Playing large (e.g. 5-6 player) games can be tough, especially with lots of expansions and numbers to track! I've played a few 6 player games using all expansions now and came up with ways to make things smooth. See if you like...

1. More dice!

a) Creature dice

I give each player his own die (the base game comes with 6: one for each player with extras if there are fewer players). Also, I give him a darker colored d6 that isn't included with the game. So for the whole game, each player hangs onto a light and dark colored d6.

When the player fights a creature, this allows him to roll both dice himself and use the darker one for the creature. Sure, it's fun to have your opponent roll, but if the night is long and your opponents aren't paying attention, it takes a while to get them to settle down and roll. With this method, you could have already finished your turn.

This also gives players an extra die if they regularly need it (e.g. Riding Horse).

b) "Value" dice

It's hard enough to remember all the cards that modify your stats, let alone ones that modify "values!" (Base number.) I've had several mistakes healing life or replenishing fate up to the printed number on my card, forgetting the value was actually higher.

If you have tiny d6's, you can place them on your character sheet to show an increased value. So, if you have a d6 with a "2" next to your fate, it reminds you the fate value is increased by 2. FFG sells tiny dice you can use: http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/productdetails.cfm?sku=FFS20

c) Strength and Craft dice

This is the big one. So many - so many - times, players spend minutes calculating and re-calculating their Strength and Craft. They add up their value (which can be wrong, as above), counters, and cards. And then do it again next combat, over and over.

We solved this by giving each player two d20's: one to show their total Strength and another their total Craft. Strength and Craft consists of the value, any counters , and any cards that modify the total. Any time one of these three numbers changes, the player turns the d20 to show the new total.

We don't include cards that modify conditionally - such as the Sword, which only works during battle. We only include cards like the Unicorn, which increase it permanently as long as you possess the card.

d) Downsides?

The value dice and the d20's are redundant, so you have to be diligent and honest to ensure they match reality. They work well, but not with someone who isn't focused and especially not with a cheater!

In the above photo, the Minstrel's two Destinies increase his Craft and fate values by 2, so the two tiny dice are placed there as reminders. He has 10 Craft: 6 value, 3 counters, and 1 modifier from the Unicorn. The d20 is set to show "10." The Sword doesn't show up on the d20 because it is conditional. He also holds onto a light and dark colored d6 throughout the game for all of his rolls.

2. Event Center

If you assign one person (i.e. yourself) to manage all of the upkeep that comes with expansions, the game will be faster!

With Blood Moon , I keep the Time Card as well as active Lunar Events next to me, and it reminds me to flip it and remember those Events are in effect.

With The Dragon (standard ending), I'm the "dragon keeper." I place all three Draconic Lord cards and their decks next to me, and before the game begins, I mix all the scales. I place the scales facedown in piles near the Draconic Lord cards. (Or put it into an opaque bowl). Something where you don't have to mix mix mix mix every turn. It adds up! I'm responsible for drawing a scale on each player's turn - and this saves tons of time!

You may wish to create an "Event Center." Pull up another chair if you don't have room at your table and place all the cards related to upkeep on that chair.

I have played a few 6 player games using all expansions, including The Dragon standard ending, and this Event Center made things flow. Each time the group was using The Dragon for the first time, no house rules - and they loved it! Great first impression. (You need to give them a good first impression to be sold on that expansion!)

This Event Center allows me to manage the Time Card, remember any Lunar Events in play, and lets me easily draw a dragon scale. The dragon scales are pre-mixed and placed facedown for easy drawing. The presence of the Reaper and Werewolf sheets reminds me to activate those figures.

Well, give it a try if you like these ideas!

Some good ideas and we do similar except most of us have our own personal dice. We have tried all manner of things to mark stats including dice, phone apps, game counters but we find the cones are the best option. The other great option that I use is color coded legos but I only have enough for one person.

As far a our event center we use a second table with timescape on it and everything else, including all of our character cards. We use bar height tables and we stand most of the time so we can walk around the table. Otherwise we sit on bar stools.

Actually the legos on a 2x10 base works the best. Use 1x1 bricks for strength(red), craft(blue), gold (yellow), life(green), fate (white and black for light and dark). Eventually I would like to get enough for everyone.

We have used dice for our stats since 2nd edition. And since we are gamers we have lots of dice available for rolling as well. The 3 of us in our group who own Talisman went out and bought dice for the stats instead of the cones. I have NEVER played a single game with cones.

As I have shared numerous times you can get a set of dice at the Dollar Tree that is perfect for Talisman.

So for only $1 you get a red die for Strength, Blue for Craft, Green for Life, yellow for gold, Black for Dark Fate, and 5 white dice for Light fate and for other things.

I bought like 8-10 packs or so. great deal. My friends bought more expansive dice but thought I hit a great bargain.

We have been using Relic dials for talsiman, works great! Yellow = Fate, or if you using light dark fate, make yellow gold and then you only have one tolken to track.

I find the two hardest things now are keeping track of all the events that last multi rounds and the stat increase of destinies. What we need for the first is a time sheet or something showing all the timed events and allowing time counters on them the destinies can be fixed with dice but I find that to figgy..

DomaGB, I have to ask: Do you work, have stock in, or have some vested interest in Dollar Tree? I go over to BGG and there you are pawning off their goods. I come over here and I find the same! :-)

I like the dollar tree and use their bins for my tokens but I think you have a problem! haha, just messing with you.

I think it is awesome you are pimping great economical solutions for everyone.

I find the two hardest things now are keeping track of all the events that last multi rounds and the stat increase of destinies. What we need for the first is a time sheet or something showing all the timed events and allowing time counters on them the destinies can be fixed with dice but I find that to figgy..

This is where we use little tiny dice. Like toads for example, just set a die with the character as they move....

