The first 4th edition expansion, The Reaper, is now available.
I picked up my copy today and will be playing in a few hours. A quick peak at the new cards has me impressed!
__________________ Words of wisdom from Gary Gygax:
From my perspective wanting less in the way of rules constraints comes from being a veteran Game Master who feels confident that more good material comes from imagination and player interaction with the environment than from textbook rules material.
more words of wisdom:
Rashness and foolhardiness are harbingers of death, as is timidity, in such adventure setting.
Those that complain about real challenges might be better off playing Candyland with their little sister
First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
Would the reaper expansion be compatible with the original 4th edition? Are there references to fate?
There are new Adventure and Spell cards that reference fate (small number). The Grim Reaper itself references Fate on one of the possible "gifts" he can give you. I think there is one Warlock Quest that requires you to discard Fate.
In all, the Reaper expansion can be used pretty easily with the BI edition by removing the cards that reference Fate, and re-rolling any Fate gifts received from the Grim Reaper.
__________________ Words of wisdom from Gary Gygax:
From my perspective wanting less in the way of rules constraints comes from being a veteran Game Master who feels confident that more good material comes from imagination and player interaction with the environment than from textbook rules material.
more words of wisdom:
Rashness and foolhardiness are harbingers of death, as is timidity, in such adventure setting.
Those that complain about real challenges might be better off playing Candyland with their little sister
First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
I did not check it out in details at my FLGS but FFG put out a "patch" for the previous black box edition to update it to their edition. Might worth a look depending on the price.
It would make your game compatible with the new expansions that are starting to come out.
I did not check it out in details at my FLGS but FFG put out a "patch" for the previous black box edition to update it to their edition. Might worth a look depending on the price.
It would make your game compatible with the new expansions that are starting to come out.
Technically, no, because the board has some spaces changed to include the Fate mechanic. The FFG website has these spaces in high-res images suitable for printing if one wishes to bring their BI board up to date.
__________________ Words of wisdom from Gary Gygax:
From my perspective wanting less in the way of rules constraints comes from being a veteran Game Master who feels confident that more good material comes from imagination and player interaction with the environment than from textbook rules material.
more words of wisdom:
Rashness and foolhardiness are harbingers of death, as is timidity, in such adventure setting.
Those that complain about real challenges might be better off playing Candyland with their little sister
First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
There are new Adventure and Spell cards that reference fate (small number). The Grim Reaper itself references Fate on one of the possible "gifts" he can give you. I think there is one Warlock Quest that requires you to discard Fate.
In all, the Reaper expansion can be used pretty easily with the BI edition by removing the cards that reference Fate, and re-rolling any Fate gifts received from the Grim Reaper.
You can't just put the Reaper with 4th edition - the cards are of quite different sizes, so you need the update pack (which I've just ordered... )
Mr. Blackman is quite right. I was thinking in terms of game rules and not physical components.
Really, my advice is to get the new full revised edition if you wish to use future new expansions.
__________________ Words of wisdom from Gary Gygax:
From my perspective wanting less in the way of rules constraints comes from being a veteran Game Master who feels confident that more good material comes from imagination and player interaction with the environment than from textbook rules material.
more words of wisdom:
Rashness and foolhardiness are harbingers of death, as is timidity, in such adventure setting.
Those that complain about real challenges might be better off playing Candyland with their little sister
First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
Fate is a good idea, as long as it's very limited availability. The game just has so many random events that it's easy for the luckier player to shine. Winning by rolling higher is not all that fun. At least with fate, you get to have some choices on those die rolls.
It also lets you have interesting events like: on a 1, the Grim Reaper kills you outright. Lose all lives. Without fate, that'd be pretty arbitrary.
If anyone visits the official FFG Talisman forum, you can see that my early play of The Reaper expansion is getting the FAQ jump started.
__________________ Words of wisdom from Gary Gygax:
From my perspective wanting less in the way of rules constraints comes from being a veteran Game Master who feels confident that more good material comes from imagination and player interaction with the environment than from textbook rules material.
more words of wisdom:
Rashness and foolhardiness are harbingers of death, as is timidity, in such adventure setting.
