Talisman (board game)

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The Talisman 2nd edition game cover featured a striking fantasy image.

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game is a fantasy themed adventure board game for two to six players, produced by Games Workshop. The game was first released in 1983 and has gone through several revisions. While the most current revision is the Third Edition (1994), the Second Edition was available longer and more popular than the Third Edition. All versions of Talisman are currently out of print. The game (especially the Third Edition) is loosely connected to Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting.

[edit] History

The game was designed by Robert Harris who thought the game up for the amusement of himself and his friends. In its original inception, the game's objective was to become prefect of a boy's school. Changing the theme to fantasy, he found a publisher in the form of Games Workshop and agreed a contract for royalties (Games Workshop would later buy out his remaining interest sometime after the introduction of the Third Edition). The game was renamed "Talisman" and it was shown at Games Day 1983. The first edition of Talisman was nearly identical to the Second Edition: the differences between the two are purely cosmetic. The 1st edition's black and white deck cards were replaced with coloured versions in the 2nd edition. Also the folding board of the 1st edition was replaced with a 4-piece board which fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.

[edit] Second Edition

The second edition of the game early in play. The player at the center bottom is playing the Minstrel and the player to the right is the Dwarf. The adventure cards can be seen in the center along with several dice.

The object of the game is to progress through a series of regions and reach the Crown of Command. The game contains three regions: the Outer Region, the Middle Region and the Inner Region. Players start in the Outer Region and try to progress inward. The Inner Region contains the Crown of Command. To reach the Crown of Command, players must pass through the Valley of Fire. A talisman is required to do this, hence the name of the game.

Each player selects a character, or "hero," at random at the beginning of the game. Each character has different special abilities and a set location in which to begin. Each character has several attributes: Life, Gold, Strength and Craft. Each character begins with four lives and one gold. Strength and Craft are used for two different kinds of combat: physical combat and psychic combat. One of the main goals of the game is to build up a character so it is strong enough to venture inward, eventually to the Crown of Command. Once at the Crown, a character can cast the Command Spell causing opponents to lose one life each time it is successfully cast.

Game play consists of players rolling a die and moving about the regions. At each location in the regions, the board indicates what takes place. Some locations have set events or encounters, some are random. Many locations indicate to draw a number of Adventure cards. These cards contain numerous events. Some indicate the character has met an enemy who must be fought, some indicate that the character has found an object or magic object or received a bag of gold. All these events help build up the character. One of the features of the game is that many of the cards remain on the square after being drawn.

Building up the character is one of the game's main activities. This can involve gaining followers, increasing in Strength and Craft, gaining and casting spells, gaining lives, obtaining gold and acquiring objects and magic objects. One magic object a character must eventually possess is a talisman, which allows the character to pass through the Valley of Fire, a portal to the Inner Region.

[edit] Second Edition expansions

The 2nd edition game somewhat into play. The player in the center has a couple of magic objects and a follower.

Throughout its history, Games Workshop released several expansions for the game. These include:

• Talisman Expansion Set: added new spells, adventure cards, and heroes
• Talisman The Adventure: added cards, heroes, replacements for the Crown of Command, rules clarifications, character sheets, and additional slotted bases for up to 12 players
• Talisman Dungeon: added the Dungeon board, cards, heroes and FAQ
• Talisman City: added the City board, cards, heroes and character upgrade classes
• Talisman Timescape: added the Timescape board, cards, heroes, updated rules clarifications and updated FAQ. The characters and situations were loosely based on the Warhammer 40,000 science fiction setting.
• Talisman Dragon: added dragon-related cards and heroes. It contained 87 new Adventure cards (including 20 new dragons and wyverns to encounter), 4 new Character cards (Dragon Priest, Dragonrider, Dragon Slayer, and Questing Knight), as well as four new character stands, a simple rule sheet, and a Dragon King card.

Each expansion added new locations/regions, characters and Adventure cards to the game. Some added new spells, objects and magic objects. Some even allowed characters the opportunity to bypass the Valley of Fire and be transported directly to the Inner Region or the Crown of Command.

[edit] Third Edition

Games Workshop released the Third Edition for Talisman in the spring of 1994. The Third Edition contained a new board which included many of the same locations as the Second Edition, but had a totally new art treatment. The Inner Region was removed in this edition, replaced with The Wizard's Tower. In the Tower, heroes encounter numerous traps and tests via new Tower cards on their way to the Crown of Command. In the unexpanded Third Edition, just reaching the Crown of Command was normally enough to win the game.

