A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Torg Eternity – Core Rules

Torg Eternity – Core Rules is a role playing game supplement published by Ulisses Spiele and is the core rulebook for Torg Eternity. Torg Eternity is a new version of the original Torg game published by West End Games.

The supplement is available as a 280-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $24.99. It is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one the front matter, four the Table of Contents, four the Index and one a thanks.

The Foreword is from a designer of the original game from West End Games, giving details as to how it came about and praising this new edition.

Designer’s Notes is from a designer of the new edition.

Chapter 1 – The Possibility Wars starts by explaining that this Core Earth is one of many in the Infiniverse, and in some versions when the Reality Raiders invaded, there was a different outcome (essentially, the original Torg game is set in an alternate reality to this one). The High Lords invading Earth strive to become the being called the Torg; none are thought to have succeeded in any reality. Storm Knights are those working to defend Core Earth on behalf of the Delphi Council; characters are Storm Knights.

Chapter 2 – The Cosms starts by looking at the foundational concepts of cosms. Axioms, which are Magical, Social, Spiritual and Technology, are briefly covered; a cosm’s axiom level is the maximum degree of development in that axiom allowed in that cosm. Axioms higher than the allowed level cause a Contradiction and the being attempting it may disconnect from their reality and may transform to match the new axioms or simply consumed by raw energy. World Laws are the laws specific to a cosm that give it its flavour. Zones & stelae are how the invaders attempt to take control. Stelae are placed in large triangles and within them a zone can be Dominant, where one cosm’s reality is prevalent and others are suppressed, Mixed, where here are two competing realities, and Pure, which is an extreme version of Dominant where other zones are suppressed with greater strength. Reality-rated beings, such as Storm Knights and Stormers, can attempt to affect reality in a zone. Artefacts are hardpoints that can impose their reality over a localised area.

Following this is a map of the world showing the invading cosms. It then gives a brief overview of the different invading cosms, as well as Core Earth, looking at their axioms, history, territory and world laws; these are covered later in more detail, as are many of the other concepts in this chapter.

Core Earth is the invaded Earth; currently dominant in most areas.

Aysle is a fantasy realm affecting the British Isles and much of northern Europe.

The Cyberpapacy is a religious and cyberpunk realm mostly covering France, Spain and Portugal.

The Living Land is a primeval, low-tech land covering parts of the US’s East and West Coasts, as well as areas in Canada and Central America.

The Nile Empire is a pulp realm centred around Egypt and covering parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

Orrorsh is a realm of Victorian-era horror, home to the invasion’s leader and covering India as well as parts of surrounding countries.

Pan Pacifica is an advanced realm that has mostly gone unobserved by blending in, covering Japan, Korea and parts of China.

Finally, Tharkold is a realm of technodemons covering parts of Russia.

There are additional sourcebooks that cover individual cosms in more detail

Chapter 3 – Storm Knights starts by explaining there are a number of character templates included with the GM Screen that are ready to play. This chapter explains what the things on those character templates mean, and how to create new ones from scratch. Most characters are human, either from Core Earth or one of the cosms, but there are also edeinos – lizard folk, essentially – from the Living Land and elves and dwarves from Aysle. Each of these is described along with their inherent abilities.

This is followed by a list of skills, each of which has an attribute they are normally used with, though the GM might use other attributes to use them in other ways. Some skills need a basic level of training before they can be used at all; others may be used, but naturally not very well. A character using a skill in a way they are unfamiliar – the example is a dwarf using an AK-47 – will take at least a scene to become familiar, suffering a penalty until they do. With Torg covering a range of genres, the skills do as well.

Perks are special abilities that characters have in addition to their attributes and skills. These Perks allow a character to start a game with various things, as they begin with two Perks, and the GM is advised to restore lost Perks – they can be physical items – within a few scenes. The Perks vary depending on character species, cosm and other factors, and so different characters will have access to different Perks to start with. Perks cover a wide range of things, from cyberware to occultech to ki to psionics to pulp sorcery to magic to more mundane but still useful abilities.

Chapter 4 – The Rules is, naturally, the rules of the game. Attribute and skill tests are d20 based. A d20 is rolled, and rolled again if a 10 or 20 is rolled; this continues until a 10 or a 20 aren’t rolled and the combined rolls are totalled up. This total is then matched against the Bonus Chart, and the relevant bonus, along with any other modifiers, is added to the skill or attribute being tested. This is compared to the Difficulty Number of the test, with Difficulty Modifiers applied. If the Difficulty Number is equalled, this is a success, but surpassing it by greater numbers can change the success from Standard to Good to Outstanding. What happens if a test is failed depends on the what’s being tested; sometimes it can be tried again, but harder. Some tests, though, also have Mishaps, which is a 1 on the first roll. The consequences of a Mishap are covered in the appropriate places. Storm Knights, Stormers and other creatures that have Possibilities can spend these to enhance their chance of success.

