Same as in conventional TORG.

Each player carries a deck of 20 playing cards: the ace through 6 of each of three suits (one of which is spades), one joker, and the king of hearts. To resolve an action, the player starts with his character’s skill value and adds to it a random bonus number. The bonus number equals -4 plus a card total. (The -4 is there for statistical reasons.)

To generate the card total, the player shuffles his deck and offers his opponent (or the GM) a chance to cut his cards. He then draws the top card from his deck. The joker and the king of hearts have a value of zero, an ace counts as 1, and all other cards are worth their face value.

If the card was a spade, the player may draw again (analogous to a reroll in TORG) and add the value of the second card to his skill total as well. The first card is not replaced in the deck before the second is drawn.

If the character has adds in the skill he’s using, each time a spade is drawn, the player may draw again. If the character doesn’t have adds in the skill he’s using, he may redraw only on the first spade; if the second card is a spade, he may not draw again. However, spending a Possibility "resets the counter," so to speak.

Any time that a joker is drawn, a complication occurs. If the joker is the first card drawn, the action will fail – perhaps disastrously, at the GM’s discretion. On the other hand, if the joker is drawn after a series of redraws, the skill total may be high enough for the action to succeed. In this case, the GM has the option of permitting the action to succeed, but a complication still occurs.

A character may not spend a Possibility for a redraw after a joker has been drawn.

The king of hearts is just a card of zero value. It doesn’t signify a complication, and it doesn’t prevent the expenditure of Possibilities for additional card draws.

For example, suppose Charlie Bravo wants to take out a Nile bad guy, but doesn’t want to kill him. Charlie clubs the Nile guy. Charlie’s player draws his card – ace of diamonds. What rotten luck! Charlie spends a Possibility – which is not canceled – and draws again. He gets a four of spades (hooray!), followed by a five of spades (wow!), and then a joker (oops). The GM says the Nile guy is out cold, but suddenly the shrill tweeeeek! of a policeman’s whistle cuts the air. Charlie’s been seen assaulting a man on the street! Charlie runs as the cop gives chase.

Damage values for weapons and attacks are the same as in conventional TORG. Also as in table-top TORG, the damage total is equal to the damage value of the weapons plus the same bonus number that was added to the skill value.

Damage accrues differently, however. First off, there are only wounds and shock points in TORG Live!. Before he draws cards, an attacker may declare the first wound he inflicts will be a knockdown rather than a wound. This is basically the equivalent of stun damage in table-top TORG.

To calculate the damage that a character takes from an attack, determine the number of result points from the weapon damage total and the target’s Toughness. So lets say Charlie shoots a man who has a Toughness of 8 with a gun that has a damage value of 15. Charlie’s bonus number was -1, so his result points were 15-1-8=6 result points.

A Possibility-rated character will take one wound for every 5th result point and one shock point for every 2nd result point. One shock point is the minimum damage from any attack with zero or more result points. So if the target in the example above were Possibility-rated, he’d take 1 wound and 3 shock points. Had Charlie drawn really well (or used a bigger gun) and gotten 13 result points, the target would have taken 2 wounds and 6 shock points.

Ords take a wound for every 5th result point and a shock point for every result point.

To repeat, as long as the damage total is at least equal to the target’s Toughness (that is, there were zero or more result points), the target will take a minimum of 1 shock point. So an attack of 0, 1, 2, or 3 result points will all inflict 1 shock point on a Possibility-rated target.

All of the interactions have four levels of success: unskilled, stymie, setback and player’s call. (In tabletop TORG, the results of the maneuver interaction are different from the other interactions. To simplify things in TORG Live!, the maneuver interaction has the same outcomes as the other interactions.)

As in conventional TORG, an unskilled result makes the skill adds go away (and prevents any attempt to use skills that cannot be used unskilled, in my book); a stymie negates the next opportunity for a redraw; and setback and player’s call have their normal TORG meanings.

The outcomes of interactions are determined by result points. For 0 to 4 result points, the outcome is an unskilled result. At 5 result points, the outcome becomes a stymie result, at 10 result points a setback, and at 15 a player’s call. (In order to keep things consistent and therefore easier to work with, I’m trying to keep the transition points for interactions – 5, 10, and 15 result points – the same as the transition points for determining the number of wounds from an attack.)

Possibilities are tracked on the TORG Live! character sheet with a removable arrow.

Each character starts with 5 Possibilities. Periodically throughout the game, players may receive additional Possibilities, depending upon the scenario. Unlike table-top TORG, a TORG Live! character may not have more than 10 Possibilities at any time. If the GM is about to award Possibilities to a character and this will put him over 10, the GM should give the character the chance to buy additional skill adds before he receives the new Possibilities.

Subplots are not used in this version of TORG Live! Instead, if it's appropriate for the scenario, the players may be given goals (either on a group level or an individual basis) and may be rewarded with Possibilities as they achieve their goals.

I’ve dropped the idea of attempting to duplicate the Drama Deck in TORG Live!. I’m sort of simulating this with money. Money may be spent on any roll (but only on rolls – not on static values) to increase the bonus number. The increase follows the TORG value chart, as shown below.

If a character is performing an action that’s a one-case contradiction, he will disconnect if the first card he draws is a joker. The action also automatically fails, since that’s what conventionally occurs when the first card drawn is a joker.

If the action is a four-case contradiction, the character will disconnect if the first card he draws is a joker or any of the three aces.

Incidentally, in my games, the "first card" is any card that’s drawn as a result of a player’s volition, rather than bequeathed automatically by game mechanics. For example, if a character were up and he drew a 3 of hearts and then a joker, that would not be a disconnection because the redraw was automatic. However, had the character not been up and drawn a 3 of hearts, then spent a Possibility for a redraw and drew a joker, that would be a disconnection because the redraw was the result of player volition (spending a Possibility).

This is clearly a house rule. I use this rule because without it, if the first draw isn’t a joker, the player knows that he can’t disconnect even if he spend a Possibility. I don’t like that.