Talisman

I’ll start off by saying that this is NOT everyone’s favorite game! Talisman has been kicking around for almost 30 years and I just picked up the Revised 4th Edition 4 weeks ago and it has crazily become the game my gaming group has nightmares about… in a good way! After a 5 hour marathon of the base game my buddy Danny who tests for Eidos claims to have fallen asleep during testing only to have awaken from a dream yelling “you took my talisman *$##$*”! Danny had his Talisman stolen by another player just as he reached the inner region!

I LOVE this game. The hard luck, the frustration, all the work put in to build your character up just to be able to survive the inner regions and acquire the Crown of Command only to lose and all the fun that goes along with it! My gaming group will back me up on my opinion as well. It’s now 3 weeks straight that Talisman has hit the table.

By combining the expansions you have an endless repertoire of characters to use or draw from randomly as we do. Every game has been different so far and combining the expansions has seen some players take the brutal path on purpose only to be victorious!

Talisman is by far one of the easiest games to learn and jump right in to that I’ve come across. The character figures are amazing as is FFG’s production of this game on a whole. The expansions integrate seamlessly and add tons of variants and characters to the game which have proven to be an extra challenge to my game group and kept Talisman fresh every time we have played.

On the con side this game takes up crazy table room when you start adding some of the expansions especially when there are more than 4 players and the game can last for hours! If you don’t like luck in your gaming experience forget Talisman because there is a lot of luck involved until your character has been built up by playing the adventure which can be tedious to some. Also, if you’re like me, you won’t be happy until you buy every expansion that Talisman has to offer which can cost a pretty penny!

Talisman has just the right balance for me. Not too complicated but not too simple with tons of characters, expansions and variants that keep it from stagnating. I lean towards games like Talisman for the fact that there is luck involved. Everyone has a chance and everyone can bring their own strategy to the game knowing they don’t need a doctorate in physics to have a chance at winning. That being said, I can understand that a game like Talisman with “luck of the roll” can be a downside for the more strategy hungry type of gamer but for the more casual/avid gamer and theme based gamer Talisman ranks highly for me and I would suggest it for anyone who fits the criteria.

I was rather underwhelmed with this iteration of Talisman. The board is nicely done, and you receive a fair bit of components, but from there my praise is rather thin. While not overly complicated the game does take some getting used to. This however seems rather tedious, as the game play itself is not very exciting.

You begin by randomly selecting a character to play, but the characters themselves are very unbalanced. Some have amazing abilities and high stats while others are just mediocre. Even using the variant rule where you get to choose between three randomly selected characters often results in a lopsided gaming experience.

Once everyone has their character and the set up is complete, game play becomes very repetitive. Roll the die, move, draw a card. There may be a fight, or you may find some treasure, but this looses it’s appeal after the first few hundred times. The ultimate goal is to move to the center of the board along three separate rings of board space, each sightly more challenging than the last. the problem is the difficulty curve starts out on hard. The monsters you fight in the outer, easy, ring are the same as you’ll face as you progress inward. So starting right off you may draw nothing but unbeatable creatures, while you’re opponent does nothing but pick up loot.

This game relies little on strategy and heavily on luck. The game does create some fun moments, but they are few and far between. If there are no other board games around, it’s worth a go, but otherwise I’d make a different selection.

Me and Talisman

I have to admit, fourth edition of Talisman is my first contact with the game. What actually spurred my interest in it was the fantasy theme and the completely random gameplay which made it interesting choice for a lighthearted game session. I had overheard discussion in my FLGS about how it’s bad and only relies on it’s nostalgia value. Then I saw a video series about some dude playing it solo at BGG and I was sold.

The Premise

You are an adventurer, searching the land for the legendary Crown of Command which a powerful wizard hid in the most dangerous parts of the kingdom. It is said that whoever has the crown owns the domain. You are not alone though. There are others searching for it. Can you beat them to it and declare yourself the rightful ruler of the land of Talisman?

Out of the box

You can certainly say that this is Fantasy Flight Games quality. Well done though unpainted miniatures represent the 14 different characters in the game, plus 4 toad figures for the moments when you become a slimy green one. Plastic cone markers to track your character’s progress. LOTS of mini cards which represent the items, events and monsters of the land. Good quality board. Clear enough rule book. Gold coins and character sheets. All in all, the quality of the components is well above average.

