First off, wow! I thought I missed a week of this thread or something, but there's a lot of chatter from last night.
Sapphire:
The way 'we play it' (i.e. in the games of the small community of players I am part of), we have the fiery explosions immediately. (We didn't know this was a 'house rule'). I think (having re-read the rules) 'as written' it takes some time for the person to transform again. They will become disconnected very quickly, but then transform using the same tables as normal.
The way I always viewed is was that when crossing over a boarder, you
may be affected by the boarder storm. If you're a transformed Ord and the Reality Storm "attacks" the Ord, then POOF... they're gone. If they make it through the storm, then I would apply the transformation rate table to them.
And no matter how much we agree or disagree, I'm so happy to have these conversations. Discussing Reality Mechanics is so much fun!
Also, on the note of realism on how Core Earth reacts and refugees and death. I don't think it was naivete necessarily. One, it is a lot of work to figure out a global response to something. Two, they touted Torg as a fun game where you're in an action movie that travels from genre setting to genre setting. The darkness of the reality of an event like this doesn't fit into anything fun and adventurous. Not that I wouldn't love to play a game like that... it's just not Torg.