out or altered it. The system and published material was there only as a guide for their game play, not to dictate it. Same should go for Torg. Perhaps myself and my friends are a unique bunch of hardworkers, but if there is a choice of letting a game die or typing up some information to keep it alive, I choose to type.

I understand the fact that people played this game because they made a difference in the actual storyline. I too see the appeal in this and that is a good motivation to players to play the game. To make history and have their actions dictate how a story turns out. There is no reason for that to stop. There is no reason for updates regarding the world's current state and direction shouldn't continue to be distributed. These two points are intertwined and feed the other. You can always change to storyline and world but creating said content from above for the game as well. That to me is just as cool as changing the course of the war.

Everything that is said to be missing in this game can be corrected by getting the community involved. Get a central location up to dump data, ideas, stories, background, whatever you think will help the system out (Website - Forum). It is going to be a little tedious and some work will be involved in the beginning. But as things start to get filled in and the flow begins to move down that hill, it will get easier. The system will become a breathing object of substance and content for the Torg Community.

Unless Torg2.0 is going to be a totally new game, waiting for it to tell the next chapter in the Torg world is simply being that lazy person I mentioned earlier. Nothing is going to be done to the storyline that the community can't do for themselves. (If it is only going to continue where the War left off at that is.)

You comments are welcome and expected. Please show me what I am missing and I will be more than happy to alter my opinion.

[slink]

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame WEG1.

I think one important aspect you're missing is that this was 1990.
I was playing my own worlds & campaigns since 1983 at that time.

There was no web, only mailboxes and propietary networks like CompuServe and AOL.

So the "community" was no community at all, but groups playing the same RPG scattered all over the world (remember, there were french and japanese versions of Torg and a german one planned).

What caught my interest first were the ads ("In 1990, WEG is changing the definition of Roleplaying"). Then, the Infiniverse really got me into Torg.

A "living campaign" was something completely new at that point. And one where you (supposedly) had influence in the outcome. That was revolutionary.

So, now there's a company saying "We have a plan. It'll be a 5 years campaign".

Now you can call me naive ;) but I wanted to be a part of this. We really enjoyed that feeling of "something bigger". In a way, all Torg campaigns were part of the meta-campaign and all the stuff happening should (or at least could) have led to a some kind of showdown. (Although it was never expressed like this, it was what I thought the campaign lead to)

That promise was never fulfilled.
And after playing it for nearly 5 years there had been quite a lot of fun, but the Infiniverse idea just left a stale taste...

When suddenly...

WEG published Shatterzone which we played for some time after the War ended (maybe we were also ready to move on). We tried MasterBook, but didn't like it. The published worlds were just too weird (Tales from the Crypt? Species?? TankGirl???) or not our focus interest at that time (Indy, Bloodshadows).

[Stormchild]

From a gamer's perceptive Magman, you are absolutely right. It would have been great to have a Torg resource site that really worked as there are for many other RPGs (f.i. Blackjack's Shadowrun page). Many did for Torg (Kansas Jim, Jasyn Jones to name but two, of course there are many more) and of course most GMs came up with their own material.

From a company's perceptive though, this is a different story. In order to gain players the company should provide cohesive background material. Something to build upon. When players come up with good additional material, all the better, make it "official" (as FASA did with the Shadowrun Germany sourcebook which was initially provided by fans). Instead, many players saw no reason to play Torg or contribute to it as the background seemed too flawed in to many places (Aysle: too few background, Donut-shape with a God Dunad, Orrorsh: ridiculous history, a world that only leaves room to play in England)

[imported_Magman]

I absolute agree slink that the lack of the internet in the day definately made it impossibly hard to have this central resource. More to my point is why can't it be done now.

First thing would be to map out all the flaws that need fixing, then tackle them one by one. I will be first to admit that I am ignorant to the summit of these needed corrections; My opinioins are based on the overall concept of general RPG'ing and logic, not specific problems existing in the game's background or ruleset.

To stormchild and the rest of the folks in here, if Torg2.0 would come about, what changes are needed in your opinion from Torg orginal. Better backgrounds, more skills, people character... ? What the storyline continue from the end of the War, from the start with a different direction, or a total rework of the storyline having nothing to do with the original?

[slink]

To stormchild and the rest of the folks in here, if Torg2.0 would come about, what changes are needed in your opinion from Torg orginal. Better backgrounds, more skills, people character... ? What the storyline continue from the end of the War, from the start with a different direction, or a total rework of the storyline having nothing to do with the original?
The storyline should be a total rework, not shying away from throwing away anything, but also not dogmatic about not reusing anything.

The Infiniverse does not need to be an actual newsletter anymore. A blog seems more fitting, but it's also not the perfect solution.

What do you if you want to start your Torg campaign after the campaign has been running for some time? I think, you should be able to join anytime. I'm not sure how this can be accomplished while at the same time keeping the approach that you're part of the meta-campaign. Maybe, it's not possible, I don't know.

But what I think is more important is resources. Coherent, versatile, abundant resources. Dispatches, mini-adventures, NPCs, realities, templates, skills, spells, miracles, psi, pulp powers, new FX systems, equipment, you name it. And if at all possible, make it compatible.

