While still enjoyable, I find that the new sub-decks and mechanics just make the game more and more complicated. I'm increasingly becoming more hesitant to introduce new expansions into my game for fear of the complexitity that continues to creep in.

I realize that what I really am craving, is simply expansion to the core of the basic game. Characters, Adventure Cards and Endings.

Does anyone else agree?

Many of us I guess. I do do for sure. I think we've enough different game mechanics already. And our gaming group seems to have more and more problem getting together for a game the older we get, so all my friends haven't even tried woodlands yet.

I would love to see base game expansions. Or expansions for the other big expansions. The adventure deck is quite large as it is but some new cards for the dungeon, city and/or highland would be awesome indeed.

Yes, you bring up a great point.

It does not have to be adventure cards - building off any of the previously introduced expansion decks would be great too. Adding specific characters and endings for those expansions would be wonderful.

I just like the idea of building "up" rather than "out".

Even though I don't share your idea that more basic content is needed instead of new mechanics and alternative decks, I concur that the complexity of Talisman 4th edition is reaching a level that was never touched by previous versions.

FFG is making considerable efforts to improve the quality and complexity of design, instead of revising old-time favourites like they did at the beginning. After the first wrong step with Dragon, they took another pace with Blood Moon and continued throughout City, Firelands, Nether Realm, Woodland and the upcoming Deep Realms. A fantasy world is being created for us to play with, and is varied and complex like any real world. This is a world of options to choose from, not a Leviathan meant to overwhelm you, unless you allow him to do it.

I realize that what I really am craving, is simply expansion to the core of the basic game. Characters, Adventure Cards and Endings.

Does anyone else agree?

I personally think we have a wide choice for these categories. They are infinitely expandable, but you don't need to reach infinity to experience dilution problems. The more I would get of these ones, the happier will I be; but do I need them more than new mechanics and choices to make? Wait, choices? Wasn't Talisman a mindless roll-and-move beer and pretzels luckfest easy to learn and suitable for parties?

If you have few occasions to gather friends around a gaming table, as I do, then the worst idea would be to set up an epic game with too many options and mechanics to learn. I did this mistake during the last holidays, trying to impress people that play Talisman once or twice in a year with a 4-corner full board. I succeeded indeed, but in giving a negative impression of the game. My friends didn't know the options and advantages of all the stuff they had before their eyes, so they either played carelessly or with extreme caution, and had a bad experience in both cases. On the contrary I had a good time and a nice game, regardless of the 2 characters that I lost mid-game.

If you feel that too much is too much, start chopping the huge beast. Play with only some of the expansions, enjoy them one at a time if needed (except Firelands, unless you want a really challenging game). Use what you can handle, depending on the experience and number of players.

I sincerely wish to see a "Miskatonic Horror-style" expansion for Talisman, i.e. an expansion that "builds up" all released material, but that would be the LAST expansion for this edition. I don't want to see it tomorrow, because I hope there's still room for a Sea Expansion, a Timescape revised, an expansion that rebalances Spell abuse a bit (I would call it "The Inquisition", with the inquisitors being mage-hunters), and who knows what else.

I like both and want both. New stuff and more of the old stuff. Bring it on!

I can't disagree with the core of any one post here. I still say, that simple expansion is what I am craving here - but that doesn't mean the larger, more complex expansions don't have their place.

I know the ability to remove expansions is always there... but once you have one mixed in, that's like sawing off an arm. It's a lot of trouble to do it, and you miss it when it is gone!

Expansion cards are easily marked, its not a problem to remove them, It may be tiresome to keep doing it. Some people like to change what they play.

Even though I don't share your idea that more basic content is needed instead of new mechanics and alternative decks, I concur that the complexity of Talisman 4th edition is reaching a level that was never touched by previous versions.

