As a child, one of my favorite board games was Talisman, game of fantasy adventure that changed every time you played. There were even these things called expansions that let you add even more characters and monsters to the game. As with most things I liked, I took it upon myself to improve the game by adding my own hand-made cards and rules.
Even as a child, I recognized that there were flaws in the game and that it wasn’t realizing its full potential. The rules I came up with essentially turned it into more of a role-playing game, something more along the lines of HeroQuest. It wasn’t really Talisman any more.
The latest version of the game, now in the capable hands of Fantasy Flight, streamlines a few things, but the game is still essentially 2nd edition Talisman with better art. The terrible roll and move system remains as well as the grossly unbalanced randomness. But that is what makes it Talisman. These typical Ameritrash conventions are endearing.
However, this hasn’t stopped me from coming up with ways of making the game less random, not take 4 hours to play and still retain that classic Talisman feel. After poring over various house rules online, I have cobbled together an amalgam that combines the most interesting house rules, mechanics used in other games and my own inventions.
I’ve played a few solo games to test the rules and they seem to hold up. I will have a playtest session in about a week to see what other players think.
For the curious, I have posted my rough notes below.
Declare clockwise or counterclockwise direction before movement. If undeclared, movement must be in the direction moved last. Use figure orientation to remind player of direction.
Roll d4 for movement and move up to that number of spaces.
“Place” cards must be landed on by exact roll.
Certain spaces must be stopped on and encountered (Crags, Forest, Chasm, Desert), regardless of movement roll.
Fate Tokens
Can be spent to add or subtract from the total of a die roll. 1 point/token
Enemies
In the outer region, Enemies of Strength or Craft of 5 or more can be automatically evaded.
Rewards
All sacks of gold cards are removed from the game.
All Objects and Magic Objects are removed from the Adventure deck and added to a rewards deck. Place it on the Warlock Cave to distinguish it from the regular Adventure deck.
When an Enemy is defeated, roll a die and add the result to the Enemy’s Strength or Craft. On a total of 9 or more, the player draws a card from the rewards deck. Otherwise, the player gains Gold equal to the Enemy’s Strength or Craft divided by 2 (rounded down).
Instead of taking a Quest reward or any type of special reward card, a player may instead draw three reward cards and choose one, shuffling the others back into the deck.
Combat
Roll a number of dice equal to base Strength or Craft. A 5 or 6 counts as a success.
Cards that give bonuses or penalties to Strength or Craft “in combat” add or subtract a success, NOT a die. Otherwise they add a die.
Highest number of successes is winner. The difference in totals is the amount of damage done. Place tokens on an Enemy card to record damage, or remove life tokens if it is a Character. If the total number of damage tokens on an Enemy equals or exceeds its Strength or Craft, the Enemy is slain.
A stand-off occurs when neither side rolls any successes or the total successes on either side are equal, cancelling the damage to zero.
Combat continues until the Character or Enemy is killed, there are two stand-offs in a row, or the Character decides to evade. Evasion is automatically available after one round of combat. Any damage tokens remain on an Enemy.
Any mention of a battle or psychic combat now refers to a single round. For example, the Amazon’s ability allows her to re-do any round of combat in which she loses or the result is a stand-off. The results of the second set of rolls count for that round. She may use this ability over multiple rounds of battle.
Any effects which refer to being killed refer to the final round of combat in which the total number of damage tokens on an Enemy equals or exceeds their Strength or Craft.
Experience Points
It only requires 5 Strength or 5 Craft in trophies to increase the base amount by 1 point.
Maximum base Strength and Craft are capped at twice their initial value.
Quests
Each player begins with a Quest from the Warlock’s cave. They may only have one quest at a time.
When quests are completed, characters must travel to the Warlock’s Cave to collect their reward. They are not automatically teleported there.
Quests do not have to be completed. A character may open the Portal of Power without having completed their quest.
Reset
A character may stop on their original Start location, lose a turn, and reset Strength, Craft, Life, spells OR equipment to their starting values (lose one turn per selection).