Talisman, the board game

[Asmo]

Hjorimir wrote:

"There are only two rules you need to know:

1) If you get the Prophetess, say, "I win."

2) If somebody else has the Prophetess, she must die."

This is a very good rule
I would like to include the Thief to that list

Our gaming group has modified her carddrawing ablity a bit:
she still has the option to draw 2 cards,but she must draw one and only one card first: if she chooses to keep it she can not draw the second card. If she discards the first card she must draw the second card and have to take it. A reasonable change, but the Prophetess is still incredible powerful.

Asmo

 

[Rozman]

They republish some games in limited release every X years to maintain the rights to them.

Or so leading GW rumor says. I have no knowledge of British/international copyright law, so this could be entirely bunk.

 

[Dragonblade]

The Prophetess is good. Its nice to be able to see the cards coming up.

But the Chaos Warrior is downright broken!

 

[Droogie]

I loved talisman... every gamer I know has fond memories of it.

Hmm.... maybe WotC should produce a rip-off game? Plays very similar except it could use the D&D minis with their stats stripped down even further. The game would come with a selection of cards, of course, but maybe you could buy new ones in booster packs? Ooohh think of it. New adventure, creature, item, and spell cards in random packs. They'd be like crack.

 

[Gumby]

The monk was right up there with the prophetess, IMO. Troll wasn't bad, either.

 

[jmucchiello]

If you have the original edition, you have the best one. If you've been playing the game for years with the same group of people, you have probably house-ruled all of the big holes in the game. Be glad and just keep playing the way you have been. You will not find the later editions better (or any more bug free).

Same goes for Wiz War.

 

[Dragonblade]

For those lurkers who have never played Talisman, it works like this.

Everbody picks a character from those provided. Each character is sort of a race/class combo all in one. Elven archer, Swashbuckler, Necromancer, Vampire, Thief, Dwarf Warrior, Holy Warrior, etc.

Each character has Strength and Craft. Two simple attributes. Each character also has four lives. Lives are basically like HP. You also start with a gold piece each. The characters all have an alignment, good, neutral, or evil. And they can gain experience points from performing quests or killing monsters. XP can then be traded in for a bonus Craft, or Strength, or Gold, or Life. Each character also has some sort of special ability or two or three. For example, the Vampire could animate monsters he has killed and have them fight for him. The Prophetess could see the upcoming adventure cards. The Wizard got bonus spells, etc.

The board has different zones and regions that you go through. You roll dice and move your character in one direction or the other around the board, passing through different regions, and following the instructions of the space you land on.

Some of the spaces have special rules. Like if you go to the Graveyard, the evil characters can receive some special perks, they roll a die and can gain a gold, a life, or bonus Craft or Strength. Good characters might lose a life, or have something else bad happen.

But most spaces require you to draw one or more Adventure cards. These cards could be treasure, monsters, events, or NPC encounters. Monsters you have to fight and if you beat them you gain XP and any treasure cards they might be guarding. Events affect everyone in a certain region, or on the entire board. For example, you might get Blizzard and everyone in your region can now only move one space for the next two rounds. You can also meet NPCs. Witches who might hex you, Merchants who might sell you stuff that you can buy with your gold, or even someone who agrees to become your follower. They travel with you and provide some special benefit to your character. Like they can help you fight, or carry some of your treasure since you are limited in the amount of treasure you can carry.

Some treasure, is just valuable stuff that you can sell, other treasure includes weapons, armor, magic items, etc.

If you land on another player's spot, you can trade with them, or try to fight them and if you win, they either lose a life or give you some of their stuff.

The ultimate goal of the game is to become super powerful and then enter the Dragon's Tower. The Dragon's Tower is the most difficult region in the game. Full of uber traps and tough monsters. You can't even enter the tower unless you have a talisman (hence the name of the game). You can get Talismans by going on quests from some of the NPCs you meet, or by finding one, or trading for one, or killing for one. At the top of the Dragon's Tower you fight the dragon. If you win, you win the game. If you lose, bad things happen to your character.

Depending on the number of players the game takes about 3-6 hours to play through.

Anyway, there is much more to it than that, for example, I didn't even mention that some characters can use spells, or that some monsters fight you with Craft instead of Strength, etc. but that should sum it up for those who have never played and are interested.

Its an awesome game. I love it.

 

[Dragonblade]

I loved talisman... every gamer I know has fond memories of it.

Hmm.... maybe WotC should produce a rip-off game? Plays very similar except it could use the D&D minis with their stats stripped down even further. The game would come with a selection of cards, of course, but maybe you could buy new ones in booster packs? Ooohh think of it. New adventure, creature, item, and spell cards in random packs. They'd be like crack.

Brilliant man! Fricking brilliant idea! The problem with the minis game is its all combat. What you need is a big colorful game board that you can move around on. And then you need some sort of encounter/adventure card. These cards might be monsters to fight or items or spells or some other form of power up for your character.

Dang, just playing Talisman is addicting, its so fun, but to actually be able to buy expansion Adventure cards, spells, items, monsters, treasure, and character/minis that you can play?? With cool Warhammer-ish artwork, of course!

Hell, whichever company comes out with this will have a license to print their own money because they'll be making buckets of the stuff.

Warlord Saga of the Storm had some of these ideas. But its just a CCG and you still fight another player (though someone correct me if I'm wrong). What you need is to add a gameboard and some sort of encounter/adventure card system like Talisman, so that players can play together or solo instead of against each other.

 

[Particle_Man]

My talisman has 6 expansion sets!

The set I have includes the following.

1. Talisman (the object: get to the centre and use the crown of command to nuke others into submission), 2. Talisman expansion set (alternate endings added in this one or the next one - a critter to fight, a horrible black void (death), or an item to, you guessed it, nuke others into submission), 3. Talisman the Adventure, 4. Talisman Dungeon (a dangerous way to get a shortcut up to the centre), 5. Talisman Timescape (So that's where you go with the horrible black void! Go to other worlds, get cool sci-fi gear, get killed), 6. Talisman City (has laws against fighting and spells, but if you have money you can get great stuff - has the equivalent of prestige classes), 7. Talisman Dragons (lots of freaking dragons! The ending is actually tamer, since the Dragon King here is a total wimp compared to the Dragon King from the alternate endings).

And it was fun and long and needed house rules but I loved it. Although I noted that my favourite character, the elf, got less powerful with each expansion, since his teleportation ability did not extend to any of the added boards. C'est la vie!

The new sets didn't inspire me as much, somehow, but maybe that is because I had spent so much on the old stuff I didn't want to spend it on the new stuff. I think the first expansion set expanded on the corner spaces, and the other expansion set made the center board more complex, but I could be wrong.

Oh, and the old cosmic encounter (mayfair) is way better than the new one (hasbro), since the old one could be played with 3-6 players, not merely 2-4. (I am not speaking of the really really old cosmic encounter, by eon, of which I know nothing).

 

[Particle_Man]

Come to think of it, I even helped some friends organize a sort of LARP Talisman for a friend's birthday (she was the only "player", and the rest of us played the monsters, followers, strangers, etc., that she drew cards for. We still used dice, and has to have a neutral GM to control things, but it went well).