The Second Edition used cards to represent the characters in the game. The cards were placed on plastic bases (called "slotta bases") and moved about the board as the game was played (paintable lead miniature figures for the characters could be purchased separately). The Third Edition did away with the stand-up character cards and instead included plastic miniatures. It removed many characters from the Second Edition and added new ones which tied the world of Talisman closer to the Warhammer settings games.

This edition also added an additional character attribute, Experience, to make it more like a role-playing game. By defeating enemies (hostile monsters, but not other player characters), characters accrue experience points. The experience they gain is equal to the defeated enemies craft or strength. Experience points could be redeemed for one each of gold, strength, craft or a life at the cost of seven experience points each. The second edition had a similar, more limited feature, but it only applied to strength (accrual and redeeming).

[edit] Third Edition expansions

• City of Adventure: added two boards: the City board (based on, but more compact than, the 2nd Edition Talisman City expansion) and a Forest realm. Also inlcuded were extra cards, heroes and character upgrade classes available for the 2nd Edition
• Dungeon of Doom: added 2 additional game boards: a Dungeon realm and a Mountain realm which fit around the 2 corners of the original board not used by the City of Adventure expansion. It was based loosely on the expansion Talisman Dungeon for the Second Edition
• Dragon's Tower: added a playing board, a card tower summounted by a dragon model, extra rules, a die and additional characters

[edit] Legacy

Despite being out of print for years, Talisman continues to be a popular game among many loyal fans. There are several active communities for the game on the Internet and many individuals have produced their own versions of the game. Many have produced custom expansions, complete with custom Adventure cards, characters and objects.

It was rumored (in November 2002) that Games Workshop would re-release the game in a limited printing, featuring only the main board. This game was released in April 2003. The suggested retail price of the Talisman box set was US$75.00. Games Workshop then unofficially announced that they are done with the game and do not plan on manufacturing it or any of its components ever again.

Random Games attempted to convert Talisman into a Microsoft Windows computer game. However, they lost support from their publisher and could not find another before they went out of business.

[edit] International editions

German edition.

Talisman was translated into several languages: Finnish (2nd Edition), French (2nd and 3rd Edition), German (2nd and 3rd Edition), Italian (2nd Edition), Czech (2nd Edition), Slovak (2nd Edition), Hebrew (1st and 2nd Edition), Swedish (1st and 2nd Edition), and Polish (2nd Edition). All save the last were only translations of the original game.

[edit] The Hebrew Edition (Israel)

The Hebrew edition was published by Meytzuvin Israel. It was published in both 1st and 2nd edition.

Even years after Meytzuv went bankrupt, the game is still played by many fans in Israel. During the Champions' Hall 2nd convention—ChampsCon 2006—it was described as one of the greatest board games in RPG history and was the most popular uncirculated board games played in the convention.

[edit] The Polish Edition

The Polish edition, published in 1991 by Sfera as Magia i Miecz (Sword and Sorcery) was based on 2nd edition rules, and was the only edition with new artwork for all cards (which many people consider better than the original one). All 2nd Edition expansions were translated, although some were bundled together (Talisman Expansion cards came together with the main set, and The Adventure cards with Dungeon). Furthermore, the Polish edition had one additional expansion, Jaskinia (The Cave), with a new board, cards and heroes. The Cave had some tough monsters and only very advanced heroes could think of going inside.

[edit] The Magic Sword

When Sfera lost the Talisman license from Games Workshop, they published a clone of the game: Magiczny Miecz (The Magic Sword). The main board was changed (it had four regions, and "The Beast", a copy of the Dragon King alternate ending, instead of the Crown of Command), the heroes and cards were different (although many were just copies of the original ones with changed names), and the terminology was changed (event cards instead of adventure cards, sorcery cards instead of spell cards, etc.). The Magic Sword had all new graphics (no images from the Polish Talisman were kept, except for the re-edition of Cave, as all expansions were re-released under new names) which wasn't received very well as compared to Talisman. Magic Sword also had one more board, Krypta upiorów (The Crypt of Wraiths), with some interesting innovations.

Magic Sword wasn't very well received by Talisman fans, although it appealed to many new players. Later, a second edition of this game, with improved graphics, was released (this time only the main set).

[edit] See also

• Dungeonquest, a similar board game with a fantasy setting and emerging playfield

[edit] External links

• Talisman at BoardGameGeek
• The Talisman FAQ
• An HTML version of the Talisman Second Edition rules
• Information on Talisman Second Edition and most of its expansions
• The history of Talisman from its creator, Bob Harris
• A flowchart of a turn in the game
• Talisman at the Open Directory Project
• About the Polish Edition
• A full breakdown of the Contents of Talisman 2nd Edition
• A full breakdown of the Contents of Talisman 3rd Edition
• Forum group
• Expert Rule Book