Talisman The Blood Moon - What A Horrible Night to Have a Curse!

Read more...

"You made it to the end destination, but you weren't worthy. Adios you filthy animal! Kiss the last three hours of your life GOODBYE"

That line right there was worth the price of admission.

So for 2016 I'm planning on reviewing everything for Talisman that is currently available...including the Relic stuff. After I review it all I'm going to be putting together some sort of enormous Talisman Buyer's Guide. I feel like most expansions don't get discussed or reviewed enough so I'm making an effort to cover more of them this year.

This review is great, thanks!

Reviews like this are incredibly useful, Egg, ESPECIALLY for reference. I might not have much to say right now but if I want to reference an expansion (e.g. which should I get?) or something this is perfect!

Egg Shen wrote:

Let's be honest, Talisman needs a gothic horror expansion like Jar Jar Binks needs more screen time in the Phantom Menace. However, I'm a Talisman fanatic. So when FFG pours gothic horror flavored slop into my feeding trough I gorge myself like the gluttonous Talisman pig that I am.

Read more...

I'm considering doing something similar for Cosmic Encounter, because once a game gets past one or two expansions it officially becomes difficult to navigate. A Talisman guide is way more difficult, but as someone who received seven Talisman expansions from Satan, I have a vested interest in these.

Your comment on the HBV points to something that I think makes Talisman work really well. It just doesn't care about you. It's like the game exists without you even being there. It doesn't care if it's a little too hard at the beginning, just as it doesn't really care if it's much easier for other people. It exists "outside of the player" because it's so unconcerned with how it treats the player. I've always thought that random mechanics work in thematic games, because they point to something outside of the player. That can mean the player has less agency than they might like, but in a game that takes place in a larger world, that's actually a really good thing. It makes it more immersive by making it bigger than the player.

Not just difficult to navigate, but the reviews and discussions on which expansions are good and why basically disappear... CE expansion reviews would be great too.

Gary Sax wrote: Not just difficult to navigate, but the reviews and discussions on which expansions are good and why basically disappear... CE expansion reviews would be great to.

I'll start working this then. It's been so long since I've written something for F:AT, it'd be nice to jump into something I love so much.

Uhhhhh...doing a buyer guide for Cosmic would be amazing Nate!

A thought about the HBV popped into my head this morning while sipping some coffee - Is there any other game on the planet that could pull off something like that? From a logical design standpoint it's absolutely rubbish. Just a mean, awful, way to end your game session. And yet for some reason it's perfectly reasonable in Talisman. Hell, fans clamored for this card to be put BACK in the game.

I think Talisman will be the only ultimate crazy adventure game of it's ilk because it's the only one that fans simply ALLOW this crazy shit into the game.

Egg Shen wrote: And yet for some reason it's perfectly reasonable in Talisman. Hell, fans clamored for this card to be put BACK in the game.

My greatest 2nd Ed. win ever:

It started as a 5-player game between me, my girlfriend, and her three teenaged children. Her son, Joe, was obsessed with beating me at the game because every time he'd played, I'd won. At the time, we were vacillating back and forth between random draw of characters and picking someone you hadn't played before. I grabbed the Knight and Joe picked the Troll because he had his whole game planned.out. (I don't remember everyone else's characters.) Being the Troll, he beat his first few opponents easily and cranked up his Strength. Then, as soon as he found a magic item (the Artifact), he ran into the City and became the Archmage with a Strength of 8. I died about 2/3 of the way through and came back as the Leprechaun. One other person had died and it was clear that Joe was in control of the game. In fact, I told him repeatedly that he should just hunt everyone down and kill them and win that way (something I had done in the previous game as the Rogue (Runesword FTW, quite literally.)) But he kept waving me off: "No! I'm going to win the normal way."

Everyone else had died off and it was just he and I left on the board. He finally started for the top tier and I decided to be an annoying Lucky Charms and toss Hex on the Portal of Power a couple times while I was still puttering around the board, kinda killing time to see what he would do. He tore through the top tier, made it to the center space, turned over the card, and I watched his face fall before he stood up, slammed it to the table and yelled: "Fuck!", before storming out of the room. It was, of course, the Horrible Black Void, Guess who was the only one left on the board to win the game? Sho'nuff!

I've always been vaguely interested in Talisman. I used to poo poo the idea of it when I was younger but as I've aged it's seemed more and more appealing to me. This review is what has made me the most interested in it and now I really want to try it out. I look forward to this buyers guide you're talking about just in case I find the funds to get this going.

I wondered why someone did a write up on an old expansion, and now that I see, I think it's a great idea. Expansions keep a game alive, but once you reach a certain threshold, they do the opposite - potential newcomers can't make sense of it all or get intimidated.

This is great.