My Life As A Gamer: Reimagining TORG As A Braunstein

If you know anything about TORG, then you know that its premise screams "Braunstein" so I'm revisiting it again.

In the backstory, several cosmic bad guys--the High Lords--decided to get together to invade a particularly tough-but-rich prize: Core Earth. (i.e. supposedly our world). They go through a period of stage-setting where they carve up territory on the map and try to undermine each other because, like Highlander, when it comes to who can be "TORG" there can be only one.

Then they launch their invasion, and it's on. High Lords screwing each other, aiding each other, fighting the natives, and getting the natives to fight each other to make their own conquest easier. That's Braunstein. That's Diplomacy. That's wargaming.

Here's how I'd run TORG if I were to do so.

1. Recruit Patrons: I need one for each High Lord as well as one for each Core Earth power that matters (at least three: U.S., Russia, China; add more as players permit). The High Lord players get briefed on the home cosms, how Possibilities work, etc. because they need that information to make competent decisions. The Earth players get told to run with the state of their government as of (X), where (X) would be a specific date; so limited due to keeping information density under manageable loads. (As an alternative, High Lords that already know the game get to invent their home cosm.)
2. Run Initial Invasion: All that backstory where this country or region gets dropped upon and Things Happen that you need to read a book to get? That's played out instead. First round of playable scenarios arise here, with players playing Core Earthers dealing with the drops or High Lord agents executing them; playing scenarios where player-vs-player combat goes down is on the table.
3. The Post Launch Sitrep: Once the first round or two of Patron actions are resolved and initial Domains established, the campaign opens up for more players to come on in as Stormers working for or against the invasion and the next round of playable scenarios are opened up for action. These are resolved, which informs Patron actions, and things are updated. This is the core campaign gameplay loop.

Were I so ambitious, and I had the means to do it, I'd put up a YouTube channel for the campaign and do weekly videos as if I were Time Ghost doing their weekly World War II In Real Time series. Otherwise a campaign blog with regular updates would be the way to go.

I would encourage the Patrons in particular and players generally to do the gimmick account thing on Twitter and talk about it using the #TORG tag. (Would this annoy the current rights holders? Maybe. I care not either way.) Social media engagement does a lot to promote specific campaigns, and by extension the games used to play them out. I'd encourage the players to maintain campaign blogs or vlogs and post regular reports, using the same tag for the same reasons.

If I am not publishing the game that I am using, then I regularly link to their storefront (or for an out of print version, to where you can get it) as well as to the campaign landing page where I collate and curate those blogs/vlogs together so the curious can follow at their leisure. I would encourage the commisioning of fan art featuring characters and events, and I would not only maintain a gallery on the campaign page but link to the artists so commissioned.

Yes, I would also have a tip jar--Patreon, Subscribstar, KoFI, whatever--for those wishing to show appreciation by throwing money at me. Doing this, if it took off, would take time that I would not be able to use on other things and the tip jar would defray necessary costs.

As the campaign goes on, Domain play will drive events and more of the High Lords will be compelled to cease cooperating to prevent someone other than themselves to win, which will drive the perpetual content creation of playable scenarios that in turn will drive Patron decisions for the next round of actions. But inevitably, the war will end and with it the campaign will conclude.

I think this is acceptable for most players.

I also think we are one step closer to a viable business model for real tabletop RPGs.