Do any of you recommend omitting certain parts of the various expansions? (Do they make the game unfun, are they overpowered, are they too weak)

I've heard that things like the Flail from the City expansion can be a bit unbalancing. Should I leave it out? Are there any characters that are too overpowered for fun games?

I remove the +1/-1 from day/night, but keep day/night for other effects. (makes the game too hard & inconsistent)

I remove most of the overly Halloween monsters from Bloodmoon except in the fall in real life when I enjoy a Halloween game. (In general I don't like dark games)

I removed the werewolf and lycanthropy. (In general I do like werewolves, but Talisman's is done poorly)

I removed the scribe, Luna, and the spell Misfortune. (too powerful)

I removed the following alternate endings: Sacred Pool (there is another one similar I prefer), Dragon Slayers, Domain of Dragons, and the Horrible Black Void (I use a homebrew variant one instead).

I remove all dragon expansion cards that put dragons on specific spaces on the board because I play with dragons in a special variant.

I remove dragon wrath.

The dragon expansion is heavily modified because it is too hard. Dragons should have their own realm, so in my game they do!

Things i removed or ignore:

- flail from the city

- the reaper (werewolf is enough)

- pretty much all rules from dragon expansion. I use all components (minus some cards) but with home rules.

- alternate endings that must be chosen at the beginning of the game, we only use hidden endings

- about 80-100 cards total from various decks. Mostly doubles.

- i was close to banning alchemist, but in the end didn't.

I wish to play Talisman with a group of new players, but I kinda want to have the corner regions in. That said, I would like to reduce further complications as much as possible. So I wrote this on omitting stuff...

When introducing Talisman I would like to keep the very basic formula "roll dice, move steps, encounter space", trying to skip all other steps. I would also refrain from using any odd strategies, trying to limit myself.

* No alternative endings on the first go, Crown of Command it is.
* No extra characters on the first go, such as Werewolf or Reaper.
* No dragon expansion.

I can keep the adventure deck with everything shuffled in, but with some slight changes:
* I would treat burn as discard (firelands) and ignore the fireproof symbol.
* I would keep the time card (bloodmoon) but ignore the -1/+1 on it. This avoid questions that pop up when an adventure-card refer to the time card.

This is how I would introduce things:
Characters: Explain strength, craft, life. Psychic battle and combat and trophies. Explain items and followers but wait with gold/fate.
Main Board: Explain the goal of the game. Introduce the Crown of Command, the Valley of Fire and the concept of Talismans, then the Warlocks Cave and quests. Also introduce the Portal of Power, the Sentinel and Rafts. Explain the concept of alignment with the help of the graveyard and chapel.
City/Deep Realms: Explain gold and tip the players to go to the City if they got plenty. Experienced players should probably keep out from the city or try to behave like a new player. Introduce the Deep Realms as a dangerous shortcut between realms.

Regions: Explain that the Dungeon, Highland and Woodland just extends the main board and can be explored at any time. Explain that going deeper is more dangerous but end with a challenge and a reward (treasure/relic/destiny). Highland is good for gold. Dungeons is filled with monsters. Woodland is mystical and one should be prepared before one go there. Explain the concept of paths. Explain the concept of dark/light fate.

We never remove anything permanently. We only choose different parts and expansions to use in different games. I.e. When we want to play the dragon expansion we use everything from it (characters, draconic lords, dragon board etc) - otherwise we leave everything out. Only exception are base game expansion parts such as quest and quest rewards cards which are always in play. As JemyM said, we also try to keep it simple when introducing Talisman to new players.

And one more thing, I would never recommend anyone to remove anything without trying it first because, as you can see if you start reading different threads, you'll find people that have different opinions about everything in the game. Try everything and explore different possibilities by removing/adding different parts to the game and I think you'll find a mix that will suit your gaming perfectly.