[Liteft]

What about instead of a blog or a newsletter about the ongoing campaign, you simply put out 6, 8 or 12 free .pdf's with adventure hooks, some neat NPC's, equipment maybe a short adventure? All of this could be fan created and posted on the website of whoever gets TORG.

In addition to providing great advertising and getting people intrested in the game it would also take some of the preasure off of the publisher to put books out to quickly....... it would give them more time to collect revenue from titles that are allready out, more time to put out quality products.

[slink]

There's an interesting thought: I think one of the problems with the old Torg material was the built-in expiration date(s).

All the sourcebooks and accessories were easily usable when they were published. But one or two years later, you either started anew or you had to combine information from two, three or more books (Infiniverse Updates, accessories, adventures) to get the current picture.

One of the things that turned away players from my group to take turns in GMing was the sheer amount of material available. GMing one realm was ok, but still very difficult because of the various skills, powers, equipment, World Laws and backgrounds of PCs.

So, I think it's entirely possible and doable, but there's a certain allure to the "spoon-feeding" factor of an ongoing and growing campaign. I know that term usually does not have a lot of positive connotations, but it's a lot more accessible if you get the information step by step.

[Stormchild]

The storyline should be a total rework, not shying away from throwing away anything, but also not dogmatic about not reusing anything.

First of all, the storyline should start at today (later today, early tomorrow, sometime next week but certainly not 1990). The world has changed significantly since 1990 (have we reached Tech 24 already?) not only Technologically but first and foremost politically. I first thought this was no problem but when I tried to start Torg new in our times, it proved to be very difficult. On the other hand, 1990 seems to be so far back, I had to realize that I had forgotten a lot about this time, and one of the pretty sides of Torg is to incorporate real life events and persons into the game (f.i. who was the Prime Minister of Belgium in 1990?). Right now, I don't tell the players at what time we are playing because most of the time it doesn't really matter but it cripples the game.


The Infiniverse does not need to be an actual newsletter anymore. A blog seems more fitting, but it's also not the perfect solution.

I would love it to be an online newspaper that features weekly reports about what happens in the world, the state of the war, coverage of the battle grounds and stories about normal day-to-day life. Some of these stories could even be picked out of real happenings. Just read a newspaper published in WWII or remember how newspapers covered the Iraq war. Of course the war is on page 1 but there are other stories too (politics, international, people stories, economy, sports, health...). Back in the 90s some fans tried to publish those (some were even featured in Infiniverse) but the Internet was not evolved far enough at these times. This accompanied by a fictional forum where Storm Knights can post their messages and adventures (maybe accompanied by statements of Mobius' PR department, official Delphi council reactions...). This could help players and GMs getting into the feel of the Poss-wars.

[Stormchild]

What do you if you want to start your Torg campaign after the campaign has been running for some time? I think, you should be able to join anytime. I'm not sure how this can be accomplished while at the same time keeping the approach that you're part of the meta-campaign. Maybe, it's not possible, I don't know.

There could be two kinds of adventures.
1) Storyline adventures that have impact on the war and should be played in a fixed order (maybe they are numbered or dated, like storyline adventure 5 or week 8 of the Poss war) and
2) Episode adventures that could be placed anytime in the war (or dated like sometime up to year 2 of the war).


But what I think is more important is resources. Coherent, versatile, abundant resources. Dispatches, mini-adventures, NPCs, realities, templates, skills, spells, miracles, psi, pulp powers, new FX systems, equipment, you name it. And if at all possible, make it compatible.

I switched to Masterbook just for this reason. MB has got coherent and versatile SFX rules. I thought it could be used to create spells, miracles, Psi Powers, High Tech, Pulp Powers, Weird Science, Martial Arts, Eternity Shard Powers and Horror Powers (did I forget some?) using the same rules instead of the Torg rules that not only featured different rules for those different SFX but also rules for each SFX (for instance most spells have got their own additional rules). But I lost interest in such a tremendous work and I switched to Torg 1.5 when it was released. I started with eliminating different push rules and different Bonus rules (in some spells the push is compared to 8 in others it is compared to an attribute, in others the Bonus is read as a push, in others the Skill total is read as a push, total confusion if you ask me. The same with Bonus, some spells add a bonus, others add a difficulty number others subtract a difficulty number...).
Another charm of Masterbook was the Backround advantages and compensations option. I would love this to be introduced into Torg. If you find players on german Cons that bring along Torg characters created with Masterbook, this is my fault.

[slink]

There could be two kinds of adventures.
1) Storyline adventures that have impact on the war and should be played in a fixed order (maybe they are numbered or dated, like storyline adventure 5 or week 8 of the Poss war) and
2) Episode adventures that could be placed anytime in the war (or dated like sometime up to year 2 of the war).
I was thinking along the same lines.
You could have "information packages" for each week/month of the Poss Wars. Episodes can be placed in a certain period ("before week 17") or connected to certain events/circumstances ("after Event 12: The Guildmaster betrays Wu-Han").

I switched to Masterbook just for this reason. MB has got coherent and versatile SFX rules.
Actually, that was what I hoped MB would deliver, but my feeling was just the opposite. The SFX rules were too generic to be used without creating your own SFX system based on them or reusing one of the published ones (which didn't really fit to my ideas).