Actual gameplay

If the components were a 9 or maybe even perfect 10, same cannot be said about the gameplay. It is based almost solely on luck. Everything you do, from movement to combat to encounters with the locals are decided with a roll of dice. You can only influence whether you go clockwise or counter-clockwise on the board and that usually means either going to the fields or woods, which both have the same outcome.

That is almost everything there is, really. Your character gains strength, craft, items and followers, but that is all dictated by luck and the shuffle of cards. You do have a chance to slightly alter the dice roll with fate tokens which give you chance to re-roll, but that’s about it.

There is a Player vs. Player element in the game which does make the game a bit more interesting. Whenever you land on another player’s character, you have the chance to fight him for gold, items or life. Usually this is a viable option if you have to take a vital item from your enemy so that you have better chance in succeeding in your quest. I’d say that this is actually one of the core elements of Talisman which redeem a lot of the gameplay’s shallowness.

Final words

Talisman is a game of luck. There is some player interaction due to the option of fighting others, but that’s also heavily luck based. You’ll be rolling dice to boredom. There’s something in Talisman that makes it interesting though. Maybe it’s the experience itself, not who’s winning. I usually focus more on what my character has gone trough than where he stands in the race for the Crown.

Strategy gamers and other similiar players, steer away from this game. You don’t want to play this, you won’t like it. There is no choices to be made, no serious strategy to follow. You’ll find Talisman shallow and bland as there is little more to it than rolling dice and seeing what happens next.

Social gamers and others who like to have a good laugh when your character turns into a toad and loses his magical items, you might like this. There is so little to think about that this is perfect game to play on a lazy Sunday evening with friends and a couple of beers.

Components.
For a game that was first released in 1983 Fantasy Flight have done a good job of keeping it fresh, and before anyone gets all uppity I know just as much credit for this edition is due to Black Industries so leave the pitchforks alone for now!
The box art is very evocative and suits the game inside perfectly and the box is sturdy and well made, as are most FF games (as I keep saying in my reviews, I may stop one day!). The board is large! That was the first thing I thought when unfolding it, and the spaces on it are clearly marked and decorated with an assortment of well drawn and thematic images. It is divided into three regions, the outer, which is the easy road, the middle region which is slightly harder but offers more chances to either gain strength and skill or die in equal measure. Finally the inner region, which has to be taken one space at a time until you reach the crown of command and make a play for the win.
The rules are well presented and easily understood, so much so that my entire gaming circle had them learned by heart by the end of the premier game. The cards, of which there are many, are well done with art of an equal quality to the rulebook and the rules and events described on them are easily read and follow. My only issue is the size of the cards. Having rather large hands I find the act of shuffling a deck of 100+ half sized adventure cards, with more to add with each expansion, is a taxing affair at the best of times! The spell cards and purchase deck are the same size and equally good and the fate tokens, simply decorated card discs, are thick and sturdy and will stand up to much passing from player to spare pile each game.

After the card board components we get to the plastic components. Starting with the 120 player counters, 40 red for strength bonuses, 40 green for health points and 40 blue for craft (magic!), these small plastic cones stack beside the players’ character card to show current health and any strength or craft bonuses they have earned so far.
The money earned in the game is represented by small plastic coins, which is a nice touch as most would simply opt for punched card coins such as in Descent (I hate that game!)

Finally we get to the miniatures, which is the biggest update FFG made as the Black Industries version had card standees. These are very good, the scale is such that a full six players can stand on any one space with little to no overlap and are all easily distinguished from one another while playing. The sculpt quality is good considering the scale and the only issue I had was that the plastic is a little soft so thin sections, such as extended swords or staffs, can be bent while packed in the box so a little check is always needed when packing away to check for possible casualties. The character cards that reference the player pieces are clearly printed and easy to reference, the character portraits on them are not as good as the rest of the art in the box however so someone dropped a ball there I think!

Before play I would give the components 8/10, some small issues but nothing to damage a score too much, some parts could be better and the issue with the small cards is purely down to my dinner plate hands so there’s nothing I could do about that one!!!

