Trashdome - Talisman vs Prophecy

Southernman wrote:

No vote .... I haven't played either.

WTF!? Your mission for this year is now very clear.



I have said this before and will say it again, the games are remarkably similar, however, they feel quite different when being played. I have room for both in my collection and I plan to collect the expansions to both. I really enoy these types of games and when I get sick of one, I can play the other and it still feels fresh because of the different flavours.

So which one gets my vote? The one I have had the most fun with...

My vote: Talisman

Having only ever played Talisman 3rd ed, I never understood what people were complaining about when they said Talisman went for too long.

I finally played 4th ed (heavily based on 2nd) Fiday night.

Jesus.

The problem with the game is that it has serious, serious forward momentum problems. If it wasn't for the fate mechanic the game probably still would be going on right now.

So for that reason Prophecy

That's a reasonable argument against TALISMAN, that it can bog down. There are bottlenecks built into the game where even leading players can just get stuck. And I've played games where nobody is really making progress and when somebody does, they get hammered back down practically to the start by stuff in the inner track.

I like the fate tokens...I like that they're a resource and you can acquire them through the game. They do take some of the edges off the random elements without taking away the element of risk.

PROPHECY does maintain pace better, I can agree with that.

Ooo... tough call. I've played both a bunch of times and love thme both dearly. I'd have to say taht Prophecy gives a consistantly fun experience but doesn't have some of the wild swings of fortune that make you roar with laughter in Talisman.

I mean you never chant "Toad! Toad! Toad!" in prophecy.
However, I'd say prophecy edges out Talisman.

Steve"Discerning_Dungeoncrawler"Avery

I also still prefer the 3rd edition Talisman.

The 2nd. Well, It did have the Timescape and the HBV (I do miss Timescape save that it either added or subtracted an hour to any game.) But also a set of FAQs that stretched several times the basic rules.

The 3rd had the really nice City, fixed most of the rule issues and stuck a giant plastic dragon that loomed on top of a 3d Pyramid over the board. It didn't wander.

The 4th...doesn't have a City. That expansion alone fixed a lot of the time and painful delay issues in the 2nd and 3rd editions. Until that turns up, I'll prefer my 3rd edition. Or play Prophecy....


I think Octavian is whining because he can't roll dice worth crap. The odd thing about both Talisman and Prophecy is that an experienced player will almost always win over a first timer. Unless you give the newbie the Chaos Warrior in 2nd ed.

Vote: Talisman (FFG 4th revised edition)

It is indeed a tough call. Most here would have played Talisman first which would go a long way to informing an opinion of Prophecy. I wonder how someone who was introduced in reverse would react.

Myself, I come quite late to both. I only first played Talisman last year thanks to the BL 4th edition. I have now re-purchased the FFG version along with the Reaper expansion, and love it! Full disclosure though: I only really play this with my 6 1/2 year old son and maybe one of his mates if they are interested. So it plays quick, has little arguments and is a great deal of fun!

That said, I would have a hard time bringing my "big boy" group to the table for this. Not that it wouldn't be fun I don't think, just that they (and I really) would prefer to do something "bigger" if we want a game like this. Arkham Horror would be top of the list.

Prophecy is more considered. I like that a lot! I get the "shopping" reference, but I like that too. I didn't spend a year with Diablo II just for the game play

Both games require though a commitment to "playing". Talisman can bog down if everyone spends too much time whacking others, arguing about spell timings and fooling around too long before making a run for the Crown. Prophecy needs players to be thinking between turns and doing the reading needed to be ready on their turn.

I want to be clear that I adore them both...and look forward to Prophecy expansions a little more than Talisman ones. But in the Trashdome there is no fence to sit on. I will be in the Talisman field...right up near the edge where the fence SHOULD be



*All up if I could only have one game, I choose Talisman. Many years left on that one with my children, and by the time he is ready to apprecieate Prophecy, I will have trained him up for Arkham

Vote: Prophecy

After I first got Descent back when it came out, I was really looking for an adventure game that wouldn't last 6 hours to add to my collection. This was probably 3 years ago before the current adventure game boom we're experiencing now.

Runebound was described by many as long and tedious. Return of the Heroes as a pick up and delivery game. Everybody said Talisman was the way to go. This of course was way before Black Library announced the 4th ed of Talisman and the 2nd and 3rd eds were going for shockingly high prices on the used market. I managed to find a version online (don't think it was Vassal or Cyberboard but on some other Web site that just had Talisman) and got a chance to play it a little with my bro. I don't feel like that did the game justice. So I set about downloading all the images and cards, determined to print my own version.

