The default setting of Torg Eternity works on the assumption that the campaign starts after the High Lords have already established their foothold on Core Earth and their armies have begun the task of occupation. This setting allows the basic tenets of the game to be locked in place, and the players can take advantage of the widest breadth of character options. Cyberheretic refugees from Paris can work alongside Elven mages and electric samurai. This model stands as the classic Torg experience.
The biggest problem with this timeline is that it puts a sizable burden on the gamemaster, if the players aren’t up to speed on what Torg entails. If, in fact, they’ve ever heard of the game at all. The broad options for players to sift through can be monumental, given that there are essentially eight discrete settings to choose as backgrounds (this includes Core Earth, the nominal baseline setting) and an array of possibilities for each.
The Kickstarter took pains to ease the transition into the game with a book of what they called Day One Adventures, primarily single session adventures that highlighted the mechanics and setting for each separate Realm. Each player has their choice of a half-dozen pre-generated characters, with adventure specific motivations and backgrounds. These adventures work as GM intros as well, covering rules specifics and details to better immerse the players in the idea of how the war works. They’re meant as more or less throwaway sessions, with one adventure outright noting that, at best, one character could survive as a prisoner for a biological testing facility. It is possible to continue into the full campaign with these characters, but this isn’t assumed to be the standard.
My preference has always been to establish a campaign in the months before the Invasion takes place, peppering the game with details of strange happenings, suspicious characters, and otherwise inexplicable plots undertaken by the advance scouts of the larger war. This way, the player characters can be brought into the larger details of the war in incremental ways, learning about the war as it moves into high gear. By the time the Invasion of Core Earth starts, they’ve already encountered some of the soldiers on their own terms and know something of what they’re going to be facing.
It’s still going to be a world-shaking event when the bridges finally fall, but by that point, the players will know the world better than an opening narration would be able to impart.
The first thing to consider with a game set Before the Storm is what sort of characters are going to work best for the setting? Logically, one of two things are going to have to happen. Either the characters are going to stumble upon the weird plots of the Invaders, or they’re going to be assigned to investigate them by someone they work for.
The first scenario offers more freedom to the players, given that they can create any sort of character that they see fit. This is something along the lines of what you’d see in shows like Buffy or Supernatural (or Scooby-Doo, if we’re being honest), where the group is able to stumble on mysteries as they go along. The problem is that Torg is something of an international game, so a small group is going to have to either be properly located where advance scouts for different Cosms will logically show up. In the United States, this would require a game set somewhere on the East Coast, near New York or Washington DC, or one set in Los Angeles, probably.
A non-US game would make things easier, as a game in the European Union would allow access to Aysle, CyberFrance, Tharkold, and even the Nile Empire with a little work. The characters would still have to do a little travel, but it wouldn’t be insurmountable.
The other option, where the campaign is set within the parameters of a larger organization is a bit easier, as it allows an NPC to direct the action without requiring a lot of heavy lifting from the player characters. The main campaign of Torg Eternity already establishes a setting like this, with the Delphi Council serving as the overarching organization that the Storm Knights take orders from.
And to be honest, this could work before the Invasion as well, since it’s pretty much stated that Quin Sebastian has put a lot of plans into motion well before the Possibility Wars start. It wouldn’t be very hard to put the PC’s on the ground when the framework of the Delphi Council is being built, either as governmental agents or otherwise.
With that in mind, some ideas could include:
The CIA – The characters are agents assigned to look into strange happenings in foreign cities: street corner preachers talking about the end of the world, surges on the Tokyo Stock Market that coincide with biotech discoveries, and tech breakdowns in specific cities. This isn’t strictly limited to the CIA (or Americans, for that matter), but it could be any shadowy agency with enough foresight.
The Military – Using an American model, with military bases and different interests worldwide, the characters could easily be special operatives on the front lines when the initial forays from other dimensions start to take place. Victorian soldiers in Eastern Afghanistan, antiquated tanks in the deserts outside Iraq, or strange sightings outside allied bases in Europe could all serve as campaign starters.
A Private Military Corporation – In my home campaigns, we use Tannhauser Solutions, a corporate military force with international reach and dubious agendas. This opens up some possibilities that would be unavailable to national (or international, if the Military campaign used UN peacekeepers) militaries, as well as offering a little bit better accommodations and equipment than a regular military game would.
Reuben Beattie
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- Legend of the Five Rings – Beginner Game - November 15, 2018