The Drama Deck controls the flow of combat, determine who goes first and adds special results. It isn’t included in the Core Rules, but fortunately it is available as a Pay What You Want PDF on DriveThruRPG or as a deck of cards from sites such as Amazon. How the Drama cards are laid out and what the different elements mean is covered. The first faction listed on a card determines who goes first. A round is one card from the Drama Deck, whose layout is described; one is flipped over, Heroes and Villains go through their actions, with Approved Actions listed on that card. If an Approved Action is successful, a player gets a card from the Destiny Deck. Each faction may get advantages or disadvantages on that card. Destiny cards can be played to boost a character’s actions. They can also be traded with other players. Cosm cards aren’t counted against a hand size and can be played whenever the card says it’s appropriate.

Actions and attacks are what can be done in combat; some of these are interaction attacks intended to put the foe in a bad situation or open them up to harm. Attacks can be physical or ranged and inflict damage. Damage can include Shock, which is stress and minor physical injuries; this can still knock a character out. Serious injury and trauma causes Wounds; once the maximum is exceeded, the character is KO’d and must test for Defeat. Storm Knights can use their reality skill to Soak Shock and Wounds. Shock is recovered quickly after a fight. When a character tests for Defeat, they can be KO’d, KO’d and suffer an Injury until all Wounds are healed, KO’d and suffer a permanent Injury or killed, with time for one final dramatic action. How characters can be healed is next. This is followed by the different options available in action and combat. Finally, there is an extended example of combat, which is followed by a table summarising the action and combat options.

Dramatic Skill Resolution is for doing the staples of cinematic action. A task is divided into four steps, A through D, which must be resolved in order. These are Dramatic Steps and which may be attempted in a round are listed on each card in the Drama Deck. It’s also possible to declare a last-ditch effort, which is risky. There are also Dilemmas, which make such actions more complicated. This is followed by an extended example.

Vehicles looks at vehicular chases, combat, stunts and collisions. Chases are a different matter, not being standard combat, and involve one party pursuing another. They use Dramatic Skill Resolution and the Drama Deck, and require both outracing and outmanoeuvring the other party.

Environmental Hazards are dangers based on the environment; drowning, electricity, extreme heat/cold, falling, fire, radiation and survival. Each has rules for handling the danger.

Chapter 5 – Gear covers equipment, starting with buying it. Characters work for the Delphi Council, so don’t need to trouble themselves about the more basic needs such as lodging, ammunition, food and much travel, as these are provided. If characters want the council to but something outside the norm, they need to put forward a request and it also needs to be available; laptops are easy to find in Pan-Pacifica but not in the Living Land. The council also doesn’t provide private jets or various controlled or illegal substances, which may include certain weapons in civilian areas. Given that the cosms cover a range of technologies and genres, from barely technological to futuristic, so do the items.

Chapter 6 – Reality is on the nature of reality itself. It starts by looking at how the Reality Invaders invaded, and the stelae used to change the axioms in a particular area. The area between stelae are zones; Pure is one supreme reality, Dominant has a prevailing reality and Mixed are where invading and invaded realities are roughly balanced. Beachheads are zones where a maelstrom bridge from an invading reality is dropped; they start Dominant for the invader but usually become Pure quickly. Ords are people unable to manipulate Possibility Energy, whilst Storm Knights and Stormers – essentially, the same type of person, just with different goals – can do so.

Contradictions happen whenever a character uses tools or abilities that are beyond the axiom levels of the cosm they are in; for example, modern technology in the Living Land. Once reality notices this, the individual is disconnected from their own reality. Surges are when reality attempts to reconcile all the contradictory things within a zone. Characters who are disconnected can’t cause Contradiction, but they can’t also take actions or gain benefits from tools that violate the axioms of the zone they are in, and they lose the ability to spend Possibilities and Soak damage. Unsupported things just don’t work and provide no benefits. Disconnected reality-rated characters must attempt to reconnect; those who are disconnected slowly forget the concepts of their native reality; Ords can immediately transform. Transformation of non-living things happens rapidly; for living things it happens more slowly, but much faster in the case of Ords than for reality-rated characters.

The Storm Knights’ Role looks at what the Storm Knights – or characters – do. The militaries are tasked with fighting the armies of the invading High Lords; the Storm Knights counter the High Lords’ plans, protect others, gather Eternity Shards and uproot stelae. There are details on how Storm Knights can inspire the populace and refill them with Possibility Energy, and how they can remove stelae.