FFG is making considerable efforts to improve the quality and complexity of design, instead of revising old-time favourites like they did at the beginning. After the first wrong step with Dragon, they took another pace with Blood Moon and continued throughout City, Firelands, Nether Realm, Woodland and the upcoming Deep Realms. A fantasy world is being created for us to play with, and is varied and complex like any real world. This is a world of options to choose from, not a Leviathan meant to overwhelm you, unless you allow him to do it.

I personally think we have a wide choice for these categories. They are infinitely expandable, but you don't need to reach infinity to experience dilution problems. The more I would get of these ones, the happier will I be; but do I need them more than new mechanics and choices to make? Wait, choices? Wasn't Talisman a mindless roll-and-move beer and pretzels luckfest easy to learn and suitable for parties?

If you have few occasions to gather friends around a gaming table, as I do, then the worst idea would be to set up an epic game with too many options and mechanics to learn. I did this mistake during the last holidays, trying to impress people that play Talisman once or twice in a year with a 4-corner full board. I succeeded indeed, but in giving a negative impression of the game. My friends didn't know the options and advantages of all the stuff they had before their eyes, so they either played carelessly or with extreme caution, and had a bad experience in both cases. On the contrary I had a good time and a nice game, regardless of the 2 characters that I lost mid-game.

If you feel that too much is too much, start chopping the huge beast. Play with only some of the expansions, enjoy them one at a time if needed (except Firelands, unless you want a really challenging game). Use what you can handle, depending on the experience and number of players.

I sincerely wish to see a "Miskatonic Horror-style" expansion for Talisman, i.e. an expansion that "builds up" all released material, but that would be the LAST expansion for this edition. I don't want to see it tomorrow, because I hope there's still room for a Sea Expansion, a Timescape revised, an expansion that rebalances Spell abuse a bit (I would call it "The Inquisition", with the inquisitors being mage-hunters), and who knows what else.

This past weekend I made the same mistake The Warlock did. I had 1 casual Talisman player, 2 New players and Myself. I thought it would be great to go all out with 4 corners, my modified dragon expansion, timescape and all other small expansions with the D10 variant I use. To sum it up: What a nightmare this game was.....

After we were all set up and the awe and wonder of how cool everything looked had worn off....you could tell everyone was confused and intimidated. Stacks of cards everywhere, tokens and abilities that didn't make sense and a landscape larger than any game they had played; which way do you go? Is this like monopoly? I played Lord of the Rings Monopoly, is this similar? This looks really complicated. How do I know what to do? The preceeding are some of the comments and questions that started flying around as we were beginning.......

It ended up being a game of me playing 3 characters and losing my mind trying to explain each detail. After 4 hours, frustrated players, a frazzled "GM", and really not much accomplished the game was abandoned and I could tell these 3 players at the mention of Talisman would hightail it the nearest thing NOT Talisman. To sum it up, I failed at presenting this wonderful game. I forget most people are not uber-game nerds.

I think for the most part if there are 4 players or less you need not have more than the base game and 2 expansions. 5 or 6 players and then you can possibly use all expansions. And still, I would recommend having an attentive "GM" unless everyone knows the game really well. This past experience was a hella learning experience.

With that being said I can see a lot of precedent to expand on the base game and the existing expansions. This will not add any confusion to the game and add some new flavor for the seasoned Talisman players. I would love to have expanded decks so we see some new things. I would also like to see all the rules put into ONE PDF with corrections and an updated flow chart and "order of operations" so the game can go smoother no matter what expansions we are using.

I stick by my philosophy that any board game should be introduced to new players using only the base game, then adding expansions slowly. Every time I introduced Talisman with just the base, people were hooked - and not overwhelmed. Moreover, they keep playing so they get to see what expansions come next!

It's a bit of wishful thinking to buy an entire collection, then bang it all out whenever possible in the hopes that you'll use the content you bought. Well...the new players might not be ready for that...oh trust me, I've been there (Cosmic Encounter...Descent...) I learned from the past, lol.

