Behold, “a new concept in roleplaying.” At least, that’s what the back cover says. This is Crucible of Pain (1991), the first Adventure/Short Story for Torg. The new concept is that there is a long prose piece at the start of the scenario that sets up some preconceived notions for the scenario, which is followed by more prose after the interactive part wraps up. This…I feel like other games had done similar things, but I am failing to think of any specific examples, so maybe this was innovative. It isn’t terribly exciting in action, though. Basically, a woman escapes imprisonment at an experimental facility and probably gets eaten by a monster.

The players wind up being summoned by her via psychic messages that draw them to the facility. There, some very dumb weird science has taken place. The head science guy wanted to experiment with the forces that allowed the new realities to invade earth, so he set off several reality bombs to create new, mini versions of them in his basement. Prisoners in the blast became petty lords of reality who could not be controlled, so the whole thing was sealed underground. Head science guy hoped the new realities would just stop being real, eventually. No such luck.

The players need to shut the whole thing down, which involves a tour of the mini realities. Then they get treated to another short story. I skipped it. And I bet most other folks did, too. The scenario is pretty fun, though. Far less silly than I was expecting. Grant Goleash and Earl Geier are the interior illustrators and they lend the proceedings a gritty weight. Love Geier’s hatching work. David Mann did the cover and it captures the “Sure, whatever, stick that in too” energy of Torg broadly and this scenario specifically. I like the ceiling maze as a design element.