Gameplay.
Before I go on I need to make one thing abundantly clear.
If you are looking for an RPG style board game with plenty of strategy and decision making, where deals are made and people broken, look elsewhere, this game is not for you and if you still want to read on you’ll see why!

The core game mechanic is simple.
Roll the die
Move that many spaces
Do what the board or cards tell you
Rinse and repeat until you can make a break for the win!!!
The only kind of strategy or decisions you make throughout a game are whether to go left or right and finally, when you thing you are strong enough to handle it, when to make a move into the inner regions of the board and make a break for the crown of command, where you roll a die to see if you cast a spell, the only action you can take there, and if so everybody loses a life. Do this until everyone is dead and you win! Simple!

It’s not big, it’s not clever but it is good. The randomness of the game will turn some players off but for those groups with slightly more casual members this game is a good one as the ease of play suits almost anyone.

After play the score I give is 7/10, the simple roll, move, obey sometimes leaves me wanting a little more but it is still a very enjoyable game and we still play regularly.

The goal of Talisman is simple: Find a Talisman and get to the Crown of Command. The beauty of Talisman is that getting this simple objective done can happen in several different ways, and you are never truly safe! Talisman is enjoyed in the adventure that it takes you on. The random things that can happen can cause great laughs. You play it to experience the game, not to win it.

Talisman works while with any combination of players of 3 – 6, but I would definitely suggest keeping it to 4-5. It is possible to play it with more, but I would not recommend it as the game can take long enough as it is. The components are very high quality, and the artwork is excellent.

I would like to put a warning here, if you are a heavy strategy gamer, and do not like it when the luck of dice will more often than not determine the winner over skill, then Talisman is NOT your cup of tea. Likewise, if you enjoy games that are over in 90 minutes max, then be warned that this game is long.

A typical round of Talisman plays as follows:
You roll a dice to determine your movement. You can always move in at least 2 directions (at certain points on the board you can branch off onto different regions), and so you will choose which of the squares that you could land on would be most beneficial to your character.

Once you land on a square, you engage it. This could range from drawing a card from the adventure deck or facing a challenge printed on the board for that square. If you land on a square with another player on, you can choose to attack the other player instead of engaging the square.

If a monster card is revealed (or there was already one on the square), you fight the monster. Combat is very simple and involves you rolling a single die (with a few exceptions) and adding your modifier to it. Another player then rolls for the monster (as a house rule, the player on your right rolls for your enemies), adds the monster’s modifier, and the higher total wins. A tie is a stand off, and then there is no winner.

If you choose to fight a player and win, you may choose to either take one of the player’s life away, or steal an item or gold piece from the player. This can become especially interesting when a powerful item is out as the item can change hands multiple times throughout the game.

There are many different cards and events that can add to your character’s strength and craft (your magic ability). One of the main ways is in killing monsters. If you kill a strength 5 monster, you keep the card as a “trophy”. Hand in trophies adding up to 7 or more, and you can gain a new strength (this works in the same way for craft and killing craft monsters).

There are also multiple ways of getting Talismans, and getting your hands on one is never hard. Once you feel you are strong enough (around 10+ strength or craft for your character is usually sufficient), you make a way for the innermost region of the board. Brave the challenges there and succeed, and you end up in the Crown of Command. Once here, you roll a dice each turn, and depending on the result, every other player loses a life. You repeat this until someone else gets to the middle and fights you directly, or everyone dies and you win.

If you roll the dice (or die), and you are unhappy with your roll, you can spend a fate token to reroll. You can do this only once per roll though, so you will have to choose wisely. This takes a lot of the luck out of the game, and keeps the more serious gamers of our group happy.

Even though there is a lot going on with Talisman at any given time, I feel that the game is very easy to learn. To teach new players how to play, I don’t explain before hand, but just start playing and let them experience everything. The cards and board clearly explains how everything works, so figuring out your options available to you at any given time is very straight forward.

A huge positive for Talisman is how game-changing character abilities and cards are. The thief for example ALWAYS succeeds in stealing from other players, and has no need to roll. The Assassin is almost unstoppable, and if he chooses to kill you, it is only a matter of time until you are dead. The wizard never stops spewing out spells (of which some have huge consequences) This causes each character to play out quite differently, adding to the replay value of the game quite nicely. Despite these great differences in characters, the game is definitely balanced. Not one character feels weak, and I think I have seen almost every character played win a game.