Chapter 7 – Magic explains that this is a powerful, varied force. In cosms such as Core Earth, the power has waned, but in such as Aysle and Orrorsh, it’s strong. Spells can affect the world more than psionics can and need more skills as a result. Alteration changes an existing object or entity, apportation moves an object, effect or entity, conjuration creates an object, entity or condition and divination perceives and interprets information about an object, entity or condition. There are details on how to cast spells, how they generally don’t stack and a list of the spells available in each cosm. The spell descriptions follow, described as a sampling of the different magic available. All spells have an Axiom Level, which is the Magic Level needed to cast the spells without Contradiction. A good percentage of the spells could be called “standard fantasy.”

Chapter 8 – Miracles are similar to magic, but instead they are granted by divine beings, rather than drawn or tapped from ambient energy. They follow the same pattern of description as magic, including Axiom Level, though this time the Axiom is Spirit, and Contradiction. There are example religions for the different cosms, example miracles lists for different religions and details on favour and penance; violations of a religion cause a loss of favour and can eventually cut a user off from their deity.

Chapter 9 – Psionics are again similar, and are divided into different skills. Kinesis is the manipulation of magic and energy, precognition is the ability to sense future events or those outside their personal selves and telepathy is the ability to read and control minds. These are again covered in a similar way, with the Axiom being Social. The list of available powers depending on cosm are given; Psionic is available in the least number of cosms.

Chapter 10 – The Game Master’s Guide to the Possibility Wars starts by giving background on the Possibility Wars, with the embodiment of Eternity, Aperiros, who created the cosmverse and the Possibility Energy that Storm Knights can tap, and the embodiment of the Void, the Nameless One, who backs the High Lords and Stormers. Darkness Devices are what give the High Lords their power, and are not truly servants, and the High Lords raid other realities for their energy. It explains how the High lords use stelae to expand their areas of influence and how these can be destroyed, and the effects when this is done. There are images of the stelae of the different invading cosms and what a Darkness Device can do when it detects someone tampering with one. Details on the general abilities of Darkness Devices are given.

Reality is governed by two Everlaws, which reconcile the Contradiction between competing realities. There can only be one outcome from all possibilities that becomes reality and that possibility flows between living and unliving things in a cosm, and is generated by interactions between the two. It is the latter law that High Lords interrupt to alter a land’s axioms. Reality storms are caused when an overwhelming number of Contradictions are tried to be resolved. These are dangerous and some Storm Knights can actually invoke them. How axioms and world laws work is next, along with what Eternity shards, raw pieces of creation, are and what they can do. There are some sample Eternity shards, which take the form of objects. The different axioms are then described in detail, with what each level from 0 to 30, means for each axiom. This is followed by details of the war’s secrets, to be used by the GM when larger questions arise about the conflict, divided by cosm. Finally, there are details on running adventures and the sort that can be run in the different cosms.

Chapter 11 – Characters & Creatures starts by looking at special abilities, which lists these abilities and what they do alphabetically. This is followed by lists of characters and creatures divided by cosm, with two from all cosms, the rest from each of their specific cosms, including Core Earth. Most of the cosms have three beings listed; a couple have four. This means that, despite there being a fair number of beings described, there aren’t many in the core rules for each cosm. The Torg Value Chart at the end is used to determine the relative measures of anything.

Torg Eternity – Core Rules in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with major, minor and subsections linked. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and the Index is decently thorough, though neither are hyperlinked. Navigation is okay. There are a number of colour illustrations, up to full page in size, but not as many in some categories, such as monsters and items, as would be liked. Presentation is okay.

The original Torg, and the more successful Rifts, are unusual in that they are multi-genre settings. Whilst Torg Eternity is a system usable for playing in different genres, it isn’t really like other multi-genre systems, such as GURPS. This is because what powers work depend on what cosm the characters are in, and using the wrong type of item or power in a cosm that isn’t suited for it will cause problems; something like GURPS would, in many cases, allow an advanced laser rifle to work in a primitive setting. Torg does not, not without problems. Which can include that rifle turning into a spear. This makes Torg Eternity a bit different to some multi-genre systems, because the setting is an intrinsic part of the game. Torg was an interesting game when it came out but, unlike Rifts, it never saw much in the way of success. So it’s good to see a revived version of it.

Combat is essentially a card game integrated into the role playing game, and Dramatic Actions are similar. Anyone who doesn’t like cards being used with their role playing game should probably look for another game; the cards are a bit too tightly interwoven into the rules to make getting rid of them easy. So many combat and skill options are referred to on the cards that it would be difficult to use an alternative.

By itself, this core rulebook isn’t really enough to play the game fully in the setting. Yes, all the rules are here and the different cosms are given an overview, and monsters are provided for each, but that’s all they are, an overview. The cosm books have, naturally, far more detail. There’s enough here that a skilled and experienced GM could put together an adventure, but more background detail is really needed, which is where the setting books are useful, as this is a game that is rather tightly integrated into its setting. Torg Eternity – Core Rules is a bit different with its use of cards, and a bit different to pretty much anything bar Rifts with its approach to a setting, and it can be found by clicking here.