Thursday, June 30, 2022

Retrospective: Talisman

There's a lot that could be said about the creative and commercial ecosystem created by the publication of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. Chief among them is that, while D&D and many of its imitators did indeed sell well, those sales were nevertheless minuscule compared to traditional boardgames or even the burgeoning fields of electronic and video games. That's why many RPG publishers, TSR foremost among them, quite quickly attempted to find ways to make inroads into the wider games market. The various incarnations of the D&D Basic Set were one prong of this strategy, attempting to make roleplaying less arcane and more accessible to those not already immersed in wargaming or fantasy and science fiction. Another prong was the creation of more conventional games that borrowed thematic and esthetic elements of RPG in order to generate greater interest in them. 

Aside from Dungeon! (which was actually created before the publication of D&D but published later), I get the impression that most of these fantasy-themed boardgames weren't all that successful – or at least weren't as successful as their publishers had hoped they were going to be. The only other exceptional that immediately springs to mind is Games Workshop's Talisman (The Magical Quest Game), which first appeared in 1983. I say this because, unlike all the other such games from this time period, Talisman is the only one that's still in print today. There's even a digital version of the game.

Talisman is a competitive game. Two to six players contend with one another in an attempt to reach the center of the game board, where the Crown of Power is located. Each player selects a hero card, which includes game statistics, including special abilities that differentiate one hero from another. Play consists of rolling a die to determine how many spaces a player can move his hero around the board. Depending on the space his hero enters, the player has to draw one or several cards. These cards can depict anything from monsters to fight, objects to find, or even helpful strangers to aid the hero. Interestingly, some cards permanently alter the space for which they're drawn, meaning that other heroes who enter them later must contend with their effects. This is especially true of monsters that aren't defeated: they remain their until someone slays them.

The board is divided into three concentric rings, each one smaller than the previous one – and filled with greater danger. Getting between the three rings is difficult, unless the hero has improved his abilities and acquired beneficial items through battle and the luck of the draw. Talisman thus has a kind of leveling mechanic built into it, which each ring representing a different level of challenge and only heroes whose players have taken the time to build them up will have much chance of success. Notice I wrote "chance of success." That's because Talisman is very random game, with so many of its elements determined either by cards or the roll of dice. That's not to say there's no strategy involved in its play, but the vast majority of its outcomes are determined by random means.

This randomness will no doubt be frustrating to many players, but, for others, that's a big part of the fun. Each game is quite unpredictable and there's no guarantee that even a seasoned player of the game will come out ahead of a total neophyte. Of course, Talisman includes the possibility of direct player versus player action too. Whenever a hero enters the same space as another, they can fight and the winner can steal an item or money from the defeated hero (as well as losing a life – all heroes have four before they are out of the game). This adds another level of uncertainty (and sometimes frustration) to the game and increases its appeal.

Talisman is one of those games that roleplayers frequently keep nearby to play during those times when not everyone can show up for a session. Because of the randomness of its gameplay, which only increases if one makes use of even one, never mind several, of its expansions, this is not a short game to play. In my experience, it was rare to complete a game of Talisman in less than 90 minutes and I recall some games that lasted three hours or more. Still, if you don't mind the outsize role that chance plays in the outcome of most games, Talisman is quite fun. There's a reason the game is still published almost four decades after its initial release. It's one of the classics of the hobby and I have many fond memories of playing it with friends.

20 comments:

  1. "this is not a short game to play. In my experience, it was rare to complete a game of Talisman in less than 90 minutes and I recall some games that lasted three hours or more. "
    Amen to that! I played this once and the game just would not end. After about 4 hours no one was out of play but we couldn't get the game to finish, so we just gave up.

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  2. The German company Pegasus Spiele has a license for an RPG (in both English & German) using the background/setting of the board game.

    I picked it up on a nostalgic whim (we also used to play the heck out of the original board game and a couple of the many editions since then...) when it was on sale at Amazon. It does a pretty good job taking aspects of the board game (like followers, and two main grouping for attributes: Strength and Craft) and translating them into RPG mechanics.