My biggest problem with Talisman lies in the limited number of cards available. When you start playing you might feel that the deck is large, but after 3 games, the mystery and adventure of Talisman disappears and you start predicting the next events. Because of this, I feel that Talisman looses a great deal of its replay value (I score it a 2/5 only). This is fixed, however, with the very first expansion. With “The Reaper” added, I would change the replay value to a 5/5. The game needs those extra cards.

If you are on the fence about buying Talisman, but you know you want a fun light-hearted quest game, then definitely get it. Do yourself a favour thought, and get the Reaper expansion as while as soon as you can to keep the game replay value going.

All in all, I love this game, and was very impressed with the direction Fantasy Flight took it. I love the randomness that it brings, and the different ways it plays out. I give it a 8/10.

Talisman evokes a strong mix of pro and con from the gamers who play it. Those looking for a game with a strong fantasy world are instantly drawn to its fun graphics, character sheets with stats, and role-playing appearance. Talisman has a large rule book, but within minutes you are up and playing it and occasionally looking up some rule to clarify play.

But here is the warning: Talisman is a fun roller coaster ride of a game. It is NOT a go-cart ride. By that I mean, you are locked into your seat, and you don’t have a lot of choices. You can scream when you go down hill, lean forward, or lean back. But for the most part, you just enjoy the ride. Do you do it again? Well, that depends on if you had fun on the ride. But don’t expect the control of go-carts. Other games will give you the luxury of choices and strategy, Talisman offers the thrill of the theme.

In Talisman you are basically moving around a board with a die roll, landing on squares. You can go left or right. As you gain or loss power from random cards drawn on these squares you hope to get up strength to enter the inner ring. Once you get there you hope to gain strength and items from cards and then enter a final inner ring, where the tests are very hard.

I think entering the game with this mind-set can make it a little more fun. In addition, games with large groups will cause the ride to slow down to an agonizing halt. Keep the group small if you can. If you can’t, I recommend a few tips on the tip page.

Families and light gamer groups, who are into a fun and often unpredictable ride, might enjoy Talisman.

This game is for anyone who enjoys an adventure that comes at you, and doesn’t take things too seriously.

Basically, you roll to move (I know I lost a few of you there, but hold on), then interact with the space. Rolling to move is an awful mechanic on its own. Some games add things you can do to alter or adjust the roll, and that’s better. There are some characters in expansions that do this, but for the most part, you just take your roll.

Why isn’t it that bad in this game?
Well, you can go left or right at any time. That gives you two choices with your roll. You must go the full amount of your roll. Expansions add new areas that might give more choices as to where you can go with that roll.

Also, most of the spaces are the same. Often times you’ll just have a “draw a card” or a “draw a card” decision; which is what you usually want anyway. Once cards are down on the board, decisions become more defined: “I can fight a dragon in the plains or pick up a sword in the forest”.

There are 20 spaces on the outer region (where you start and spend most of your game time usually). Of those 20, 7 are not draw card spaces. Two of those 7 are basically bad to go to (Forest and Craigs). Two of the 5 left over are good for you depending on your alignment (Chapel or Graveyard). And the 3 left over are places you can buy things from or roll to interact with (City, Village, and Tavern).

As an adventurer, you’ll usually want the unknown (draw a card) over any of these spaces unless you have some good reason to visit them.

You fight each other if you wish, steal things, cast spells, get to the middle, crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women.

It’s all random fun really. That’s the important part to keep in mind. It’s low on strategy (although some expansions can add to that).

I’ve been playing Talisman for 25 years. It was the first game I was ever introduced to (besides Chess) and I’ve owned every version. I’m always up for a game.

