Rereading Research and Development Wars combined with the "Boss Battle" idea, and it strikes me that Torg's survival mechanism is games. Or I should say "has been." I don't think it was always a game, or at least, that he didn't resort to it all the time.
Certainly, his actions in the Dimension of Lame do not feel strategic-mastermind-y as his actions since. You could say it was about destroying the bad guys, and that there was a "boss" bad guy, Torg's agency in these actions was completely different. He was just trying to survive and save everyone.
He wasn't in control.
In stories since then, he has been or tried to be in control of events. He gave himself a role to play and has defaulted to that role in every game since.
These are rather rambling thoughts, but I'd think the trauma of losing Zoe in the DoL, magnified by the possibility of having lost her again in DoR, triggered a default switch in him.
After all, if he controls all the pieces, everything will be alright, won't it? If he controls all the pieces, he can let himself be the happy-go-lucky Torg everyone knows.
Just some wandering ideas....
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