Those that complain about real challenges might be better off playing Candyland with their little sister
First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
For those who have it: is the update pack worth it? My wife is pretty interested, but paying another hefty percentage of the original game's price and tossing a lot of the old game materials kind of turns me off.
For those who have it: is the update pack worth it? My wife is pretty interested, but paying another hefty percentage of the original game's price and tossing a lot of the old game materials kind of turns me off.
I recommend buying the full new game to get all the new components, including board, counters, and rulebook.
I plan on ordering an upgrade back to have extra cards to use for making custom cards.
__________________ Words of wisdom from Gary Gygax:
From my perspective wanting less in the way of rules constraints comes from being a veteran Game Master who feels confident that more good material comes from imagination and player interaction with the environment than from textbook rules material.
more words of wisdom:
Rashness and foolhardiness are harbingers of death, as is timidity, in such adventure setting.
Those that complain about real challenges might be better off playing Candyland with their little sister
First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
For those who have it: is the update pack worth it? My wife is pretty interested, but paying another hefty percentage of the original game's price and tossing a lot of the old game materials kind of turns me off.
If you don't plan to get any expansions, then no, it isn't worth it.
However, the expansion cards (e.g. the Reaper) are not compatible with the original 4e version. You need the upgrade pack to use them.
I had my first death from the Grim Reaper on Sunday.
I sent the Reaper to my opponent. He rolled for his fate, and a result of five sent the Reaper to where I was in the Chapel. I rolled, and a result of one had me frantically spending a Fate to re-roll. The second throw also came up one, and I was obliterated.
__________________ Words of wisdom from Gary Gygax:
From my perspective wanting less in the way of rules constraints comes from being a veteran Game Master who feels confident that more good material comes from imagination and player interaction with the environment than from textbook rules material.
more words of wisdom:
Rashness and foolhardiness are harbingers of death, as is timidity, in such adventure setting.
Those that complain about real challenges might be better off playing Candyland with their little sister
First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
[E]xperience has taught me that everyone has their own gaming preferences, and it is not a matter of "good" or "bad" in all, save in light of one's own preferences.
We've found in our games that even with fate, we get quite a few toads. Maybe not as many as before, but there is something extra hillarious when someone decides they don't need that extra strength/craft/spell/fate because they have plenty so spend a fate to reroll and get turned into a toad.
I had the original 4th edition version and then purchased the upgrade pack. I also updated my game board by downloading, printing, trimming and carefully pasting the revised scroll text available on the FFG website on the appropriate spaces. The patches ended up matching so well with the printed board that I have to run my fingers over it to feel for the raised surface of the stickers to figure out which spaces have them.
The game plays very well with Fate, though it does certainly make toads much more scarce; I've yet to see any in the first few games I've played since the upgrade.
I also acquired the Reaper Expansion at the same time. It includes some nice new cards and characters for the game. And although the Grim Reaper is an ominous presence on the board, he has yet to have any effect during any of our played games seeing as how he rarely if ever gets close to any characters; he simply isn't moved often enough for it to occur.
This past weekend I also bought the Dungeon expansion and gave it a whirl. It's much as I remember it being in the 2e version of the game. The general consensus is that's its a meat-grinder with plenty of challenging monster encounters but few payoffs. Still, two of the players spent a fair bit of time in the dungeon exploring its halls; though neither of them won in the end. So, all in all, a fun though challenging addition to the game.
During this latter session, the Witch appeared on the board and, with a few fate tokens in reserve, she isn't the toad-turning terror that she once. In fact, with the significant bonuses she offers to those who encounter her, I spent a fair amount of time hovering around her space so as to meet her over and over again. In the end, I never had to spend fate on her, got a significant power boost and ended up winning the game. So yeah, toads are indeed much rarer thanks to the fate mechanic. One idea might be to allow competing players to spend their own fate tokens to counter the fate token expenditures of unfortunate players.
The Dungeon expansion sounds disappointing. I had hoped it would add more depth to the game and provide more options for movement, but it appears to be little more than a linear sidetrack.
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