One way to keep track of lingering events is to place a die on top of the card. The die can be set to the number of rounds remaining and dialled down as needed.

Ideally you would have dice of different colours (e.g. blue dice for Player 1) to keep track of whose round will trigger the dialling down of the die.

A big game of Talisman with casual players is difficult to manage and surely it takes a long time, no matter how many good ideas you implement to make it smoother. The problem is that casual players need to read every card, as they probably have never seen most of them, and that every new component you add requires them to understand how to play the game considering the new component.

I had a 5 player game just after Christmas and it was a complete failure, with players abandoning the game after 4 hours of "not so much fun". It was "only" a 4 corners game without Blood Moon and Firelands, so the “only” new thing they were required to manage was the Woodland and Light/Dark Fate rules, with no upkeep mechanics involved. However, it went not so good for the 3 casual players and all of them got tired of the game, because they didn't see much progress after 4 hours. Needless to say, I and the other experienced player were doing pretty well instead. I lost 2 characters but as soon as I drew a more proficient one my game turned out quite well; I was disappointed we had to pack things up before finishing it.

I don't encourage pseudo-solo play in Talisman and I won't adopt anything like the "Creature dice". I want others to roll and be involved, especially in big games. An idea that works pretty well is to assign a category of Enemies to each player, so that he's often called to pay attention to what others are doing. This can also lead to more jokes and fun, depending on the type of Enemy. I usually roll for Animals, another player for Monsters, another for Spirits and Cultists, another for Dragons and Fae and another for Constructs, Elementals and all remaining subtypes (Law, Norn). When a player has to fight his assigned Enemy type, or a board creature, another player offers to make the creature roll. This is also a way to avoid having always the same player rolling against you.

The value and stat dice are surely good ideas, provided they are not dropped, turned or wrongly managed. Considering that with many players the inventories tend to be smaller, so I’ve never felt the need of such an aid. If players need to be focused and careful to use the d20s I don't see a huge improvement, as the maximum time loss happens when players show a different state or attitude. I prefer that they count their total Strength or Craft every time, instead of making mistakes when updating the die position.

I'm strongly against the idea of an "Event center", which 100% of the time will be identified with my person. Even though I own the game, I know it better than anybody else and I host the sessions at home, I don't want to make a service which may eventually ruin my playing experience. I want to be as involved and relaxed as anybody else, and I cannot accept to be distracted by continuous management and tracking of things everybody should care about.

I had a Firelands game once where many Noble Ifrits were simultaneously active and nobody bothered removing them from the board, just because I was the only one supposed to burn the top card of the deck every turn, check for burnt Enemies to boost the Ifrit Shapeshifter, place fireland tokens and so on. I can’t imagine me drawing dragon tokens for the others and keeping track of Dragon Kings, scales to be placed, etc…

Finally, tracking ongoing effects is not so difficult when they only last few rounds (Dark Denizens, Prophesy, etc...); the player who drew the card places 2 fate tokens on it and takes care to discard it during his turn. Long lasting effects such as the Lunar Events are in the middle to be seen, but others (e.g. Howl of the Wendigo, Noble Ifrits) must be remembered when playing. If this doesn't happen, we just pass over it, trying to be more careful as the game proceeds.

Whether it is a big game or not, to keep track of cards with ongoing effects we usually just turn the card 90 degrees clockwise for every turn it has remained on the board. Not as obvious a reminder the card is actually there, but a few seconds faster to manage. And as long as you remember the card is there, you can straight away see how many turns it has been lying there for.

For stat-increasing items and followers, we tend to put the tokens on the cards. It is not a perfect solution, since you still have to count each token, but at least it gives you a quick idea of which ones to count in different circumstances. We find that players are usually very good at remembering their stats, so it's not like every encounter demands a recount. It would be easy for someone to cheat, since nobody can be asked to count someone else's tokens all the time, but then there's so much going on in Talisman that anyone can cheat almost anytime anyway. I've never actually played with anyone finding it worthwhile to cheat so I don't think that is a problem.

For stat-increasing items and followers, we tend to put the tokens on the cards. It is not a perfect solution, since you still have to count each token, but at least it gives you a quick idea of which ones to count in different circumstances. We find that players are usually very good at remembering their stats, so it's not like every encounter demands a recount. It would be easy for someone to cheat, since nobody can be asked to count someone else's tokens all the time, but then there's so much going on in Talisman that anyone can cheat almost anytime anyway. I've never actually played with anyone finding it worthwhile to cheat so I don't think that is a problem.

We do the same thing with tokens. Works perfectly. And it's easy to know which weapon is in use (if your token is on the Runesword instead of the Holy Lance... well, too bad if you lost by 1 or 2).

I like the idea with small dices or some other token for increased values, since that tends to be missed. I've to look into that and see if I can find anything. I bought a bag of these for my Muchkin games to use with the level markers you can print at their homepage. Will probably buy another bag for Talisman now. They're basically for free since there's 60 in a bag and the cost in Euro would be about 3. And you can find them in all necessary colors - red, blue, green and yellow (or whatever you prefer to use for fate).

As for Dark Denizens we usually just put them face-up on top of the regular adventure deck as a reminder. Then we mark the space in some other way or just tries to remember where it was drawn.

I do love using Dollar Tree stuff. No I don't work there or invest in it. I have recently seen some cool ideas with legos. Lego dice tower, lego card holder, and my kids have out grown their legos and may try using them. So its possible I might be promoting that in the future.

But if you look around at the DollarTree lots of great finds for gaming. In fact Valentines Day is coming soon, and last year I found they had plastic hearts, which I bought to replace the cardboard Runebound hearts, someone recently saw a post of mine and said they would work well for the card game Love Letter. I think they would work well for any game, even Talisman. use plastic hearts for lives.