Subject: Talisman (2nd Ed): Can it be fixed? From: Trevor_Dewey@acml.com Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 15:01:28 -0600 Message-ID: <867440520.31292@dejanews.com> Can Talisman (2nd Ed) be fixed? This question has been buzzzing around my feeble brain for the last month or so ever since the recent public mauling of the game on this forum. Lets look first at its features and flaws, as I see them. Features: -The game is darn pretty (mostly) -nice bits (mostly) -easy to learn, easy to setup (ditto) -Fantasy theme has a wide appeal Flaws: -Main player action is purely random (Drawing adventure cards). -Only one strategy: Beat up on the leading player. -Unblanced cards and characters. -Long. -Little or no actual role-playing. -Only one actual quest (for the magical quest game). IMHO, the central flaw is the first one. The engine that drives Talisman is the adventure deck; a mish-mash of Events, Objects, Magic Objects, Strangers, Monsters, Spirits, Animals and Places. Players move to a location draw a card and hope that its a good one, or they band together to beat up on the player who has had a couple of lucky draws. John starts the game drawing a dragon and dies quickly, Jane starts the game drawing the Crown of Solomon but then gets hammered by the other players and dies a lengthy death. The random engine leads straight to the single strategy and long play. So the question becomes (in my mind) can we alter Talismans card engine in a way that retains its ease of use, and setup yet adds strategy and balance. Honestly I'm not sure an ideal solution is possible for this game, it will never be a Cosmic Encounter, 1856 or Elfenroads (classic games with high replayablity) but perhaps a few changes might make me (and perhaps others) willing to play it more than once a year. Here are some possible solutions, and I'm interested in what rec.games.board land might have come up with to resolve these problems. Possible solution Number One: Team Play. No changes are made to the rules save those needed to accomodate team play. Teamed players may opt to move together: one players turn is essentially forfeited. The players move together, encounter the space together, attack and/or defend together. Only one "constant spell" player per team to limit abuses, and no cross-aligned teams (good and evil on same team). Targeted events will effect only one player (determine randomly). Pros: Game length should shorten. Additional strategies possible: Does the team stick together to defeat the various monsters or do the move apart in the hopes of improving their chances of getting the "good stuff". Cons: Randomness still evident. Game will be shorter, but perhaps not much shorter. Division of spoil problems arise. Monsters/Encouters are really designed for individual players. Possible Solution Number Two: Quests In a game that claims to be the "Magical Quest Game" there is only one true quest--that of the search for a Talisman to be able to pass through the Valley of Fire and enter the center square to find and use the crown of command. This solution requires a somewhat more extensive preperation period. Seperate from the deck all the Magic Objects, also seperate from the adventure deck all the power creatures (Craft and/or Strength >4). Create one randomly sorted deck with the magic objects, one with the monsters. At any point (?? not when in the middle obvioulsy) a player can announce his intent to quest. A non-questing player draws one monster card and one object card. These two cards are placed on a random space on whatever level the player is not on (if on outer randomly placed in inner and vice-versa) if possible the placement should be made in such a way that the questing player does not know which is the monster card and which the object. These cards do not exsist for normal gameplay purposes (the square where they're on is played as if they didn't exist). At any time where the player could gain a craft, strength, or life point or could have received a spell (except through the runesword or "constant spell" ability) he may instead reveal one of the two hidden cards. When both cards are revealed the player may head toward the site and encounter the monster to gain the object. Again these cards only exist for the questing player. A player may only undertake one quest at a time (Note: A questing player may only undertake one quest at a time (Note: A questing player only encounters the quest not the space or any non-quest cards in the space). A bit complicated but it reduces the randomness of power object allocation and gives players the option of questing as opposed to just beating up on number one. Pros: Less random. Slight increase in strategy. You're finally questing in the magical quest game :-> Cons: Likely to be as long as any other version. Longer setup time. Still random and could lead to a player in lead, stays in lead situation. Also how does this work with objects/monsters from Dungeon, City, and Timescape? Possible Solution #3: Talisman: The Gathering. Divide the adventure deck between each player Each player then