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Talisman is something of an antique, a board game released originally in the early eighties. (Like I was.) Alongside HeroQuest it's something of a grandparent of the "adventure quest" board game style. Choose a fantasy character. Get them equipped. Send them out into a world of card-based monsters to fight battle-royale style among their fellows to become the Crowned One.
You can view Talisman as one of two things:
1. A fantasy epic story generator, in which you attempt to justify the choices made and events encountered. Why did the Warrior turn evil that night in the village mystic's hut? What did that stirring battle against a goblin and a dragon combined look like? That lucky trek across the desert to the oasis where our hero found a waiting magic item in the sand, how did it go? If you're willing to put your imagination to it, this can be sorta cool that way.
2. A random-number sorting algorithm with pretensions. You have rolled a die. You can move to the space that takes a life point from you, or the space that lets you draw a card. SUCH HARD CHOICES. You randomly encounter a random situation which you deal with by throwing random dice at it until it goes away. Then everyone else at the table randoms their random until the endgame is set up and someone can attempt to win. Once they move onto the final space of the board, a winner is determined at random by rolling dice until everyone is dead. (And in the game.)
The TRUTH of it all is somewhere between. This is less a tactical game and more a strategic game. Do you play high-risk, trying to tilt your dice-moved character towards spaces on the board where you draw multiple cards at a time, the spaces where it's "roll to lose turns OR gain helpful stat points", aiming to get into PVP fights to steal resources? Or do you play it low-risk, carefully picking at the edges of the map, trusting in card luck to bring you what you need as you hug the areas that refill your lives and "fate" (dice-rerolling points)?
Eventually you'll get a Talisman and get to the middle of the board and have to just start throwing down dice. Every turn with the standard "Crown of Command" ending is a coinflip: Do I hurt everyone else this turn? Are they dead yet? Or do I do absolutely nothing and have to sit here while they scramble around trying to get to the crown and dethrone me?
Then there's the expansions. Talisman with expansions goes from being a simple Plinko board to a wild careening pinball machine of insanity. Get to new regions! Dive into the city to grab massively powerful equipment! You have TWO kinds of Fate now, and can re-roll OTHER people's dice! A werewolf is attacking! Dragons are here! To the dungeons with you!
The more expansions and familiarity with the game you have, the more you can tune the tone and style of the game from a light fantasy quest to a horrendous meat-grinder that leaves bodies everywhere, half the game board on fire and the characters fleeing into regions they're far from prepared for, pursued by the actual specter of Death itself.
Having won a few times both default and with some of the alternate win conditions: I like Talisman. I never quite know what's going to happen next.
You can view Talisman as one of two things:
1. A fantasy epic story generator, in which you attempt to justify the choices made and events encountered. Why did the Warrior turn evil that night in the village mystic's hut? What did that stirring battle against a goblin and a dragon combined look like? That lucky trek across the desert to the oasis where our hero found a waiting magic item in the sand, how did it go? If you're willing to put your imagination to it, this can be sorta cool that way.
2. A random-number sorting algorithm with pretensions. You have rolled a die. You can move to the space that takes a life point from you, or the space that lets you draw a card. SUCH HARD CHOICES. You randomly encounter a random situation which you deal with by throwing random dice at it until it goes away. Then everyone else at the table randoms their random until the endgame is set up and someone can attempt to win. Once they move onto the final space of the board, a winner is determined at random by rolling dice until everyone is dead. (And in the game.)
The TRUTH of it all is somewhere between. This is less a tactical game and more a strategic game. Do you play high-risk, trying to tilt your dice-moved character towards spaces on the board where you draw multiple cards at a time, the spaces where it's "roll to lose turns OR gain helpful stat points", aiming to get into PVP fights to steal resources? Or do you play it low-risk, carefully picking at the edges of the map, trusting in card luck to bring you what you need as you hug the areas that refill your lives and "fate" (dice-rerolling points)?
Eventually you'll get a Talisman and get to the middle of the board and have to just start throwing down dice. Every turn with the standard "Crown of Command" ending is a coinflip: Do I hurt everyone else this turn? Are they dead yet? Or do I do absolutely nothing and have to sit here while they scramble around trying to get to the crown and dethrone me?
Then there's the expansions. Talisman with expansions goes from being a simple Plinko board to a wild careening pinball machine of insanity. Get to new regions! Dive into the city to grab massively powerful equipment! You have TWO kinds of Fate now, and can re-roll OTHER people's dice! A werewolf is attacking! Dragons are here! To the dungeons with you!
The more expansions and familiarity with the game you have, the more you can tune the tone and style of the game from a light fantasy quest to a horrendous meat-grinder that leaves bodies everywhere, half the game board on fire and the characters fleeing into regions they're far from prepared for, pursued by the actual specter of Death itself.
Having won a few times both default and with some of the alternate win conditions: I like Talisman. I never quite know what's going to happen next.
