TORG Redux

It occurs to me that I mentioned a while back that I was running a Savage TORG game, but I never mentioned any of the mechanical stuff associated with it. I used some of the things from the Savage TORG conversion at Dragonsfoot, but I also tinkered with a lot of the mechanics myself. Since I had an Orrorshan monster hunter and a Nile Empire superhero, I also had to throw together some special Edges for those guys. Here's a sample of some of the changed and new Edges I did for that campaign.


Kaiju Form [Legendary]
Requirements: Legendary, Spirit d6+, arcane skill d10+, must know shape change power
Your ability to assume new forms is no longer limited by mere size. You can change into the form of truly enormous beasts, creatures that dwarf buildings and blot out the sun.
You can become creatures larger than Size +4. Changing into such creatures costs 7 Power Points, plus 1 Power Point for every five full points of Size. So, changing into a Size +5 creature would cost 8 Power Points, while changing into a Size +10 creature would cost 9 Power Points. The duration of the power and all other limitations remain unchanged.


Storm Knight [Reality]
Requirements: Novice, Reality d4+
Your experience fighting against invading realities has given you an expanded ability to detect possibility energy. If you succeed in a Notice check against a target number of the target’s Spirit die (so d8 would be target number 8), you can detect whether or not they are possibility-rated as a blue and red aura around them. Doing so is an active use of the skill and requires a full round of concentration, during which time you can take no other action but movement.
You can also detect possibility energy in the environment as an intangible sensation. You always know whether a zone is mixed, dominant, or pure. If you pass within sight of a stelae, hardpoint, or other strong conduit of possibility energy, you automatically sense it.
Finally, you gain a +2 bonus on Reality rolls made for reality storms.

Storm Warrior [Reality]
Requirements: Seasoned, Storm Knight, Reality d6+
By spending a benny, you can infuse an inanimate object with a temporary reality field, creating a talisman. It functions similar to a reality bubble but has a radius equal to half your Reality die, and lasts for the remainder of the session.

Storm Lord [Reality]
Requirements: Veteran, Storm Warrior, Reality d8+
Over time, your experience with manipulating reality has made you a powerful force in the Possibility Wars. The number of eternity shards you can bond with is increased by 1, and you only disconnect from your home reality with a critical failure on a disconnect check.


True Sight [Weird]
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d8+, Notice d4+
Some characters from Orrorsh have cultivated a form of the “second sight” that allows them to see through the human-seeming guises of some types of monsters. A character with this Edge can peer through the veil that conceals such corruption.
The character makes a Notice check, opposed by the target’s Spirit roll, with a penalty equal to the creature’s Fear rating (if any). If the check succeeds, the hero sees through the disguise to the monster beneath. For each raise, the True Sight also reveals one of the creature’s personal weaknesses (GM’s discretion to which is revealed).


I'm thinking about starting a new Savage TORG game in the next few months, so I'll probably be posting more about that as time passes.

New Year, New Style

It's been a whole year since the last time I posted in this blog, which means that it hasn't been everything I wanted it to be. Starting now, though, I'm restarting this blog with a little bit of a tighter focus, and will hopefully be updating it several times a week. From here on, I will be using this blog primarily to discuss my obsession with the Savage Worlds system (which was the last thing I talked about last year, strangely enough).

To lead off a little bit for anyone unfamiliar: Savage Worlds is the flagship line from Pinnacle, the people that brought us Deadlands and its post-apocalyptic sequel, Hell on Earth. Since then, they've scaled back their company size and produced a streamlined game system called Savage Worlds. This game has the fastest combat system that I've ever played and found satisfying. (Wushu and Don't Rest Your Head both have faster combat resolution, but they're both a little flat for my tastes.) The system is easy to learn, and while it has a few dice wobbles attached to its core mechanic, they're entirely worth ignoring.

Since last year, I've run several short games with Savage Worlds, including a convention game at last year's UKON and a semester-long game for the university gaming club called Industrial Revolutionaries, which was a steampunk game heavily based off Phil and Kaja Foglio's excellent webcomic, Girl Genius. My longest-running effort so far has been a Savage Worlds conversion of the old TORG setting, which you should go out and look up if you've never heard of it before.

Now that TORG is getting close to the end (a couple months off, anyway), I'm working on my next set of games. In the next few weeks, I'm going to be starting a SW conversion of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting (originally for d20 by Paizo Publishing), a Supernatural-style modern horror game I'm calling Hunter Nation, and a SW conversion of Legend of the Five Rings. All in all, a pretty full plate. I'll be posting up various things for these games, as well as a bunch of other conversions and original campaigns I've been working on, in the coming weeks and months.

It's good to be back!