Talisman (4th Edition)

[Brel]

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game

Talisman is a fantasy board game for 2-6 people. Players control a myriad of characters, from warriors to a powerful sorcerer. In this perilous adventure play centres around the journey of these gallant heroes to find and claim the Crown of command, a magical artefact with the power to make its bearer the true ruler of the kingdom.

Only with strength, courage and wisdom will the players survive the ultimate test and beat their opponents to victory.

You can buy Talisman on the publisher's website - don't forget to advance order on Monday 20th August. It's also available from all good games stores.

Checkout the publisher's site at: http://www.blackindustries.com/?template=TM&content=talisman-buy

[Brel]

Trailer...

 

[benjie]

FYI: Comicquest Megamall is selling a copy of this game the last time I dropped by (last Monday)

[Brel]

FYI: Comicquest Megamall is selling a copy of this game the last time I dropped by (last Monday)

Thanks for the heads up Benjie!  How much is it?

[benjie]

Sorry I didn't ask but I did pass by today and it's still there in their display window. Probably the only copy too. So get it na!

[Rolf]

This one has an interesting negative review on BGG.  The reviewer herself criticized the game's apparent randomness and how it did not reward the players' planning; however several user replies indicated that they were playing it in the wrong spirit.  A number of comments were to the effect that players should just play it in a light-hearted manner and not with the same intensity or competitiveness as other games like Runebound.

[Brel]

Cover of the Revised 4th Edition of Talisman by Fantasy Flight Games.  Expected release date is October 2008.

[Brel]

The new edition of the TALISMAN game by Fantasy Flight Games has already been released this early December 2008.  Here is the box info:

---

Enter a mythic world of dragons and sorcery!
In Talisman, you'll embark on a perilous quest for the ultimate treasure, the legendary Crown of Command. You'll choose the warrior, priest, wizard, or one of eleven other heroes with powers both magical and mighty.

This revised version of Talisman Fourth Edition includes plastic figures for each of the heroes, and even plastic figures for the toads! Strength and Craft additions are even easier to track with the new stackable markers.

But the path to the crown is treacherous. Legends say that only a fabled Talisman can safeguard you in the lands past the Portal of Power. Yet, finding such an artifact is no small feat: monsters, traps, and evil magic wait to defeat you at every turn.

So summon your courage! You will need it to best your opponents, to secure the crown, and to seize your destiny!

Talisman takes you on a journey through magical lands, as you endeavor to reclaim the Crown of Command. Each turn will see your hero advancing, battling, gaining knowledge and power necessary to defeat the guardians lurking between the Portal of Power and the Valley of Fire.

Game includes:

• Revised Rulebook
• 6-fold game board
• 14 Character Cards with matching plastic character figures
• Over 100 Adventure cards
• 24 Spell cards
• 28 Purchase cards
• 4 Talisman cards
• 4 Toad cards
• 4 Plastic Toad figures
• 4 Alignment cards
• 6 Six-sided die
• 40 Strength Counters
• 40 Craft Counters
• 40 Life Counters
• 36 Fate Tokens
• 30 Gold Coins

---

This Fantasy Flight revision has higher quality stock, high quality pieces, new rules, and ongoing support in their website's forum.  This Revised Edition improves upon Talisman's mechanics to take the franchise to the next level.  The designers wanted to keep the 2-6 number of players but decrease the playing time of up to 2 hours only.  New rules were introduced to reduces the difficulty of the game to lessen frequent character deaths.  An example is the use of the new Fate mechanic.  Each character has a pool of fate, each token giving them the ability to reroll one die result when it's needed the most.  Fate is rare, and once it's used the character will have to venture out of their way to get more, like spending a turn at a temple to pray for Fate instead of life, for instance.  Character factions were re-balanced as well to make playing Evil characters a more viable option.  In a similar fashion, the game's locations were also moderately changed to ensure there's always something to do for your character no matter how remote the location he finds himself in the world.  For more info on Talisman, checkout their official website by clicking here.

[alfblack]

Loved talisman. Very cool. But it's very luck driven. I'm very satisfied with the simplified RPG-lite experience of Runebound.

*BUT* there may be times that I want an even simpler game. Then talisman would fill this need.

Oh, just in case you want to print and play a talisman like game.

Djarhun (2006)
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28740

havent printed yet. But I will. Hehe. Still working to find a way to print good "cards that can be shuffled well.

[Brel]

Review of all editions and expansions by Devon Harmon

[yamizero]

does anyone have the black industries copy and the revised 4th edition ffg? what's the difference with the board?

[Talismanic (Mark)]

  Necromancy! Arise old thread and tread these Forums!

Apparently, there are some differences with the FFG Board as detailed by this FFG Article titled "Location, Location, Location" (http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=267):

Desert
If a character enters a Desert space, he must lose one life unless he has either a Water Bottle or the Holy Grail. However, Deserts are no longer simply a barren wasteland. Players are able to draw an Adventure Card on Desert spaces. Characters will still lose a life before they draw a card, but this revision makes Deserts more interesting, as opposed to dead spaces that are simply avoided.