Another charm of Masterbook was the Backround advantages and compensations option. I would love this to be introduced into Torg. If you find players on german Cons that bring along Torg characters created with Masterbook, this is my fault.
Yes, very good idea. But such a bad, bad, bad implementation. Actually, that's where MB completely failed to deliver, for me. On top of that, we had played Torg for 5 years and Shatterzone for 1 1/2 years and woops, you just have to re-learn a new incarnation of the same system for the third time and it's still far from mature. Some problems repaired, new ones introduced.
Erm, nope.

[Stormchild]

One of the things that turned away players from my group to take turns in GMing was the sheer amount of material available. GMing one realm was ok, but still very difficult because of the various skills, powers, equipment, World Laws and backgrounds of PCs.

When WEG published the High Lords' Guide I was overjoyed by the players' handout but soon realized the information was too few to introduce new players and based on the year 3 state of the war (I still played year 1 at that time), so I came up with my own more generic handout (if you are interested, I can post it here).
It never worked out as players don't like reading 1 page filled with information prior to a game, instead they expect the GM to explain all they need to know.
Then I began with writing wrap-ups of the realms (in the form of Delphi files) so that I could carry all relevant information with me on cons. But up to now I only have some of the realms and worlds in german as I found an easier solution later on. Today I have all relevant books scanned in my laptop.

Recently I came up with another idea, more like spoon-feeding as you call it.
I am about to split all relevant information about Poss, reality-mechanics, the invaders, the invasion, the realms, the war progression... into one-or-two-liners, put them into a file and pick those informations that are known to each character individually. Those sniplets will be printed on an information hand-out that is different for each character and (for my regular group) updated each time they get access to new infos. This is accompanied by a skill war knowledge (based on Mind), the total number of sniplets each character has is transfered into a value and read as a push that gives his total adds in the skill. The skill is then used to roll whenever the character wants to access additional information he might have but has not been told expressively .
As this is a lot of work, maybe we could do it as a collaborative work here on the forum, if you people are interested.

[Stormchild]

I was thinking along the same lines.
You could have "information packages" for each week/month of the Poss Wars. Episodes can be placed in a certain period ("before week 17") or connected to certain events/circumstances ("after Event 12: The Guildmaster betrays Wu-Han").

Btw: keyword Guildmaster. I use this organisation a lot especially on Cons. It fills a gap of Torg which Shadowrun covered so great - the fixer (or Johnson in Shadowrun-terminology), get your job, do the work, collect the money, the easiest way into the adventure, without the arbitrary by-chance-meeting in a pub. Since beginning of this year my interest in Torg was rekindled and I was thinking quite a lot about some ideas. One is a list of possible Johnsons. Up to now I came up with the usual suspects (Guildmaster, Nato, different government organisations, Rauru, Delphi Council, even Kanawa through subsidaries, Ardinay, Yakuza, Nile Mobs) maybe you can come up with more. This could be governed by borrowing rules for contacts from shadowrun.


Actually, that was what I hoped MB would deliver, but my feeling was just the opposite. The SFX rules were too generic to be used without creating your own SFX system based on them or reusing one of the published ones (which didn't really fit to my ideas).

Some time ago I started a debate on the WEG forum that soon got out of hand (so I dropped out, as I am not interested in flame wars but in collaberative work, and worked on it on my own). The idea was one generic SFX system with different flavour for different kinds of SFX. MB did this with Bloodshadows and Necroscope - the same SFX rule mechanics but one used for Magic one for Psi with different skills and effects that are different in roleplay but calculated in the same manner. If you are interested I can translate my writings on this subject into english and post it here (I just posted a comparison of the Bloodshadows/Masterbook magic system with Torg on the Bloodshadows thread in this forum).


Yes, very good idea. But such a bad, bad, bad implementation. Actually, that's where MB completely failed to deliver, for me. On top of that, we had played Torg for 5 years and Shatterzone for 1 1/2 years and woops, you just have to re-learn a new incarnation of the same system for the third time and it's still far from mature. Some problems repaired, new ones introduced.
Erm, nope.

Sadly, you are right. MB lacks a lot, especially the Advantage/Compensation rules. But they are a beginning. My players are always pesking me to implement rules from the Hero or Champions system but I don't want to learn just another rule set. And, yes, the different rules of Torg/Masterbook/Shatterzone often confuse my mind.

[imported_Magman]

These sniplets would in a sense be the article headlines?

The players would bank these sniplets, the more they have banked the higher the bonus roll will be when they ask for more information regarding one of them?

If a roll is made successfully, they acquire a blurb or entire article on the headlines depending on how well they rolled?

These headlines will be based on a GM's personal campaign, or a community pooled news feed?

[Stormchild]

You think farther than I did


These sniplets would in a sense be the article headlines?

What I meant was the sniplets to be one or two sentences like "Earth has been invaded by other realities" or "The High Lord of the Nile Empire calls himself Pharaoh Mobius" or "Pharaoh Mobius is a villain from the world of Terra. There he was known as Dr. Mobius" and so on. Of course, they could also be taken from article headlines.