Where else can you be a dwarf riding a unicorn with a band of fairies, princes, hags, and donkeys following you as you vanquish dragons with your holy lance? The game mechanics are simple and the expansions really seem endless. It is an easy game to teach to new gamers, and has enough theme and player interaction to keep experienced gamers coming back time and time again. Each expansion (and there are several)adds something unique and have quality components. I get turned off a franchise when the expansions are simply a new skin or a fresh set of monsters, but never fear… in Talisman, the expansions offer new locations to explore and add alternate endings and game mechanics to keep things fresh without leaving the vibrant world they have created. Theme is everything in Talisman. They paint a colorful world full of memorable characters that tie together the fantasy theme well. The freedom to choose where your character goes doesn’t seem rigid even though there is only a dice roll to determine how many “spaces” you can travel. My only gripe with the game is that in a world so beautifully created, the base game box is horribly constructed. It is not anywhere near as useful a storage container as Lords of Waterdeep.

Talisman Fourth Edition…finally! I have played and loved this game for a long time now but by the time I started building my collection everything was out of print and copies were pretty expensive. I had been out of the boardgame community for some time and when I came back about two months ago I decided that the reprint of this game was something I had to get.

So lets talk components…lots of them…

The Box itself is another large box and once you break everything down you notice that you don’t really need all that space…maybe with expansions but for the core game there is a lot of empty space…looking at it it seems like cards should go there but they don’t really need to as they all fit in the larger card slots just fine.

Also, the plastic insert has a large slot for the character sheets. This slot is another waste of space…look how big it is for fitting a dozen or so thin character sheets…that’s another thing that seems pretty ******.

The Character Sheet cards are flimsy stock compared to the other chits I had to punch out. I would have much rather seen these with some added bulk to them since it seems like I will be handling them a little bit.

In contrast, the miniatures are great! A good amount of detail and emotion to them.

Best of all is that they are not pre-painted! I am a former miniatures gamer and while I do not play miniatures games very often anymore I still do love to paint miniatures. I will be getting down with these sometime in the future.

They will look great on the big old game board that it some with…look at my hand next to this monstrosity! My one complaint is that it was a little awkward to unfold at first and I got worried for a second that I would rip the binding on some of it.

Again though, in contrast…look at the size of the cards

These things are small…where the **** am I supposed to find sleeves for these things?

Going back to all the empty space in the box why not provide us with some full sized cards? I mean they would fit in the box just fine and I wouldn’t have to try and find some specialized card sleeves for them.

The dice and other components are nice, good card stock and die-cut on them. The Dice are really nice, at least the color anyway…who knows, they could be cursed for all I know but they look good.

Overview

This games has over exaggerated features; monster board and small micro cards. Some components are very well built and very nice; Miniatures, Dice and Chits. While the character sheet cards are flimsy.

I would have liked them to use the space in the box and make larger cards…they would have fit just fine and I would have been able to sleeve them at some point. I would also like to see thicker stock used for the Character Sheets…I hope my 15 month old never get a hold of these things.

You may say they could save space by using a smaller box but they would have to shrink the board to do that and the board is beautiful…it shouldn’t be touched

Terrible, just terrible game. I do not subscribe to any of the arguments for why this could be a good game.

“It’s a beer and pretzels game.” –Yeah, after your three sheets to the wind maybe. Beer and Pretzel games should NOT take hours to play with that much table space required.

“It’s a light social game.” — Right, lets spend hours doing the same thing over and over again and then get to Monopoly levels of frustration by attacking each other or being unable to challenge the man who made it to the top.

The game fails to deliver any semblance of an adventure happening. It’s more like a bunch of loons wandering around, happening upon this or that and the universe they live in is subject to the most asinine logical loop-holes. “You were here second, so I attack you first, steal your Talisman at the gate (it’s the last one you say?) leaving your previous 3 hours of meandering pointless.

Decision making? What decision making? About the only decision making in this game is whether to roll or not at the corner locations. Big whoop.
“No, you have to decide how you’re going to level yourself up.”
Really? There really is only two ways to do that and you almost invariably need to upgrade both methods, so really all you’re doing is jumping on the opportunities as they present themselves.

“The real joy of the game is in attacking each other!”
A. Attacking each other early game has little to no consequences because hey, if I die, I just get a new character!
B. Attacking folks later in the game leaves such a sour taste for the looser (who for the most part looses not based on any real decisions, tactics or strategies, just luck), that if you loose at that point, you might as well quit because the game is essentially a race at that point.

Honestly, when we’re in the mood for “light gaming” we sure as **** aren’t going to waste time on this 3 hour turd.