Village
The Mystic at the Village has the power to reveal the true nature of a character’s soul. Once your character is shown the path of his heart’s greatest desire, his alignment may change to reflect this shift in disposition. To represent this in the game, one of the options a character may encounter at the Village has the chance of converting the character to an evil as well as a good alignment.



Temple
Worshipping at this sacred place now offers characters the opportunity to gain fate tokens. If a player prays at the Temple and his dice roll equals 11, he gains 2 fate instead of gaining 1 life.



Graveyard
One of the goals I had when developing the Revised 4th Edition was to create greater balance between the good and evil alignments. While the cards that are thematically linked to good and evil alignments are fairly evenly distributed, the board spaces were not created equal.

Let’s first take a look at the Chapel. Good characters visiting the Chapel could either automatically heal all of their lives or pray by rolling a die. If a character chose to pray, he could gain 1 life with a 5 result or even gain a Spell with a 6 result. If he rolled a 1, 2, 3, or 4, he was simply ignored and suffered no penalty. Neutral characters could heal lives by paying 1 gold per life.




Now let’s compare the Chapel to the Graveyard from previous editions. Evil characters visiting the Graveyard could only “invoke the spirits” by rolling 1 die. There was no automatic benefit like the Chapel’s ability to heal all of a character’s lives. In order to gain any benefit from the Graveyard, evil characters had to take a chance by rolling the die, and even then you risked losing a turn if you rolled a 1. Neutral characters could not perform any actions at the Graveyard, so the space became a dead zone for them.

As you can see, the Chapel had several advantages over the Graveyard. I wanted both alignment based board spaces in Talisman Revised 4th Edition to have different, yet equal powerful options for characters, not only to maintain game balance but to simply make the space more interesting and thematic. At the Chapel, the forces of good provide healing and rejuvenation. At the Graveyard, the forces of evil provide power and control. The new fate tokens were the perfect game components to represent this power and control (see the previous article; “The Vagaries of Fate”).
 
The revised Graveyard offers evil characters an automatic advantage like the Chapel, except that characters can replenish all of their fate instead of healing all of their lives. Characters can also pray to the forces of darkness by rolling a die with the same ratio of benefits as the Chapel. Note that the option of “invoking the spirits” was changed to praying instead. This change in wording allows characters to use any bonuses that add to their die rolls when praying, such as the Priest character. Neutral characters don’t get left out either. They can now replenish fate by paying gold.




These revisions make the Graveyard as equally powerful and interesting as the Chapel, while maintaining a distinctive theme and flavor for evil characters.
 
There are paste-ups to correct the Black Industries Board on the Geek: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/3181895#3181895
x--------------------------------------------------------------x


I prefer the art of the second ed board though:



The side view art appeals more to me than the top down view. Also, the art for the cards and the board was bit more "cartoony" but in a good way- well for me anyway, like the game did not take itself so seriously. After all, its more of a romp and a ride than a serious Dungeon Crawler/ or RPG for that matter.
 

[Talismanic (Mark)]

One problem though, which has been pointed out before, is the inclusion of the Monk- he of the permanent Psionic Blast, whose ability to add strength and craft in combat makes him a virtual auto-win. Though that can be solved by House-Rules or just not including him. The Prophetess (in 2nd Ed) is also somewhat overpowered being able to draw an additional adventure card, and in always having a spell, though her low strength makes up for that. The prophetess was reprinted as something else by FFG, but still basically the same. 

I don't know if they will bring them back, but the Gladiator, Centaur and Knight were also pretty imbalanced, as well as these fellows from the Timescape:

   

The space Marine was uber powerful in combat-starting with Battle Armor of all things, AND had a ranged weapon. The Chainsword warrior was also pretty powerful-starting with a chainsword and being able to roll 2 dice in combat selecting the higher die roll. And then there's the Astropath who could stay in the Timescape forever and farm it for Items and the Demi-God Encounter.

Still, the sheer variety of characters was always fun for me. 

[Talismanic (Mark)]

Talisman (4th Ed) has further grown this year with the release of the Talisman: Highlands and recently the Talisman: Sacred Pool Expansion. At least two more expansion boards may be upcoming (at least based on the previous sets)- The Forest Area and the City Area will also get mini-boards.

Again, this game is more about narrative and pushing your luck, though there are some choices to be made regarding overall strategy and risk management. Some characters have a greater number of choices, so it can suck to draw one of the less "endowed" characters.

I've also noticed that a great number of characters now have powers to allow them to gain slain enemies as followers. What is missing so far are the characters with ranged attack abilities, and perhaps these won't be implemented.

The new spells also include some wildly overpowered "screw you" effects that once again tilts the favor of the game towards magic users.   

[xtriker]

thanks for the game a while ago mark! sorry couldn't finish