Friday Night Game - Torg Eternity Character Creation
As noted in yesterday's blog entry, Friday night was the first gaming session in which the gamers got back into an rpg in some time (other than some of the CanGames 2018 playtesting, anyway). I had meant to post this message earlier in the day, but that got derailed by doing other things. Ah well, all good things come to those who wait (patiently). :)
The Friday night gamers have started to play the Torg Eternity RPG, published by Ulisses Spiele US, based on the original game published by West End Games in 1990 or so. Torg Eternity is a science fantasy modern-day rpg in which invaders from other realities attack Core Earth to impose their realities on the world and steal the Possibility energy of all its inhabitants.
Once the Friday night gamers showed up at my place for the evening, I showed them the Day 1 map of the world, and talked with them about the game world and answered their questions to the best of my ability for about an hour. This covered everything from basic game mechanics, the use of the dice and the three decks of cards (Drama, Destiny and Cosm), and a bit about the cultures of the realms that have been mapped onto Core Earth. Somewhat exhausting for me, given my so-so cough, but nothing that two cups of hot peppermint tea couldn't have with. From that starting point, we moved on to character generation.
Character generation in the Ulisses Spiele US edition of Torg Eternity is a relatively straightforward, somewhat easy to get through process, that doesn't requite a lot of thought, but does require making some choices. (You can get an idea of how character generation for the system works with the detailed example, Rachel Bradford, that I posted up to the blog a few days ago.) That said, half the fun of the character generation system for Torg Eternity is some of these choices, and the neat way that the lives of the characters are influenced by both their own reality as well as that of the invader's whose realm crashes/crashes down around them. (The World Laws and Axioms are really useful in that regard.)
The characters that the Friday night players created for the Torg Eternity RPG turned out quite interesting and had some interesting backgrounds. The players unanimously decided that they wanted the campaign to be set in the Living Land, at least for the time being, and created appropriate characters. Here's what the Friday night players created.
*****
KathyB - She decided that she didn't want to go with one of the game archetypes, and opted to play Melanie Franconi, a cat burglar and thief who got caught by a cop doing her dirty work just when the Maelstrom bridge crashed down in New York. She's dexterous and spunky.
Angela - She looked over the archetypes and decided that she wanted to play a courier in New York caught during the Maelstrom bridge drop on one of her drops. Angela created Wendy Saltman, a Jewish girl with some religious belief who knows what she's looking for in life. Well, did...before the start of the Possibility Wars!
Ellie - She looked over the various character archetypes, and decided that there wasn't one that she really liked. She settled on Sandra Mitchell, a librarian from the Bronx who also dabbled with magic with some friends of hers. Now, there seems to be a way of being what she always wanted!
Mark - Looking over the archetypes, Mark was enamoured with the Realm Runner, and that's what he created. Lucas Wells is a businessman with a survivalist hobby who was travelling back into central NYC when the Maelstrom bridge dropped.
Peter Johnson - The newest player to the group, brought in by Mark, who's still not sure about this "gaming thing". He liked the basic premise of the game, and is playing Andrew Quilling, a baseball player who has been transformed to a Living Land native. He's not very bright any more, but likes swinging his baseball bat at enemies.
*****
All in all, an interesting group of characters with a lot of potential, and the players had a good deal of fun with the process and really did a good job of coming up with ideas on how their characters would meet, though not necessarily know each other. Peter got into the game more and more as the evening went on, especially after I had the players make some sample rolls to see how the mechanics worked, and then let them look through the Destiny cards! :) The players didn't struggle with character generation, finding things relatively simple, and Ellie (who'd never experienced the original Torg: The Possibility Wars) was quite fond of the Bonus Chart mechanic. Overall, the players quite liked the character generation system for the Torg Eternity RPG, and are now looking forward to starting their game on next Friday night (my health willing).
For that matter, so am I! :)
The Friday night gamers have started to play the Torg Eternity RPG, published by Ulisses Spiele US, based on the original game published by West End Games in 1990 or so. Torg Eternity is a science fantasy modern-day rpg in which invaders from other realities attack Core Earth to impose their realities on the world and steal the Possibility energy of all its inhabitants.
Once the Friday night gamers showed up at my place for the evening, I showed them the Day 1 map of the world, and talked with them about the game world and answered their questions to the best of my ability for about an hour. This covered everything from basic game mechanics, the use of the dice and the three decks of cards (Drama, Destiny and Cosm), and a bit about the cultures of the realms that have been mapped onto Core Earth. Somewhat exhausting for me, given my so-so cough, but nothing that two cups of hot peppermint tea couldn't have with. From that starting point, we moved on to character generation.
Character generation in the Ulisses Spiele US edition of Torg Eternity is a relatively straightforward, somewhat easy to get through process, that doesn't requite a lot of thought, but does require making some choices. (You can get an idea of how character generation for the system works with the detailed example, Rachel Bradford, that I posted up to the blog a few days ago.) That said, half the fun of the character generation system for Torg Eternity is some of these choices, and the neat way that the lives of the characters are influenced by both their own reality as well as that of the invader's whose realm crashes/crashes down around them. (The World Laws and Axioms are really useful in that regard.)
The characters that the Friday night players created for the Torg Eternity RPG turned out quite interesting and had some interesting backgrounds. The players unanimously decided that they wanted the campaign to be set in the Living Land, at least for the time being, and created appropriate characters. Here's what the Friday night players created.
*****
KathyB - She decided that she didn't want to go with one of the game archetypes, and opted to play Melanie Franconi, a cat burglar and thief who got caught by a cop doing her dirty work just when the Maelstrom bridge crashed down in New York. She's dexterous and spunky.
Angela - She looked over the archetypes and decided that she wanted to play a courier in New York caught during the Maelstrom bridge drop on one of her drops. Angela created Wendy Saltman, a Jewish girl with some religious belief who knows what she's looking for in life. Well, did...before the start of the Possibility Wars!
Ellie - She looked over the various character archetypes, and decided that there wasn't one that she really liked. She settled on Sandra Mitchell, a librarian from the Bronx who also dabbled with magic with some friends of hers. Now, there seems to be a way of being what she always wanted!
Mark - Looking over the archetypes, Mark was enamoured with the Realm Runner, and that's what he created. Lucas Wells is a businessman with a survivalist hobby who was travelling back into central NYC when the Maelstrom bridge dropped.
Peter Johnson - The newest player to the group, brought in by Mark, who's still not sure about this "gaming thing". He liked the basic premise of the game, and is playing Andrew Quilling, a baseball player who has been transformed to a Living Land native. He's not very bright any more, but likes swinging his baseball bat at enemies.
*****
All in all, an interesting group of characters with a lot of potential, and the players had a good deal of fun with the process and really did a good job of coming up with ideas on how their characters would meet, though not necessarily know each other. Peter got into the game more and more as the evening went on, especially after I had the players make some sample rolls to see how the mechanics worked, and then let them look through the Destiny cards! :) The players didn't struggle with character generation, finding things relatively simple, and Ellie (who'd never experienced the original Torg: The Possibility Wars) was quite fond of the Bonus Chart mechanic. Overall, the players quite liked the character generation system for the Torg Eternity RPG, and are now looking forward to starting their game on next Friday night (my health willing).
For that matter, so am I! :)