Then Prophecy came out and people talked it up as it being a Talisman done right sort of game. So I ordered it and it was a success. I like it, the wife likes it, friends like it. It's a pretty good game.

That being said, I'm not sure I can really give Talisman and Prophecy a good analysis because I'm sure my two plays of Talisman online don't do the game justice. But Prophecy still has quite a bit going for it.

It's got a lot of revealed information, but still mixed with a lot of hidden info. The revealed info though leads to races around the board trying to be one to nab the extra Strength increase or Willpower increase or whatever.

You have total control of your movement. You can walk, ride a horse for 1 gold, take the boat, you can get skills that let you travel via either for free or teleport.

Items are easily available, which you can purchase from both the town and the city.

The different skill decks mean you can take a different strategy each time you play. Focus on movement, or combat with swords or spell casting or what have you.

I also like the Strength/health and Willpower/magic mechanic. As you lose health your current strength goes down, meaning its harder to kill enemies. Same with magic. It makes you go heal up every now and then.

The downsides are that the characters don't have as much personality as in Talisman. None of them have their own special ability, and several of them share guilds they can draw skills from. And there's only 3 different strength/willpower combos.

In Talisman it is a lot easier to level up your strength and intelligence, but in Prophecy you do get to buy skill cards.

So I like Prophecy better, but not by miles. I'm actually really starting to get tempted by Talisman 4ed with the Reaper expansion out and the upcoming Dungeon expansion. Prophecy has two expansions out in Czech, which Z-Man Games is supposed to release sometime this year. I'm really looking forward to those as I do think the game is getting a little stale for me.

Bottom line on this Trashdome- these are both damn fine games. I love PROPHECY, I think it's an outstanding game. And it's on my "never sell or trade" list along with TALISMAN and that says a lot, that two similar games like this both have staying power.

I just think TALISMAN wins in the "fun" department.

Except when you kill Aslan in PROPHECY. That's oh-so-satisfying.

I really want to see what the Prophecy expansions have to offer. In one it introduces races that you can choose for your character! Hello troll enchanctress! Also they have wacky looking boards.

In my quest to make make my CODENAME: SECRETPROJECT game one of my tasks was buy Prophecy for our game group to play.

I've been a longtime Talisman fan and had soaked in all the reviews and comments on Prophecy before getting it to our game group for some fun.

But play we did and we did have fun. Prophecy was most certainly borne from Talisman roots and adds some things that we liked and others not so much.

The main plusses were the chance cards, the abilities and spells (though they were often pricey), and that gawd forsaken clover card (which I was too much the recipient).

The drawbacks were the pile of a mess of guild cards in the middle and the price of many of the guild items, the general lack of difference in starting character's abilities (aka symmetry), the sparse total number chance and adventure cards, and the lack of three distinct game regions with different levels of difficulty.

The wash for us were the removal of the roll and move travel mechanic and replacement with a more self-deterministic movement method.

All in all we thought it quite a good game with some nice improvements to some aspects of Talisman and with its own 'feel' but it came up just a bit short for the reasons mentioned earlier. The upcoming expansions might help propel it past Talisman but Talisman is the king for now.

Vote: Talisman

Well, I don't think Prophecy will ever supercede Talisman as the classic adventure game. But I tend to vote for what I own.

metalface13 wrote:

Well, I don't think Prophecy will ever supercede Talisman as the classic adventure game. But I tend to vote for what I own.

True dat. Talisman will always be THE classic. But I can see Prophecy becoming more fun than it (Prophecy) currently is with a few rules tweaks and an expansion.

I have an idea to make that huge mess in the center more svelt and work just as well and want to try one of the powers/abilities variants that was posted on the Prophecy forums on bgg. Those along with some more adventure and chance cards should up the replayability quite a bit.

I think Universal head redid the board (it's only slight different, little outlines for where to put the cards) and posted it on BGG.

When we play, we usually do a variant where every player gets dealt like 2 or 3 common items and skills from their first guild. Then you pick one of each, then get a difference in gold and xp from whoever has the most expensive. Ex: My skill is 8 xp and yours is 4, so you'd get 4 xp and player C has a skill worth 5 xp so he gets 3.

It kind of speeds things up a little.

Ad 4th edition: I really like the plastic figures but I would never sell my 2nd ed. Gary Chalk is fucking genius and the map and cards prove that (except that fairy with a moustache, yay!).

Vote: Talisman

I look forward to some of the Prophecy expansions to see what they have to offer, but until then, Talisman gets my vote.


Also, MadDog, could you post the list of Trashdome winners in at the beginning of the contests -- that way we know who will be joining the fallen and who will be celebrating?