Mr Skeletor's House Rules - Talisman 4th Edition

Talisman often suffers from ‘treading water’ syndrome, where the game can stagnate for a while with no one making any real advancements towards the end goal. This, compounded by the facts that the inner region is brutal to get through without a powerful character and dying in Talisman means starting from scratch leads to long games which can overstay their welcome. These house rules attempt to address this issue.

1.0.0 - Life Force
When a character is killed and that player draws a new character, all other players immediately Gain 1 Strength and 1 Craft.
This rule ceases to take effect when a player reaches the crown of command.

1.0.1 – Super Life Force
(This will lead to a faster game, and is not to be used in conjunction with rule 1.0.0)
Each time a character is killed and a new one is drawn, all other players receive X points to spend immediately, where X is the number of deaths that have occurred so far including this one. Each point may be spent to Gain 1 Craft or 1 Strength.
Eg. After the 4th character is killed in a 3 player game, that player draws a new character while the other 2 players receive 4 points each to spend immediately. One player spends it to Gain 3 Craft and 1 Strength while the other put it all into strength Gaining 4 Strength.
Keep killed characters in a separate pile so you can track how many have died so far this game.

Actually, the way your rule is written, the other two players would get 4 points each in your example.

Have you played with Super Life Force yet? It seems like it would turn dying from starting over from scratch into being effectively taken out of the game, especially if you're playing with some of the expansions where death is a little more frequent.

mjl1783 wrote:

Actually, the way your rule is written, the other two players would get 4 points each in your example.

Thanks, I've corrected it.

Have you played with Super Life Force yet? It seems like it would turn dying from starting over from scratch into being effectively taken out of the game, especially if you're playing with some of the expansions where death is a little more frequent.

I've played with the first rule but not the second. I prefer the first rule, but the second is more forceful in making the game end when it gets tiring.
You are right about the player effectively being 'out of the game' - unless someone else dies, in which case that player is suddenly back in the race and potentially can head straight for the crown if enough characters have died so far. So your best bet is to hope someone dies. The idea is there by that stage there will always be characters ready to go for the crown, so the game will end soon.

If your game is taking 90 mins these house rules are not needed. Ours are taking at least 3 hours which is why I came up with these ideas (we are playing with all expansions to date.) I prefer the first one, as I said I haven’t actually tried the second one, and probably would only do so if I was playing within a strict time limit.

I think the secret to a good Talisman game is to keep it at three or four players. Any more than that, and you'll have to be fighting to get things moving. Plus there's way more opportunity for everyone to gang up on the guy heading for the CoC.

If I'm playing Talisman with more than 4 people and I'm not the guy in the lead, I'll probably be more likely to beat up on anyone who's dragging the leader down.

A nice struggle for the lead? Great, dig in. Maybe the shlubs can catch up a bit.

A pack of soon-to-be losers doing what they can to keep the game going against a clear leader? Hate it. Talisman has a runaway leader syndrome, and it just needs to be accepted. The rich get richer, and that's cool. Don't fight against the game, just wrap it up and try again next time.

With 6, I take out the alignment changing cards and play three teams of two. Good v Neutral v Evil. Team play is a lot of fun as one character usually becomes the 'football' and the other the 'enforcer'. We've found this also keeps more people involved long term. Even though your character might be sucking, your team could still be winning, or you could at least fall into that enforcer role and attack other teams.

With this team rule we also play that if both teammates are in the same region and you roll a 6 for movement, then you can automatically move to your ally for trading and what not. We figure this represents party coordination and planing.

Also, we take out a few of the non-creature adventure cards. This enables us to level up a bit more frequently. too many games where a player kept drawing fountains, bazaars and such and not leveling up.

Jack Hooligan wrote:

With 6, I take out the alignment changing cards and play three teams of two. Good v Neutral v Evil. Team play is a lot of fun as one character usually becomes the 'football' and the other the 'enforcer'. We've found this also keeps more people involved long term. Even though your character might be sucking, your team could still be winning, or you could at least fall into that enforcer role and attack other teams.

With this team rule we also play that if both teammates are in the same region and you roll a 6 for movement, then you can automatically move to your ally for trading and what not. We figure this represents party coordination and planing.

Also, we take out a few of the non-creature adventure cards. This enables us to level up a bit more frequently. too many games where a player kept drawing fountains, bazaars and such and not leveling up.

This is intriguing. How does a team win, by having one of its members reach the crown? Any other rule changes?

Team rules sound fun.

Aarontu wrote:

This is intriguing. How does a team win, by having one of its members reach the crown? Any other rule changes?

Correct.

I only have the first two expansions. So, not sure what will need to change for Frostmarch.

For what it's worth, I'm not that big a fan of the expansions that add more board as it drastically decreases player interaction. However, I'll use it with 6 players and teams. And by it I mean one at a time. In 2nd edition we never played all the expansions at the same time. Each game of Talisman is more unique if you limit yourself instead of being a glutton every time. Reaper is a must though.