Talisman
Talisman is a board game created by Bob Harris back in nineteen dickety two. In his nerdy college days, he wanted to make a way to play a quick and dirty D&D game, and so made a board game with variable stats, gold, and alignment constraints, a central quest, and different characters that began with different abilities. The lord saw it and said, hey, that's fuckwin, and planted the idea in Mr. Harris's head to go to Games Workshop, insidiously sneaking a gaming magazine into his stack of porno.
Games Workshop said, "Fuck! TSR is stomping our assholes flat and all we're doing is making figures for them, and reprinting American RPGs, maybe this'll be good? We'll cross promote it with our Warhammer idea." With the Warhammer Fantasy fluff in the board game, they ran off a few copies, which sold out to rabid fans fairly quickly. With the money and cross promotion, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Talisman helped Games Workshop get into the US market, and then annoy everyone with their other Warhammer 40K shit. Games Workshop sold the rights to Talisman (after they fucked it up with the 3rd Edition) to Black Industries, who then sold the rights to Fantasy Flight Games, who reprinted and reskinned it with the Warhammer 40,000 grimdarkness and called it 'Relic'.
The Premise
It's a pretty simple idea. You are a dude (or woman) in search of the fabled Crown of Command, which you can use to kill someone anywhere in the world. You explore the land (board) gaining objects and experience in order to tackle the rougher areas in the middle of the board. You can kill other players, fight all manner of critters, find nifty objects, learn spells, get weapons, and generally get really stabby. You fight your way to the center of the board and use the Crown to kill other people.
The Editions
- Talisman: The first edition of the game was a fairly quick and cheap printing, black and white cards with no gloss, and a fairly flimsy board. Still it sold well.
- Talisman Second Edition: This was an exact copy of the first game with two exceptions. The cards were full color, and they were a better glossy stock. They started releasing expansions for this edition and while the quality was still fairly on the low side, it began to offer tons of diversionary depth that most board games didn't have.
- Talisman Third Edition: Apparently Games Workshop thought that the board artwork needed to be more cartoony and have a bazillion skulls on it. The quality of the materials here was great, plastic minis, heavy stock game board and high quality cards. However, much of the board was changed and some of the changes were too dopey to be forgiven. There were only 3 expansions released for this game - thankfully - and Games Workshop said "oops, we fucked up" and stuck the game in a back closet until they finally sold it. This game is more related to Warhammer than the earlier edition(s) but only in fluff, and the gameplay was too different and more than a few people turned away, as the expansions turned a fun and simple game that could be played in an hour to drudging complicated mess that could take more than an afternoon.
- Talisman Fourth Edition: Black Industries used their brains and made this game more like the second edition. In fact, it essentially is the 2nd edition but with a board that's 3 times as large and some amazingly good artwork. Black Industries may have overextended themselves on the game however, due to high production costs and Capcom failing to deliver the PSN/PC/XBLA versions of these games for the cross promotions, Black Industries decided to cut and run, selling the franchise to FFG.
- Talisman Revised Fourth Edition (Current): Fantasy Flight Games tweaked the game a bit; in addition to some mostly cosmetic changes to the counters, cards and character pieces they added the fate point mechanic which allows characters to reroll a die for those "I just got turned into a toad, ffffffuuuuu" moments. An upgrade pack to bring previous 4th Edition sets up to the Revised standard was available but has recently become hard to find.
- Relic: Talisman IN SPESS, Fantasy Flight Games wisely saw that they could both make more money and avoid irritating fans who disliked the original TimeScape expansion by releasing this Warhammer 40K themed Talisman clone as a stand alone game rather than as an expansion for Revised Fourth.
- Talisman: Digital Edition: A version of the game on sale on the Steam digital distribution platform. It is currently in Early Access, meaning that the game is technically playable but still not finished. Likely the developers did this to gain income before the final product is finished, something that is the wet dream of Games Workshop.
Expansions
Second Edition
- Talisman Expansion Set: More cards and characters to play.
- The Adventure: More cards, yet more characters, and alternate endings.
- Dungeon: A new deck of cards and a new board to play on. The monsters are very tough in this expansion.
- TimeScape: A very odd board added, new cards, and characters spanning genres, from pulp to sci-fi. The Space Marine is here untouched from 40K, and the Archaeologist looks very familiar with his bullwhip.
- City: This adds several shops and opportunities for more money to the game. It also adds several new standard characters, a new deck and board, and 4 "Elite" characters, the High Mage, Master Thief, King's Champion, and Sheriff.
- Dragons: Very Rare and released near the end of Talismans Second Edition run. I haven't played it because I can't find it, so I can't tell you what it's like. Ones that played it, say it's mediocre.
Third Edition
Note that the third edition expansions used a "Realm Die" which slowed movement. It was essentially a d4 with two '2' spots and two '3' spots.
- City of Adventure: Added a City Realm and a Forest Realm
- Dungeon of Doom: Added a dungeon Realm and a Mountain Realm.
- Dragon's Tower: Replaced the center of the board with another endgame scenario.
Fourth Edition
None, except the upgrade pack to Revised Fourth.
Revised Fourth Edition
FFG have been very active in producing expansion packs since acquiring the rights to the franchise, and have released a number of "small box" and "large box" expansions.
Small Box expansions
Generally add 3-4 more player characters in addition to more Adventure and Treasure cards.
- The Reaper
- The Frostmarch
- The Sacred Pool
- The Blood Moon
- The Firelands
Large Box expansions
Add new board sections and victory conditions as well as new player characters and Adventure cards.
- The Dungeon
- The Highlands
- The Dragon
- The City
- The Woodlands
| Board Games | |
|---|---|
| Classics: | Backgammon - Chess - Go - Tafl - Tic-Tac-Toe |
| Ameritrash: | Arkham Horror - Axis & Allies - Battleship - Betrayal at House on the Hill - Car Wars Clue/Cluedo - Cosmic Encounter - Descent: Journeys in the Dark - Dungeon! Firefly: The Game - HeroQuest - Monopoly - Mousetrap - Snakes and Ladders - Risk Talisman - Trivial Pursuit |
| Eurogames: | Agricola - Carcassonne - The Duke - Settlers of Catan - Small World - Stratego - Ticket to Ride |
| Pure Evil: | Diplomacy - Dune (aka Rex: Final Days of an Empire) - Monopoly - The Duke |
| Others: | Icehouse - Shadow Hunters - Twilight Imperium - Wingspan |