Dungeons, Dimensions and TORG

All based on the following 2 blogs

Tales of the grotesque and dungeonesque
http://talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/diy-torg.html?zx=2cbaa50d3a44872e


Dark Corners of role playing
http://darkcornersofrpging.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/diy-grind-house-torg-and-oasis-of.html

TORG
One of the most interesting games ever in the reality mash up days of the early 90s. Basicly other realities invade our cosm. I stole so much from it but couldn't have run as presented. I would have used marvel with karma tied to possibility energy, or BRP with links of magic points to probability energy. Depend on how gritty a feel. Even just using worlds as straight campaigns or alternate worlds for other games these books are great.

Where it was awesome

Reality source books were awesome - better than the basic game and were all more interesting for the other side world rather than the their-and-our-world-mash-ups

Art - Daniel R Horne and some tech illustrations that i will use forever

Card Deck - i didn't use but inspired my own deck - especially players get to intervene in narrative

Cosm conquering mechanics - while i didn't go for all the details, the basic way invading colums placed stelae to expand in a triangular grid was great. The Darkness devices were great villains too

Villains - Highlords of the invading worlds and an emphasis on a hierachy of villains. Down to gang of thugs to the ruler of a dimension.

Rules - While i disliked them as a whole there were innovative titbits i loved

Characters - Lots of interesting archetypes, aliens, any kind of character really, storm knights sounded cool

Monsters - lotsa good ideas

Cosm laws - local moral laws effected actions and made strange consequences for tech too


Where it displeased me

Game start point - setting with the war underway and weird stuff accepted was a sad loss of discovery and innovation.

Id started party at ground-zero in a shopping mall that has had dinosaur reality overlap and millitary trying to stop. When they escaped to core earth one player was a nudist lizard hippie cultist learning spells. The others had kept their identites but were changed by trauma and experience. While they were lost the world had gone to war.

My other start would be espionage based with agents finding anomalies in diferent countries and fighting x-phenomena till plot of invasion and plane travel revealed then start ground zero in the home cosm mid campaign. Of course my DnD long stair is about a dimensional battle of modern military vs oldschool DnD modules so isnt a big leap.

Adventures - all a mish mash of stuff - id prefer whole modules on alternate earths

Core earth vs invaders - too gonzo for start, needed to happen over years, i just never got the feel. Id rather be more gonzo - cosms invade superhero world, or more gritty like chaosium mechanics. Now id consider DnD but classes might be too limiting. Perhaps easier class shifting rules for plane hoppers.

Invading Cosms

Core Earth - boring mess

Living Land - dinosaur men hippies invade west coast USA, plant monsters of highlord cool


Aysle - dnd world, a bit average but cover is awesome, i probably least used this one

The Cyberpapacy - french medival papacy meets the matrix and cyberpunk - godnet was cool - weapons and vehichle art some of the best ever in a game book - steal for any near future game or even traveller.

Nippon Tech - a slightly better tech world of japan dominated corporate - feudal Japanese stuff. Corporate warfare rules - great for any cyberpunk game, martial arts vs tech

The New Nile Empire - pulp indiana jones vs ancient egyptian despot - good pulp fun

Orrorsh - Victorian englishmen unwittingly bringing demonic horror with indonesian and asian territories. Modern tech would fail in zone so 1890s staemships could wipe out non functional nuclear vessels. Good asian horror stuff. Killer video recorders. Amazing art. Like most games its version of Australia and Indonesia a bit strange.

Land Below pulp and dinosaur realities merged in subterranean lost world.  Idea of mashing realities like this should have been bigger.

Space Gods aztech space gods with psionics and biological weapons - really interesting for many games - only one i never bought but really wanted

Tharkold failed to attack russia and repelled. Psionic tech gargoyle demons. Lotsa 80s Clive Barker -esque masochism and flesh shredding torture and pain. Humans in bunkers with psionics, battlesuits, miniguns with plasma ammo, microfactories in suitcases that could refit guns and build custom ammo, or autosurgeon in a briefcase. Recyclers bots staving LA for invaders. Really fun book with really some of best cyberpunk art and tech anywhere.

The point of all this...
So the two links on the top of this article asks what games/genres would you invade your core earth with. With possibility of using your old underplayed game supplements. I kinda dont want to be replacing world with just fantasy honkeys either.

North America - Dark Conspiracy/Car Wars/Dark future for West coast, shadowrun for seattle and Canada, Superheroes in New York (probably more like wildcards and black ops than Marvel), Cadilcs and Dinosaurs for southern states and mexico

South America - Starship troopers/war against the Chtorr/Tyranids - biological invasion with armoured cyborg spacemen recruiting locals for resistance

Europe & Russia - World of darkness - vamps, witches, werewolves, horror, faerie tales and supernaturalism - some DnD and medieval leaking in too

Australia - Gamma World,will get onto gamma oz game anyhow

Asia - Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong all cyberpunk/martial arts. Some areas over run by kaiju. Folk monsters haunt rural areas. India - psychadelic espionage and psionics and hindu gods afoot (Rogan Gosh comic to blame). Leng has reappeared in Hymalayas and is spreading influence - mythos vs martial arts.

Antarctica - Lost world, sorcery and science, dinosaurs

Iceland - overrun by giants and vikings and trolls

Africa - Oswald Bastable stories of Micheal moorcock - Steampunk post colonial Africa with new warlord out to unite africa and rule the world.

Middle East - Assyrian Empire reborn with monster troops and sorcerors

Central Asia - The night Land by William Hope Hodgson - spilling out into russia, china, afganistan, pakistan

Melnibone, Atlantis, Cthulhu all possible