Skill Tree

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Lore & Background

Torg was created by Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek, with art by Daniel Horne, and first published by West End Games in 1990. Its resolution system uses a single twenty-sided die, drama cards, and a logarithmic results table—mechanics that later formed the basis for WEG's 1992 sci-fi RPG Shatterzone and 1994 universal RPG Masterbook. WEG produced over fifty supplements, novels, and comics for the first edition. A revised and expanded core rulebook was released in 2005 with a single adventure. After WEG closed in 2010, Torg was sold to Ulisses Spiele, who, after a successful crowdfunding campaign, published a new edition called Torg: Eternity in 2018. The game's setting describes multiple realities, each a different genre, but all share two elements: a Darkness Device and its linked ruler, the High Lord. Each cosm has its own four axioms (social, technological, magical, spiritual) and three World Laws. Cosms survive by invading other realms and converting them to their reality. Earth is unusually rich in possibility energy, and the only way to access all of it was to have several cosms invade at once. This was organized by The Gaunt Man, High Lord of Orrorsh, the most successful and powerful of the High Lords. Initially six cosms invaded, all detailed in the Worldbook, then in their own sourcebooks.

In Their Own Story

The Gaunt Man, High Lord of Orrorsh, orchestrated a coordinated interdimensional invasion of Earth, a realm unusually rich in possibility energy. Six cosms struck simultaneously, each reshaping vast swaths of the planet to match their own realities. In North America, the Neolithic reality of The Living Land invaded, causing soldiers' guns and radios to fail because the tech-axiom of that cosm only allowed for a Neolithic level of technology. Storm Knights, however, carry their own reality with them. They can perform under their own reality wherever they go, sometimes requiring a check against their reality skill to accomplish feats that particularly violate the rules of a reality. Players are rewarded with 'possibility points', which can be spent to improve characters' abilities. Unlike in most RPGs, possibility points also exist as an in-game phenomenon, and characters may spend them to achieve certain effects, such as healing or changing results during play.

Reader's Guide

Torg branded itself as a 'cinematic' game, emphasizing gameplay similar to adventure films such as Indiana Jones or Land of the Lost. Encounters are divided into 'acts' and 'scenes'. Actions are resolved by rolling a twenty-sided die, resulting in a modifier applied to the relevant attribute or skill, compared against a difficulty number. The degree by which the total exceeds the difficulty number influences how successful the action is. Rolls of 10 or 20 allow the player to roll again, adding their new total to the previous, continuing indefinitely as long as a 10 or 20 is rolled. The wound system stresses incapacitating damage over lethal kinds, mimicking adventure films where heroes are often incapacitated but rarely killed. Torg uses an unusual card-based system from its 'Drama Deck'. Each player gets a hand of 4 cards at the start of the game; the rest are stacked in front of the game master. Cards can be used by both players and GMs to influence play. When a combat encounter begins, the GM flips over a card that dictates certain advantages and disadvantages for players and NPCs. Players can also use cards to give themselves advantages or even plotlines, which could result in extra points. Character creation is limited. The basic set and subsequent supplements provide several character templates based on archetypes such as 'Eidenos Hunter', 'Vengeful Human', or 'Werewolf'. These come with a general background story and a pre-set roster of attributes and possessions. Customization is limited to distributing points among an array of dictated skills. Even though there is a simplified instruction to create templates in the back of the core rulebook, further supplements allow for more freedom in designing characters.

Did You Know?

• Torg's resolution system later formed the basis for WEG's 1992 sci-fi RPG Shatterzone and 1994 universal RPG Masterbook.
• WEG produced over fifty supplements, novels, and comics for the first edition of Torg.
• A revised and expanded core rulebook was produced in 2005, with a single adventure.
• After WEG closed in 2010, Torg was sold to Ulisses Spiele, who published Torg: Eternity in 2018 after a successful crowdfunding campaign.
• The Infiniverse campaign, an ambitious interactive campaign setting, ran until April 1994 and allowed player input to influence the setting through a 'rumor' system.