The players would bank these sniplets, the more they have banked the higher the bonus roll will be when they ask for more information regarding one of them?

Yes, they bank them, meaning the sniplets are printed on a piece of paper. On cons this paper is provided together with the character. So, for each template another paper is needed. Though the sniplets can be organised by realms this still is a lot of work.


If a roll is made successfully, they acquire a blurb or entire article on the headlines depending on how well they rolled?

If a roll is made successfully, the GM answers a question regarding deeper information based on the sniplets the player already has got. f.i. he knows that Mobius is a villain from Terra, he can ask deeper questions about Terra.


These headlines will be based on a GM's personal campaign, or a community pooled news feed?

I want it to build it for my own campaign. But it would be easier as a community effort to have a Data Base or news feed.

[imported_Magman]

I like the fact of the news/snippets being introduce into the game play.

In looking at it as a community effort, it gets everyone involved as a whole. It holds them as a central part in the story of the overall world (Something that everyone is telling me is a big selling point to the game.)

I only see this working if the community agrees to have a centralized source for this "news service". The central location will have all GM's campaigns imported and that data will need to be dissected into a logical flow for news output to the community. Some type of rule set will need to be implemented to dictate what gets published and what gets squashed.

If people choose not to follow this "news" world then their campaigns simply will be out of the loop of current affairs and more than likely run a storyline that goes against a printed news article. If it has already been established the Nile Empire has fallen and someone runs a campaign in that zone defeating the realm, then you can see where there would be a problem.

Something like what I am thinking off is an immense undertaken and would call for GM's to change how they play Torg. I do not foresee this controlling a GM's game play, but being used as an out source of information to use within their campaigns. Would provided for richer background information on NPC's, the state of the world and would give player characters a name in the Torg community.

I am at work going into a meeting soon, so I think I lost my train of thought he and am starting to ramble. Will give this a little more thought and try to organize myself better. But if doable, I think I like this.

[slink]

A new Possibility Wars setting would only make sense when a certain number of groups take part. As long as people are not getting back (or newly) into the game, it won't work anyway.

Although I'd love to see your approach realized, I don't see it happening without

a new publisher
a new Torg edition
lots of people taking part
lots of effort put into developing the platform and
somebody managing the campaign nearly full-time.

Which, to me, means, it won't ever happen in this part of the Infiniverse. :(

I'd rather start with something easy to implement, easy to manage and yet interesting to take part. I don't have the perfect answer for this, but blogging, forums and wiki software somehow might just be able to help us set up something. :confused:

What could we do without this level of effort?

storyline adventures (2-5 parts)
episodes (1-2 parts)
dispatches and rumours (information snippets, sometimes pertaining to real-world events, sometimes not)
NPCs (I like Stormchild's Johnson idea)
realities
other resources (skills, spells et.al.)


All of this could be published in any format (pdf downloads, wiki, forum, blog).
Once people start playing around with the material, there will be campaigns running which then can start posting herald messages, in-character messages et.al.

I also like the idea of an IC forum of some kind. If the forum would be splitted into an IC part and a GMs (Out of character) part, there could be more information to certain postings, rumors etc.

I don't know, but I think it's worth trying. Start small and when (and if!) it gets big enough, you can actually start a meta-campaign with all the neat stuff you descibed.

[Stormchild]

If people choose not to follow this "news" world then their campaigns simply will be out of the loop of current affairs and more than likely run a storyline that goes against a printed news article. If it has already been established the Nile Empire has fallen and someone runs a campaign in that zone defeating the realm, then you can see where there would be a problem.

Something like what I am thinking off is an immense undertaken and would call for GM's to change how they play Torg. I do not foresee this controlling a GM's game play, but being used as an out source of information to use within their campaigns. Would provided for richer background information on NPC's, the state of the world and would give player characters a name in the Torg community.

What I thought of was two kind of information. The war reports on page 1 detailing where Battlegroup Mobius is fighting this week or that an unusual gathering of Cyberpapacy forces has been sighted on the spanish border, just the same way WEG did in the Infiniverse Updates. But a year is too long to wait for information about a war. This background information could be used by GMs to place adventures in (like sneaking behind the lines of Battlegroup Mobius or gaining information about what the pope is up to in Spain) or simply be handed out to players so they can see how the war is going and get the feeling that they are not playing in a Void.

The second kind of information is rather arbitrary. Lots of small stories the kind you will find in any newspaper but some of them are linked to adventures provided in a GM section or the GM uses normally harmless stories as a starting point for adventures of his own design. Some time ago I used an esoteric Ufo magazine (really published in Germany) as handout for the players. I took one of the stories and played an adventure around it. Sadly, I don't have it anymore, it didn't carry over from Floppy and IBM 386 to today's tech.

[imported_Magman]

To start with, how do people feel about having a repository online of NPC / Characters?

I can design it so you can add / Edit your own characters online. The community will be able to print out copies for their gaming pleasure. Once the database starts to get populated, there is no real limit to the sorting and searching we can do.


Working off the idea to centralize information, along with the normal character sheet fields I propose new ones to be implemented. The goal is to have an extremely diverse and detail background for each character in game. To have to ability to know a historical log that tracks the adventures of that character, their associations, contacts, enemies... If there is something that character did, thought, ate, wore, and said we will have it recorded.

I have had a Torg website (or least the domain name) sitting around for years now. I have webspace available or I can run it off my own home server for now. Doesn't matter. Might as well use it for something I enjoy.

Thoughts?

[Stormchild]

A new Possibility Wars setting would only make sense when a certain number of groups take part. As long as people are not getting back (or newly) into the game, it won't work anyway.

On the contrary, I think it is only possible with a new setting. I tried with the old setting and I failed. Players always ask what time we are playing. I tried both approaches - back to the 90s and today - both didn't work without some effort put into it. I had to realize that I couldn't remember enough about the 90s to make the setting convincing (and since the players also lived during that period, there is always one who knows better than my memory. Are you sure, you know what cars where in use in the 90s, what computers and communication was in use, even what countries existed that are no longer?).
If it is placed today, the background material has loopholes (though I think this is the easier way, but if you follow that direction you need a good world resource and you have to update Core Earth and Nippon Tech. But updating Tech is easy with the value chart).


I don't know, but I think it's worth trying. Start small and when (and if!) it gets big enough, you can actually start a meta-campaign with all the neat stuff you descibed.

Yes, that is the best way. But we shouldn't start too small. Without an update of the setting it won't work at all (just my opinion). And if we change the setting, we could use the chance to improve it (f.i. leave out the unbelievable still world story).
And we could start with an online war paper. It needn't be updated regularly but it would be a starter.
Next step delve into the cosms, place adventures in them and provide deeper information about these cosms.
When the cosms get more interesting, the realms will get more depth as a side-effect. f.i. Nile was portrayed as a Pulp world but it developed gradually into a 4-color-superhero setting. This was part due to the lack of understanding how this setting should work.
With some adventures on Terra without the distraction provided by the war and the additional egyptian setting, maybe, this would not have happened. So, I think the cosms are the key to getting a feeling of the setting.

[Stormchild]

To start with, how do people feel about having a repository online of NPC / Characters?

I can design it so you can add / Edit your own characters online. The community will be able to print out copies for their gaming pleasure. Once the database starts to get populated, there is no real limit to the sorting and searching we can do.
Thoughts?

Cool. I am with you and will certainly contribute. But I have not enough knowledge about databases (only basic knowledge about Typo 3), so I am no help with the tech. I would also love to use this database for the aforementioned collection of sniplets. I am doing this for my own campaigns, so maybe others will use it or contribute. I also could add the Delphi files I wrote on some realms (though I have to translate them first) and write new ones on the realms I haven't covered yet. There is also a tractise about a different history of Orrorsh. Maybe this could also be of interest.

For the character database, I would propose a standardized form. It could be based on an NPC form that has to be somewhere in the WEG material. I am still looking. Btw while searching through my books, I found the name Kenneth Markham. Funny how some names stick to your mind. He was the example PC in the Storm Knights' Guide.

[imported_Magman]

This is what I will do, I will work-up a general consolidated version of a character sheet over the weekend. I will work out all the functionality and programming flow for it. I will limit the actual number of fields for the character sheet to a bare minimum to start with. We'll do some test on it and once I see everything is up to par I will start to piece the other necessary sections to it.

My overall enthusiasm is with the snippets of news. But needing to start somewhere, basing this project on an already established foundation seems sensible. Characters and their backgrounds already have a road map to what is expected and needed. It is a good move forward before we start to iron out the wrinkles of the unkown.

I should have something by tomorrow to have people test out.

[Stormchild]

In order to show what I meant by these sniplets, I wrote some down during the half-time in the football game tonight.

I sorted them by catch-phrases and Levels (Basic, 1 - 3, maybe more). Basic knowledge is what you have when you are from this world, or have visited the world for some time. The other levels are meant to gauge if you can roll on your knowledge. If you have achieved level 1 you can only roll on other level 1 knowledge (this is not meant as a rule but as a means for the GM to assess which knowledge should be available to the player). PCs gain new levels only through roleplaying

Legend (Level 1): In the Beginning there was only The Place in the Time of Nothingness. The Void was alone and hungry in The Place. Then Eternity came.

Legend (Level 1): When The Nameless One tried to devour Eternity their endless cycle of destruction and creation created The Maelstrom. From the Maelstrom two possibilities arose: The Nameless One and Apeiros.

Legend (Level 1): Since the dawn of time The Nameless One is fighting against Apeiros, destroying his creations in the process. Apeiros created the Cosmverse in order to flee the Nameless One.

Legend (Level 2): Apeiros fled to the Cosmverse leaving The Nameless One behind. The Nameless One created the Darkness Devices in order to find and destroy Apeiros.

Legend (Level 2): Darkness Devices know only one goal: They search and devour the shards of Eternity dispersed across the Cosmverse.

Legend (Level 2): Darkness Devices only have limited creativity. They need High Lords to carry out their goals.

Legend (Level 3): One day a High Lord will accumulate so much Possibilities, Might and Knowledge that he will become Torg. Invincible, immortal, a god.

Raiders (Level 1): The Gaunt Man is the most experienced of the High Lords. He is leading the invasion.