It's a bit of wishful thinking to buy an entire collection, then bang it all out whenever possible in the hopes that you'll use the content you bought. Well...the new players might not be ready for that...oh trust me, I've been there (Cosmic Encounter...Descent...) I learned from the past, lol.

Actually the persons I've played with last December are not complete newbies, they are only casual boardgamers that have already their set of prejudices over Talisman. For example, they don't believe in risk management but tend to stay out of trouble (or think they are doing so) and had not enough games under their belts to know how things are going on. No matter if I made an introduction before starting the game, listing what the 4 corners are for and when it's the right time to go there. And to think I took out Blood Moon and Firelands from the Adventure deck, to minimize upkeep and hardship on the main board.

Even though the basic mechanics of Talisman are trivial to learn, the learning curve to make good decisions and adopt a long-term strategy is very slow and gets flatter with the increasing number of expansions. After so many expansions, playing with casual players or newbies requires a simple setup, or there will be just too much in the plate.

I think the "all-in, all-in" postulate is unapplicable with all the expansions we have now, unless you're playing with a group of veteran game nerds that have followed Talisman from the beginning. It's time to see this game as a world of fantasy adventures that you may assemble as you wish to suit the needs of your group of gamers.

I think this thread has morphed into a great "how to introduce Talisman" thread.

I don't do a lot of "introduction" to Talisman, since I have a small group of guys that are already well versed in the game and its predecessors. But after reading all these threads, I think I most certainly would introduced the base game only to a new group.

Regardless of what people think the next expansion should entail, it seems like everyone agrees that it is a beast of a game with a lot of intimidating mechanics if you order the whole large-sized combo with cherry pie for dessert.

Every once in awhile we add more people. My son invites friends over, or someone in our gaming group invites a friend and brings a girlfriend.

We play with basically everything. I think it has turned off a few girl friends. But we are a hard core gamer group, its play and keep up, or die trying.

it seems like everyone agrees that it is a beast of a game with a lot of intimidating mechanics if you order the whole large-sized combo with cherry pie for dessert.

Indeed. After all, expansions are just that - expansions. You need some time to incorporate the previous material! But as Warlock says, if someone comes into it with a prejudice, no amount of expansions will change that, haha.

I like introducing expansions in the order of their release. Not necessary, of course, but it's neat to see how they build on each other. Have you ever played the Sacred Pool expansion without Frostmarch? Especially the Sacred Pool ending? It's boring! It really needs those Warlock Quest cards to shine. I also wondered why Frostmarch and especially Sacred Pool really reduced the number of Enemies and other cards that offered Strength and Craft, but I think it's because the corners released previously took care of that. Conversely, the Blood Moon probably had a huge Adventure deck full of Enemies because The Dragon, released previously, didn't provide a corner Region and the main deck needed boosting.

I also wondered why The Reaper lets you choose quests freely, while Frostmarch returns it to random draw. It was probably because The Reaper intended to fix the "quests you can't complete" problem with the base game, while the Frostmarch included cards to let you get rid of quests (and also the Dungeon had the back door to the Crown).

Anyways, the downside of introducing them one by one like that - although I think it's ideal - it's slow! It might take years to get a group to play with everything that way. But fortunately Talisman is simple enough rules-wise that you can probably stack on a couple expansions at a time without much worry.

Since there will be a POD expansion, with Realm cards to fill in the space/provide alternate routes between the Woodlands and the Highlands, I have a wish or suggestion:

It should be as different from Deep Realms as DR is from Nether Realm. If the next Realm needs Woodland and Highland to play, then take advantage of things like Light and Dark Fate, Fae and other enchanted beings or concepts. From the Highland side, we should see more Places like lost caves, hidden tribes/monsters, etc. Maybe even more valuable jewels and treasure.

Oh, and one of those Realm cards will be adjacent to the main board's Graveyard, so maybe we can have ideas from that too.