shuffles the divided cards and creats a "reserve deck". They then draw five cards from the deck for their hand. At the end of each of their turns they draw one card. The player directly opposite (or whatever, In 3-player the player to the left--whatever works) must play one or more non-object/magic object card if you have encounterd a space where you would normally draw one or more cards. If the player directly opposite can not play suffcient cards to meet the space draw requirements you must play suffcient cards from your hand to meet he draw requirements. If you can't draw from your deck and place the drawn cards directly on the space. Reshuffle your deck when exhausted. If a player plays one or more monster/spirit cards whose total craft or strength is equal to or less than four you may respond by playing an object card from your hand to that space. If the player plays one or more monster cards whose total craft/strenth is greater than four you may play a magic object to that space (The object/magic obejct will obviously exceed the normal draw limit of the space). At any time before dice are rolled. ANY player may discard one magic object from their hand to modify the roll of the dice by either plus or minus one (announced when the magic object is discarded). Pros: Less random. slight increase in strategy. Makes it a little more interesting for non-phasing players. Cons: Is it Talisman? still a likelyhood of ganging up on number one. Probably as long, or longer then regular talisman. And how do you integrate Timescape, et al. Mulitple Decks per player? And what about the prophetess, how does her ability fit in? (Player throws one extra card at her, she can discard one. Opposite player gets an extra draw?) Possible Solution # 4-Infinity: Talisman: Variants. Heres one of a number of possible variants that makes extensive changes to rules and winning situations. This is not Talisman, and is not really a fix for Talisman. more of an apertif I'd say. The world is at war Good vs Evil, Neutrals vs Eveybody. Divide players as evenly as possibly (odd lots going to the neutrals) between Good, Evil and Netural characters. Make sure characters are relatively even (equal number of "constant spell" characters is good enough. Agian with the neutrals getting the shaft if necessary) [ Note: I'm pretty sure there are more constant spell good guys than any other alignment. I can't remember how many constant spell neutral or evel guys there are?] [ Note: This isn't a playtested variant ] A side wins when all other alignments are eliminated. Characters may not attack (in any form be it combet, spell or character ability) those of similar alignment. (The gods are involved with this one boys and girls). Any event, action, spell, etc that would change alignment is ignored. Instead the player that would have changed his alignment loses a life instead. Create the following subdecks from the adventure deck: All spirit cards. All animal cards. All dragon cards. All monster cards. All magic objects plus the warhorse (if you've got it). Shuffle the magic object deck and give one object to each player. If there are less neutral players or less neutral constant spellcasters than evil/good guys. Give one additional magic object to each neutral player. Shuffle the remaining objects back into the adventure deck. Deal one card from the spirit deck to each evil player. All spirits are considered evil aligned. Deal one card from the monster deck to each evil and neutral player. monsters are considered evil and neutral aligned. Deal one card from the animal deck to each good player. Animals are considered good aligned. Deal one card from the dragon deck to each good and neutral player. Dragons are considered good and neutral aligned. The Dealt cards form the start of each players army. Shuffle all remaining cards back into the adventure deck. If a player encounters a like aligned creatures if he "defeats" the creature it joins his army. If he loses or draws it goes away to the discard pile (refused to join). Combat against unaligned is as normal. Note: (A max of two spirits and two dragons is allowed per army.) Combat between players is changed by the addition of an army. Defending player places his army down. Attacker must match strength vs strength and craft vs craft. Cards that can not be matched up attack the player. [ Note: This is a little too advantageous for the attacker. A defensive modification of +1 applicable to all non-player combats should probably be added ] Roll dice for each combat. Discard the losers of each combat (players only lose a life as normal). Players only attack each other if they're armies are gone. Pros: Potentially very quick. Cons: Combat needs to be reworked, and its clearly a variant and not Talisman. Long setup time. Anyway enough meandering for a day. I still don't know after all this if Talisman is fixable. I'll ponder it a bit more and maybe in six months or so I'll have a flash of insight :-> Maybe Peter was right it is a form of Water Torture. Cheers. Trevor -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet