Torg/Master Book RPG system...

[Lizzybeth]

I know most people here talk about d20, D&D, but I was wondering if anyone here has ever played Torg/Master Book, from West end games?

I think as a system, it has a lot of merit. It has a flow to it, and most of its rules features are completely integrated, so that you use one system instead of having to learn a new system for each part of the game.

I was wanting to find people to discuss the system, and maybe try developing a new campaign for it. Is anyone here interested?

 

[Crothian]

Wow, that brings me back. I don't own any of the Torg stuff but I had a lot of fun playing it. I have some of the Masterbook stuff to go along with the Indiana Jones RPG. I'm sure there are others who know it too.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I had it, played it briefly when it came out, and never had the chance again. It had a lot of neat things going for it, as I recall, but had the misfortune of coming out right when a lot of the people I gamed with were at that age of life transitions post-college. It also required a substantial investment in sourcebooks if you were going to do a lot of the cross-genre stuff.

A new edition was supposed to be forthcoming, but seems to have disappeared into the ether. There was a revised '1.5' version recently in PDF and some hard/softcovers I think.

I'd consider revisiting it (it has a lot of nostalgic value going for it if nothing else), but only if the rules really were consolidated and the bulk of the sourcebooks were only needed for fluff.

 

[Lizzybeth]

Yeah, I was able to get everything through E-bay a few years back. And pretty cheap. Seems once a company drops a game system, no one wants the books. I had a few of the original rulebooks and the boxed set from when the game first released, and have a copy of the Cyberpapacy with signatures from a bunch of the book creators and artists.

I've always been a fan of the game. I think it just wasn't sold to the public very well, and that the development of the resource books, the realm books was poorly done.

I am working on a simple rewrite of the realms and the invasion, and going to start a campaign based off of this later (Currently running a world of darkness campaign til then). While doing it, I was hoping to find others with an interest in the system who'd like to talk about it.

I really think that if the setting had been done right, and the game had been put out there a little more obviously, that it would still be going now. I even recently was trying to buy a license to develop the game, and was going to get the license to develop a campaign setting to go with the Crossgen universe. The way these rules worked, I felt it would mesh perfectly with that system. Unfortunately, West End already had someone looking at the game, and Crossgen went under and Disney now owns the rights, or at least some of the right.

Psh. Businesses don't always make good decisions.

But I still want to see the game grow.

 

[Lizzybeth]

I had it, played it briefly when it came out, and never had the chance again. It had a lot of neat things going for it, as I recall, but had the misfortune of coming out right when a lot of the people I gamed with were at that age of life transitions post-college. It also required a substantial investment in sourcebooks if you were going to do a lot of the cross-genre stuff.

Yeah, and at the time, second edition of D&D and the Forgotten Realms, World of Darkness, and Earthdawn were all coming out over the period of its run. These overshadowed it's run. And not all of it's books were ever available everywhere. In Indiana, I was only able to acquire Aysle and a couple of the minor books for years.

A new edition was supposed to be forthcoming, but seems to have disappeared into the ether. There was a revised '1.5' version recently in PDF and some hard/softcovers I think.

Yeah, it's currently available on the westendgames site. And it does fix some rules issues, but not the setting issues as you mention below

I'd consider revisiting it (it has a lot of nostalgic value going for it if nothing else), but only if the rules really were consolidated and the bulk of the sourcebooks were only needed for fluff.

One of my goals was to consolidate the rules, fix a couple, then develop a new set of realms and have those consolidated as a second resource. After all, most of what was in those realms books should have been basic rules (Magic, technology, superpowers), and the settings should have just been the information necessary for running the realms themselves. Plus if the settings are all contained within a single set, they'll mesh better.

I was talking to someone about the rules and how after the main boxed set, it seemed every man for themselves. As an example, Aysle, which breaks rules right off the bat. In the main rulebook, it states that Darkness Devices are immobile, yet the device in Aysle is a crown that is worn and carried about.

Also, it starts off describing the cosm as being alternate realities. That each cosm varies from ours because at some point in it's history, something happened differently, such as the outcome of the Great Schism in the Cyberpapal reality. But Aysle is a whole totally different world, and stands completely out and different from every other realm in that fact.

I'd like the realms to all be an earth world that has evolved differently. And as such, play on the Everlaws more. An example of one Everlaw was that you cannot be alive and dead at the same time. As such, in each alternate cosm, there is the possibility that a copy of each person existed, but in a way that fits that reality, and should those two versions meet, then a conflict of the Everlaw occurs.

 

[kenobi65]

We played it quite a bit back in the early 90s, when it was first out, and came back to it now and again over the past few years.

I *loved* the premise. My biggest issue with it was that, in any kind of a significant combat (i.e., against a foe with Possibility Points), you needed to get a truly massive success to have any impact at all. And, thus, it just became an exercise in dice-rolling, with both sides looking for a rare streak of 10s / 20s to generate an absurdly high result.

 

[maggot]

I *loved* the premise. My biggest issue with it was that, in any kind of a significant combat (i.e., against a foe with Possibility Points), you needed to get a truly massive success to have any impact at all. And, thus, it just became an exercise in dice-rolling, with both sides looking for a rare streak of 10s / 20s to generate an absurdly high result.

I loved it too, and yes you needed absurd rolls to win dramatic encounters. But my experience was the game came down to manipulating the drama deck cards instead of waiting for the rare streak. Once players excelled at card play, the strength of their characters was almost secondary.

Almost secondary because Torg had no balance between PCs. You could be a Victorian marksmen with no armor and a musket, or a technodemon with full cyberware and magic.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Wow, I love this place!

I'm a HUGE Torg fan, and still have most of the sourcebooks for it.

 

[Psion]

Our group was into TORG back in the day. I liked TORG much better than Shatterzone; I never got masterbook based on that. The TORG system provided you with a variety of templates that gave you a basic character concept, but gave you great latitude in making the character your own.

Shatterzone, on the other hand, turned the chargen into a basic point gen system. :/

As a side note, you might be interested to know that Spycraft authors Scott Gearin and Patrick Kapera cite TORG as one of their inspirations.

 

[Mark Hope]

I'm also a huge fan of Torg with a complete collection of the line. The truly excellent revised "1.5" hardback that came out a couple of years ago was supposed to jump-start interest in the line as a lead-in to a 2nd edition. The general downturn in the rpg market has caused WEG to put the 2e on hold until things pick up again (whenever that is...)

I've run some Torg games recently with mixed results. Some players buy right into the system while others seem to have real trouble getting their head around the way it works. I've always found this to be the case with Torg - some folks just never get to grips with it for some reason. Some can't get enough of it.

I could happily run nothing but Torg until the gospog come home. Still haven't found a group where all the players will let me, though. Oh well. Some day...