    I also like the...coziness I guess?...of the single island kingdom setting. Not sure if I'll ever actually get it to the table though.

    https://pegasusshop.de/en/product-line/rpgs-novels-comics/novels/11215/talisman-adventures-rpg-core-rulebook-hardcover

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  3. Talisman, I love it and I love the new versions

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  4. I found that the small box expansions (new cards!) were an interesting way of mixing up the game.

    The extra boards, however, made the game too long and reduced player interaction to the point where you were playing a series of solo games in parallel.

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  5. I LOVE Talisman.
    I think that the Luck mechanic in 4th edition improves the game a little bit.
    We play only with minimal expansion (jiust The Reaper) and some house rules to keep the running time lower, like:
    - First to reach the Crown wins,
    - All characters get a free improvement,
    - An improvement only costs 4 Strength or Craft.

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  6. Brilliant game. Have 2 copies of the 2E version with all expansions except the Dragons one. The Expansion and Adventure packs just really add more cards, but the Dungeon one can make things more direct by allowing a passage straight to the Crown. The City slows things down a lot, and Timescape is utterly gonzo. Who doesn't want their samurai or ninja to venture into the multiverse and return with a Chainsword, Jet Pack and Battle Droid follower?

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  7. At D&D sleepovers, the inevitable late-late-night tantrum over this game (usually involving the Prophetess thieving spells or something similar) was a cue for the host's mum to order us all to bed.

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  8. I think artikid's advice that the first to get to the Crown should win is excellent (and is our house rule also).

    The RAW just lead to ill-feeling.

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    1. Above and beyond the ill-feeling between the players, what we dread is the extended running time that rarely adds something.
      Most of the time we found ourselves with the character reaching the crown having such a wide lead that no one ever managed to wrestle victory from his grasp.

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    2. Absolutely, unless another player is just a few areas behind it's a waste of time.

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  9. I've often referred to Talisman as "D&D Monopoly" which it has a passing similarity to. I've had a lot of fun playing it over the years, and it still hits the table semi often. But if your group hates randomness, lengthy games, and Player vs Player, it ain't gonna be for you!

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    1. Yup, it's no Euro. But it's an admirably silly way of whiling away an evening and reminiscing about previous games of Talisman and friends long gone.

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  10. The other exception that jumps to mind is DungeonQuest, which was also published by Games Workshop for a while, and is still in print I think, at least in its original home in Sweden.

    As for Talisman, one quirk is that since GW and Fantasy Flight ended their cooperation, GW took it back in house, although you can't get it in GW shops, and you can't get it from the GW online shop either, although it does have a page.

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  11. Is there any decision the "players" actually make in this game? Or are they just monkeys rolling the dice?

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    1. As some posters very well stated it can be (almost) defined as a "Heroic Fantasy Monopoly".
      But instead of acquiring property and money, one increases the avatar's stats, acquires spells, weapons, armor and several items. Not much different from a regular RPG, really.

      If you like to play videogames I'd suggest you try the digital edition of the game. It's the exact game, with the added bonus of being able to save the game in order to resume the campaign later.
      Besides the game is quite cheap (about 5$ without discounts).

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    2. With the slight difference that in regular RPGs players make decisions that actually matter (i. e. affect gameplay). By the looks of it, Talisman is about as exciting as pushing a slot machine in Vegas.

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  12. There's also a digital version which allows one to play against other players (or an AI) on hot-seat mode. It's a great way to experience the Talisman game without the hassle of setting a board, distributing cards, etc. And it even includes the expansions (sold separately as DLCs).
    But the base game alone is tremendous fun and me and some friends sometimes have a lot of fun playing it.
    It's available both on GOG and the steam store for anyone interested:
    https://www.gog.com/en/game/talisman_digital_edition

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  13. A friend of mine had a later edition that we played quite a bit in the 90s. All you needed for victory was to get to the center using a talisman and kill the big boss. One time, I randomly drew a talisman, crossed over to the inner board, met a demigod and pulled the finger of death spell, then won the game all in 4 turns. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen--a 5 minute full game of Talisman.

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