Core Earth Basics: Invasions have occured in the USA, France, England, North Africa and Indonesia. The remaining rest of earth is called Core Earth.

Living Land Basics: East and West of the USA is overgrown by Jungle. Dinosaurs and Lizardmen roam there.

Living Land (Level 1): The Lizardmen call themselves Edeinos. Their culture is like in the stone age but they are able to control dinosaurs.

Living Land (Level 2): The Edeinos worship a goddess called Lanala. For them, she is the embodiment of nature.

Living Land (Level 3): The Edeinos crave for intense emotions which they give their goddess as a gift in order for her to have feelings. In exchange the goddess provides her worshippers with mighty miracles.

[imported_Magman]

Something like that would be very easy to create and maintain.

[Stormchild]

It took me some time, but now I found the resource for a NPC log. Though I had it in mind better than it is. Page 44 of the Bloodshadows supplement "Mean Streets". it has only entries for Attributes, Skills, Arcane knowledges, Spells, Background, Physical Appearance, Personality, Resources, Equipment, Distinguising Characteristics, Species, Alignment, Height, Mass, Age, Sex, Name and Notes.
Another good resource is the Storm Knights' Guide with all those questions regarding the character, the behavior tags and the personality traits.

[slink]

[QUOTE=Stormchild;558]On the contrary, I think it is only possible with a new setting. [QUOTE]
That was just a misunderstanding. I do agree that there's a need to update. E.g. I'd change the Tech axiom to accomodate for the current state of technology and what seems plausible in the near future.

[Stormchild]

When first news came, that WEG will be sold, I posted this on another site in response to an idea that Marketplace was being ruled by an AI. As nothing else happened on that site, I put it here again to start the discussion about the setting for a new war.


I love your idea of Marketplace being controlled by an AI. Btw do you remember the rumors about an AI in the godnet that makes the Cyberpope nervous? How about this AI overtaking Marketplace?

A word on the settings: I think the problems of each setting can be tackled from within the setting.
Tharkhold: Too overpowered, but the setting leaves room for all-out war between Demons and humans after the surge that happened during the failed invasion of Kadandra. How about the Demons where infected with a Virus in their cybersystems, so they forego their cyberware in order to survive, while the humans look for help in the Cyberpapacy where they get clean ware?

Space Gods: I never understood why they planted reality-trees. Instead they could plant only 1 or 2 trees for a base on earth and establish another base on the moon. While the Lorbaat declare open war on the Akashans and plant their own trees and some secret Comaghaz-bases are also established.

Living Land: Too weak, too dumb, too boring. But it needn't be. In my games I make intensive use of miracles to enhance the edeinos and benthe to control masses of dinosaurs.

Orrorsh: crappy history and world background. Can easily be changed to make the cosm more interesting. Scrap the Gaunt Man and let a bidding-war of the Hellion Court for the darkness device begin.

Nile Empire: lose parts of Africa, win Italy and play it like WWII Italy. A Roman Empire in civil war with the Nile Empire. The war is mostly fought in the mediterrenian sea and of course on many levels as a spy war.

Cyberpapacy: Humans from Tharkhold and Magicians from Aysle help the Resistance and the pope is on retreat. The realm is split similar to Aysle. Though in the CP the split is not by stelae-triangle but city by city.

Aysle: Two armies - one of the dark, one of the light - roam realm and cosm. It is much like the 30-year-war or the american civil war. Wherever one army is it wins over the stelae triangle but no one dares the final showdown.

[Stormchild]

Addendum:
And of course, Nippon Tech needs to be changed.
First of all the name. It is too obvious for a secret realm.
Maybe Kaizen would be a good name, as it was the Buzzword for japanese economic success and means continual change for the better.
So it is not Kanawa that openly expands but the Kaizen mindset that conquers asia (followed more subtle by the Kanawa corporation and its subsidaries like Bank of Japan, Bank of China).
Instead of conquering Japan, Marketplace sets its finanancial hooks into Japan, China, South Corea, Thailand and the other economic tiger states. From economic developing regions it then spreads out over those countries. Kanawa is not doing this alone but gives the other 2 Megacorps of Marketplace licenses (gaining more troops for free and license fees in the process).
But of course, the other Megacorps have their own agenda. One even sponsors the Rauru-Block.
The chinese government does not even suspect it has been invaded and many officials are bribed.

[skeloric]

While much of that was hit-n-miss with me, your NipponTech addendum was a sure hit.
I agree that a "secret" invader needs to be less open.
The name needs tidying as well, Ryuchi rather than Ryuichi (or is it the other way around?)

However, the Gaunt Man needs to stay.
Orrorsh is his playground.
I think his arrival point should be in South America and leave North America alone for the Victorians to colonize.
A lighter touch however is one I fully agree with.
One of the books made mention of a Gallic Regiment -- Gallic as in Gaul, a variant of France.
Which indicates that "Gaul" is theoretically populated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic

Gaul, from which the name derives, a region of Europe comprising present-day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and parts of the Netherlands and Germany
It may also refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Gaul

Roman Gaul consisted of an area of provincial rule in the Roman Empire, in modern day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and western Germany. Roman control of the area lasted for 600 years. The Roman Empire began its takeover of what was Celtic Gaul in 121 BC, when it conquered and annexed the southern reaches of the area. Julius Caesar completed the task by defeating the Celtic tribes in the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC and the romanisation was quick and large; Latin was spoken by a majority of Gauls in the first century AD but with some remains of the Gallic language. Following the Frankish defeat of the Romans at the Battle of Soissons in AD 486, Gaul came under the rule of the Merovingians, the first kings of France.
With all of this, a region of Gaean Europe can become "Gaul" without much trouble and add a new region for Victorian inhabitation.

[Stormchild]

In the Orrorsh Sourcebook, it looks a lot like everything except Great Britain (Victoria) is inhospitable due to Horrors. But this is contrary to the ecology of Horror, which was first practiced in Orrorsh (as to the Sourcebook). My opinion is the history of Orrorsh is crap (Celts that conquer the roman empire and evolve into a culture similar to the Victorian Empire). I would propose to change it (if you are interested I have written something about it. I posted it some time ago on the forum but there was not much reaction to it). I would prefer an Orrorsh with different cultures where Horrors lurk but are not too obvious. Each cosm should be playable on its own imho of course.

On the point of changing the place of the Orrorsh realm. If it is to be changed, it might be best to put it into eastern europe (Transsylvania of course, parts of Rumania and Hungaria today)

[imported_Magman]

Going to start a new thread for updates regarding the site. Do not want to derail this conversation. New thread will be called World of Torg.

[John_Feaster]

I do not feel that what they listed should have been the deciding factor in Torg?s demise.

I just read the Wiki page as well. For me, TORG was an amazing, excitibg game with an okay system and a setting that MADE me want to play every week. I found little to complain about in the main books (Nile Empire, Living Land and such), but the game still has the flat out WORST pre-gen adventures I've ever encountered. Even High Lord of the Earth was weak (though the Aztec Empire was fine on its own), and that was perhaps the best of them.

As time passed, the game lost its focus, and started to drift into areas I felt no need to follow. Some of the last books were the worst. I waited ages for the Terra book, and when it came out...ugh. Pulp Magic had to be reworked at every turn to find a usable place in my campaign, and the history of Terra was so...warped. Terra was supposed to be a place of heroism and good guys winning the day, and instead it was a place where a bumbling, arrogant US (I guess Bush was in charge) got into a World War with Germany, England and France (and won, for goodness sake), and where heroes were hunted down andshot in the street. One of the guys I spoke to who was there at the end said that the writers darkened it up, because it was felt that the Pulp Heroic realm of Terra needed to be more realistic...thus (in my opinion) ruining the flavor of the realm.

Then the Berlin book came out a year after I started my Nile/Tharkold campaign set in Berlin. I'd gone all "Dark Pulp" with the setting, with lots of 1930's fashions and technology mixed with the Tharkold-style dark future and cybernetics. Cabaret singers with piercings, tats and cyber-limbs. 30's style Police with energy weapons and flying cars designed to look like pierd vehicles. The Techno-Demon Crime Lords and their warring gangs of dominated thugs. I had a blast running that game.

The the Berlin Citybook comes out...and each realm has it's own little area of the city, as if they all lived on tiny reservations or something. It was limp as heck.

In my opinion, as time passed...the realms lost their flavor and began to run together. Victorians, Elves and Edeinos just sort of wandering around the planet and bumping into each other without much effect.

Also, while the Wiki says that the game was very "u.s.-centric" (so many adventures being based in the US, and North America being invaded by five realms by the end) it has to be said that North America was originally invaded by the most uninteresting, least exciting cosom. I don't know about you, but while I've run a lot of adventurers set in North America (the Living Land), I've run MANY MORE set in the Nile Empire and Cyberfrance! Heck, the other realms are almost always more interesting than the misty, primative Living Land. My North America setting didn't take off till the Land Below become the Land Above (and getting a real Land of the Lost feeling), thus making it a more entertaining place to visit.

Just my opinions.

[Stormchild]

I think the reason why so much ended up in the US was that the authors realized later on that the Living Land did not work as intended. Then they tried to patch together what was broken in the first place, making it ever worse.

The modules were indeed some of the worst in the RPG market at that time (though I would make an exception for High Lord of Earth). On the other hand the ideas given in the Infiniverse Newsletter were very promising. As I do seldom GM predesigned adventures, this was OK for me.

My opinion is that the background was flawed in the beginning. It was meant to be a multigenre game where cross-overs are commonplace but the stelae boundaries prevented these cross-overs. When only Poss-rated can cross the boundaries where do all these cross-overs come from?

The world backgrounds where not really creative and thought through. Too few Hot Spots, too few unique social and cultural facts. Especially Aysle lacks everything and is even less than a copy of your typical fantasy world. Each world was supposed to be a unique mix of different genres, instead the authors seemed not to know where they were heading to. Even the Nile Empire which seemed to be an exception in the first place, drifted into a super hero setting after some time.

Still it is my favourite RPG, because it has so much potential.

[John_Feaster]

Still it is my favourite RPG, because it has so much potential.

Yeah, and the Drama Deck was one of the best, most fun ideas I've ever seen in RPGs. I love the look on a players face when he realizes he's got a great hand, and even better when he uses it correctly as opposed to fumbling everything away. It takes a certain level of intelligence to properly handle your cards.

And just for the say so, As generic as Ayle was, it did do what it needed to do. Just take some books on European history and base some adventures on more traditional legends that were 'Energized' by the higher Magic and Spiritual axioms. I loved using Bog Mummies, Stonehenge and the Druids. For that matter, I had a lot of fun with Avalon.

And yeah, Nile eventually became WAY to SUPER HERO to be proper Pulp. Thankfully, I had only one player who drank often from that well.

[Boojie]

Well, I never knew it was planned as a 5 year campaign lol. My players back then and now love the game!
One player told me at our first session this past saturday that the drama deck is what he loves most about the game.
They have told me that they love everything about the game so far. Maybe I just run the game in a way where these problems do not seem visible.
I dont know just my thoughts.

[Wakshaani]

Yeah, a relaunch would require a few levels of communication. In particular, a 7 year lifespan over a five year storyline.

"Wha?"

It works like this:

At let's say GenCon, Torg 2.0 gets rolled out, featureing the game in a state similar to teh core box set ... three months ago, the invasion started. Here is what the world looks like right now. *plop* HOWEVER! In fifteen months, we're going to go "live" into the storyline. This first year, we want you, the first wave of Torg players, to take it and run with it. We need your feedback, we need to make sure that our online capabilities are up for the blast we're going to get, we need to find missing information and errors ... you, in essence, are beta testing the game for one year. The next GenCon, we should be ready to well and truly unload. At that time, we'll have a new printing ready, with all corrections that you helped us make, and we'll have some stories of what happens to share ... characters that you create could be woven into the overall storyline. Adventure seeds that your group enjoyed could be sprea dto others. It's your reward for helping us launch. It gives everyone from GenCon three months to go home, win over friends, and try it out.

3 months after genCon, the real world timeline and the in-game timeline merge. Thanks to the web, we'll have real-time stories rolling in and monthly updates for cosms... where're new Stelae? Where have some been rpped up? How well are Seeds being planted and what High Lords are doing good/bad? We'll have messages moving around via Herald and, in general, it'll be a growing campaign.

After that, you release an anunal ... Torg: The Possibility Wars: Year X ... it would detail what all has happened in the past year and provide "Placeholders" for news GMs to come in. There'd be five books in all, one per year, with teh final being the wrap-up. That'd take you 6 years and 3 months worth of time, with the final 9 months used for epilogues, making your own cosms, how to run the war yourself, etc. 7 years is a LONG time to dedicate oneself to a single game, but, it's doable. Shorter than that (A true 5-year plan) would have stumble worries while longer would just grind everyone down.

You'd have to have 2.0 ready to roll at Gencon -1, while it and the realm books (If you wante dto go that route) would need to be done at Gencon 0... this would prevent power creep and allow all the rules to be hashed out ahead of time. After that, all you need to do is nursemaid teh story itself along and that's much, much easier. Ideas for a handful of actual modules (I'd say 3 a year) and extra books that aren't NEEDED but are HANDY would also work... the annual update book, of course, would be vital. Extra books might include the Character Collection or teh Personal Weapon Bokos ... things taht are neat, but not nccessary.

The website would need forums (natch) and there could be *gobs* of info slotted into that, mostly fan-created and stamped 'Approved!' here and there. Without a doubt, make note that the writers would keep an eye on the forums and that, by adding stuff there, people give permission for WEG to take the ideas and publish them, giving up rights, royalties, etc. You get to see the cool stuff you've written for, say, Hiro Tanaka, in actual Torg product, but you wouldn't get paid for it... but it's a nice nod from the creators.

Speaking of which.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to have a "Book of Protagonists" and a "Book of Antagonists" prepared for the GenCon 0 launch. Protagonists would have lots of sample characters, at least half of which would NEED to be Core Earth, with both long, PC-worthy writeups and shorter "Helpful NPCs" that could be used, ranging from "Generic person on the street" and "Bob the Cop" to friendly Edeinos Optant to French Resistance Member to "Generic Scientist" ... lots of pre-rendered stuff.

Antagonists would be similar, with badguys. Assorted higher-ups from each Cosm, some Core Earthers (Spartans, anyone?), generic Egyptian soldiers, Weird Scientists, normal scientists, Viking Warriors, and so on, each getting long, or short, writeups based on how important they were. Cannon Fodder like Nile Troopers don't need much, but Bishop Liberte of CyberQuebec who has ideas about being the next CYberPope ... well, he gets a whole page, maybe two. No way to cover *everything* a GM'd need, but, a nice big ol' chunk of work done is a helper and, once again, by getting it done BEFORE teh launch goes gold, you get to dodge power creep.

...

I'm rambling.

[Catstacker]

Wak, you've got some good ideas! Ramble on over to my High Lords game in the Game Ads, pick your favourite cosm (or cosm that might've been your favourite if it'd been handled your way,) and we can put your ideas to the test.

[Wakshaani]

Yeah, need to do that. (I'd probably do Orrosh. Got a few bridgelocations with their name on it.)