Adventure board game

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Talisman is an adventure board game with a fantasy theme.
Talisman is an adventure board game with a fantasy theme.

An adventure board game is a board game in which each player is represented by a token which represents a different character, giving the game some similarity to a role-playing game adventure. As with many role-playing games, many adventure board games have fantasy themes, though may also have other themes, such as science fiction or ancient tomb raiding. While these games share many of the game mechanics associated with role-playing games, the games do not require any role-playing. They remain distinctly board games, with the game board controlling the flow of the game and representing physical locations.

Unlike traditional board games such as Ludo or Monopoly, players' tokens are often not identical; they may have a number of attributes. What a player's character is capable of doing is determined by those attributes, which may be determined by random elements such as cards or dice at game setup, or may be chosen by the player according to some method of character creation. As inmany role-playing games, these abilities may change over the course of the game. This may happen either by gaining items, as the effect of spells or by gaining experience points.

Many adventure board games have an objective the players try to accomplish, known as a "quest". For example, in Talisman, players try to reach the Crown of Command, but this can only be accomplished after strengthening their characters by participating in several events. In Dungeonquest, the players' quest is to reach a treasure chamber in a ruined castle and escape alive.