Explain Talisman to me

Shellhead wrote: Magic Realm is the anti-Talisman, in terms of control.

There's first turn Dragon in Talisman. There's three (or four?) levels of encounter in Runebound. There's quite a bit of encounter decks in Eldritch Horror.

And then there's Magic Realm...

As I've mentioned her a few times, I had a complete set of Talisman 2nd Ed. which we played to death through the 80s and 90s. I loved it and was so into it that I used to keep a record of which characters were chosen most often, which were randomly drawn, and which won for both methods (we used to switch back and forth; IIRC, the Chaos Warrior was the easy winner (OP!)) However, at some point I just decided I wanted something different, so I sold it to a guy who paid for a big order at Thoughthammer for me, which included both Runebound and Descent (this was a few months after Descent 1st Ed came out) and I've never regretted it, as we've played both of those to death, too.

The advantage for me of Runebound is that, while it's essentially the same game and it does lack the extreme risk that Sevej talks about, it has so many ways to modify the ending with the small deck expansions that I just feel that it's better. I can still play Runebound, but square off against the Giants or the Avatars or the Cult of the Rune instead of the Dragonlords. OTOH, if I really want a change, I can still play Runebound but in the desert or the jungle or the frozen north, too.

All of that said, Talisman is still a great game, mostly for the social and storytelling reasons that others have mentioned. I once convinced a diehard RPGer friend of mine to play in the early 90s who didn't understand how a boardgame could be so compelling. A few stories from me about turning into frogs or racing to the end and finding the Crown or the Dragon King or the Horrible Black Void was enough to get him to try. One game later, he was hooked like the rest of us.

And I did pick up Relic, since I was a longtime 40K player, too. I think the additional mechanics of that make for a better version of Talisman, honestly, but the original is still fine, too.

What would you say the refinements made in Relic are?

I guess that's a pretty lazy question, as I should be researching that myself. But I am curious as to your thoughts on the matter, since you brought it up.

Relic has 3 stats that are keyed to 3 encounter decks (justified by the different races of 40k), pre-determined character stat growth (no muscle wizards here), and the use of cards to mitigate dice luck (card with values to replace dice roll).

I hated Talisman until I got to play the PC version. I never had someone give me a fair explain of the game, they just went in killing. But when I got the PC version I didnt have to deal with everyone complaining about setup time or trying to play with house rules. A small handful of my PC gaming friends also picked it up when it was on sale during the last Steam sale, and now it is one of my favorite games to play on a free night. Had the PC version not existed they would have never played it, and I would have never given it a second chance.

Sagrilarus wrote:

Cambyses wrote: Once I hit my teens, my free time went to girls . . .

That was a quality choice. I really enjoy Talisman but . . .

I found that Talisman was one of the few games that other guys' gfs actually liked.
So, it served a better mixed social game than most other board games at the time.

But gods, what a dull game.