Torg

And then Torg actually hit the shelves, and I think that was a really strong seller, though I don't entirely remember. I know the Net was just up in arms about the thing; it got its own alt. group really quick, because of all of the really weird world rules it had -- "Lemme get this right. I'm in a sailboat of tech level X. I float into an area which is less than tech level X. You mean to tell me that the sails stop filling with air? No way." These, of course, are the same people who had no trouble swallowing mages hurling fireballs, or spaceships.

But I digress.

The premise of Torg was -- I'll try to keep it as simple as I can, but it is sort of complicated -- that there was this fella called the Gaunt Man. And he wanted to become a god. Rule the universe, that whole bit. And he figured out how to do it. He just had to get enough Possibility Energy gathered to himself. But the problem is that even an entire universe doesn't have enough Possibility Energy to allow this to happen (though he could, he discovered, with the aid of his Darkness Device, a remnant of the first great battle in the cosmverse (the collection of all possible parallel universes, or cosms, that he could drain an entire cosm of its Possibility Energy).

So the Gaunt Man began his reign of terror, conquering and draining cosm after cosm. And then he found the richest cosm he had ever found, the one which could, alone, allow him to become Torg, a god. This cosm, of course, was Earth. But Earth was too powerful; the raw Possibility Energy of the cosm would destroy his own cosm of Orrorsh if he were to connect to Earth and begin draining its energies. So the Gaunt Man called his friends.

Well, friends is an exaggeration. He called upon other Possibility Raiders, asking them to hook up to Earth at the same time. They could then each milk Earth for all they could, and then battle among themselves once they were done. Here is a list of the other High Lords that he called upon, and their cosms:

Baruk Kaah, High Lord of the Living Land

The Living Land was a realm of very low technology -- it was the place that sailboats wouldn't work, above -- but extremely high spiritual power. The primary inhabitants were lizard-men called edeinos. The Living Land invaded North America.

3327, High Lord of Marketplace

Marketplace invaded Japan's business, industry, and high-tech areas, and it fit right in. Need much more be said?

Jean Malraux, the Cyberpope

Malraux's realm, the Cyberpapacy, was just weird as hell. A cross between the cyberpunk genre and the Spanish Inquisition, the Cyberpapacy invaded France.

(someone), High Lord of Tharkold

Tharkold was all-but destroyed from the backlash when the KGB discovered their attempt at an invasion before they were prepared. Later, after recovering, Tharkold invaded through Los Angeles.

Dr. Mobius, High Lord of the Nile Empire

The Nile Empire was a pulp-fiction realm, and really was my favorite of all of the cosms.

Uthorion, High Lord of Aysle

Aysle was a high-fantasy realm of Light and Dark; they connected themselves to Earth but High Lord Uthorion was forced to leave the body of the Queen, who he was possessing. This left the Queen in possession of Uthorion's Darkness Device, making her the only "goodguy" High Lord.

Aaaanyway, the player characters are either people from Earth or dissenters from an invading realm who are trying to stop the High Lords from succeeding in conquering the Earth, killing its people, and draining its Possibility Energy.

The trick, of course, the game's "hook", is that in each Realm the players must, to some extent, obey the World Laws and Axioms in that Realm. Normal humans transform into residents of the new Realm eventually, but PCs are Storm Knights, who have Possibility Energy inside themselves and can maintain their own realities no matter where they go.

Now, as might be guessed by the sheer volume of text here, I really like Torg. Or at least I did. It was a dynamic world; West End Games published regular updates and changes to the state of the war. It was a very cinematic game, especially in realms like the Nile Empire; with the use of Possibility Energy, nearly anything was possible for a PC to succeed at, and with the addition of the Drama Deck (a deck of cards which the players used to improve their chances at certain actions, among other things)

I really recommend the first three adventures, as well as the Aysle sourcebook, the Cyberpapacy sourcebook, and the Orrorsh sourcebook. All of these are good material for nearly any gamer, IMHO.

For your further edification, here's Nishio's Torg Page.