I've been recently tasked with coming up with a solution for "death" in Talisman.

The team I play with, feels that losing a character midway or late in the game and having to re-draw, can really "take the wind out of the sails". Personally, I have no problem with this, but since we live in a democracy, I've been out-voted

So here is my question... how would you home brew a rule for this?

Here are some of our thoughts...

_________

Dead characters lose all of their equipment and followers, but keep their stat increases.

or

Dead characters lose all of their stat increases, but keep their equipment and followers.

_________

Dead characters revive in their starting location

or

Dead characters revive in the graveyard

_________

Dead characters return with 1 life

or

Dead characters return with full life

or

Dead characters return with full life, but must miss turns equal to their life value.

_________

So... thoughts?

I'm personally leaning towards: Dead characters lose all equipment and followers, and revive at the graveyard. They return with 1 life.

Better off just amending the Reaper card itself maybe change the 1 result like: Player loses 1 life and has to roll on the chart again with a -1 modifier to the result to a min of result of 1. that way characters can still die from the Reaper but it less likely plus it weakens the Misfortune.

We play with the following:

Upon death, the character is moved to the temple. At the start of his turn he rolls a die adding the number of turns he has stayed at the temple (first roll is at +0). If the roll+bonus is 6 or more the character ressurects at 1 life and may immediately take a turn. if the roll+bonus is lower than 6 he stays at the temple and rolls again next turn. He retains all followers objects and gained strength craft life fate. Until ressurected he is safe at the temple from enemies, characters, events and spells.

This may seem like sacrilege to some players, but first, we're not a very bloodthirsty bunch, and deciding to destroy hours of character building with one fell swoop brings us more discomfort than malicious glee. Second, and more importantly, this drastically speeds up the game because there are no resets only timeouts. The lower penalty means that players can be more willing to take risks, particularly to enter the inner region much earlier.

For similar reasons when becoming a toad you retain objects and followers, but cannot use their abilities.

Finally, failing the test at the portal of power does not cause a loss os strength or craft

I quite like the idea of life being set at a minimum of 1, so no permadeath. However, if you were to 'lose' that life, you would be turned into a Toad for 1d6 turns instead, possibly with a minimum of 3, but the risk of 6 turns should be enough. Normal Object drops etc still apply, but at least you don't suffer a stat loss.

We did this before: whenever someone was killed, he had to miss 3 rounds, heal one life, and keep everything as before. But we all agreed after a few games to turn back to the official rules, because it killed the game in a way.

I quite like the idea of life being set at a minimum of 1, so no permadeath. However, if you were to 'lose' that life, you would be turned into a Toad for 1d6 turns instead, possibly with a minimum of 3, but the risk of 6 turns should be enough. Normal Object drops etc still apply, but at least you don't suffer a stat loss.

That would change modern ideas of the afterlife .

Better off just amending the Reaper card itself maybe change the 1 result like: Player loses 1 life and has to roll on the chart again with a -1 modifier to the result to a min of result of 1. that way characters can still die from the Reaper but it less likely plus it weakens the Misfortune.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

Uvatha, I think you took me too literal. I'm not speaking about Death as in "The Reaper"... just in the grander sense of the term. Except, it gave me an idea to maybe incorporate him into the mix. Perhaps The Reaper should be teleported to your square? Maybe you stay with the Reaper until you are respawned? Maybe you even reset The Reaper back to his starting square... what other interesting interactions could that produce?

You guys have given me something to think about.

Better off just amending the Reaper card itself maybe change the 1 result like: Player loses 1 life and has to roll on the chart again with a -1 modifier to the result to a min of result of 1. that way characters can still die from the Reaper but it less likely plus it weakens the Misfortune.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

Uvatha, I think you took me too literal. I'm not speaking about Death as in "The Reaper"... just in the grander sense of the term. Except, it gave me an idea to maybe incorporate him into the mix. Perhaps The Reaper should be teleported to your square? Maybe you stay with the Reaper until you are respawned? Maybe you even reset The Reaper back to his starting square... what other interesting interactions could that produce?

You guys have given me something to think about.

No I understand you chemical but the major reason why players die late in the game is ether a unlucky Reaper roll or very bad adventure draw or bad combat pc results. I think making characters return with their stats and or items is a bit rude personally. Talisman is a very long game and that will make it even longer. By reducing the reapers effect to just kill on a bad roll you cut down the amount of "shook" deaths.

Better off just amending the Reaper card itself maybe change the 1 result like: Player loses 1 life and has to roll on the chart again with a -1 modifier to the result to a min of result of 1. that way characters can still die from the Reaper but it less likely plus it weakens the Misfortune.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

Uvatha, I think you took me too literal. I'm not speaking about Death as in "The Reaper"... just in the grander sense of the term. Except, it gave me an idea to maybe incorporate him into the mix. Perhaps The Reaper should be teleported to your square? Maybe you stay with the Reaper until you are respawned? Maybe you even reset The Reaper back to his starting square... what other interesting interactions could that produce?

You guys have given me something to think about.

No I understand you chemical but the major reason why players die late in the game is ether a unlucky Reaper roll or very bad adventure draw or bad combat pc results. I think making characters return with their stats and or items is a bit rude personally. Talisman is a very long game and that will make it even longer. By reducing the reapers effect to just kill on a bad roll you cut down the amount of "shook" deaths.

It's funny, the Reaper always has so little impact in our games. I'm thinking that in the last 2-3 years that we have been playing, the Reaper has landed on a character... maybe twice.

I agree with you, I'm not a fan of the whole returning with stats thing - but like I said, the majority have spoken in my group. Although, the reasoning for this is not to make it longer, but to make it shorter. By returning with full stats, it keeps the player in the game.

there are two types of random at play in Talisman; one is the incremental progress/retrogression of 99% of turns and the other is that last 1% where you get killed, toaded or lose your last life, followers, objects. Personally I dont think they go well together in a game as long as this. I like the complete reversal of the game effects in shorter game, but talisman is a long game and none of the cards (except for a precious few combos) are positive reversals.

I prefer a game of Taliaman to be fairly fast (about 1 hour) and featuring only incremental change.

dying not meaning you lose your progress only serves to make the game faster. That in itself is a big point point in its favor.

There is something fun about a player being way in the lead of the game and then suddenly dying; not always for that person though, and personally I find the victory rather meaningless if I win after such a completely random reversal.

But to each their own, certainly Talisman was originally designed to be mostly small steps forward with a few very rare pitfalls that mostly or completely resets progress

Better off just amending the Reaper card itself maybe change the 1 result like: Player loses 1 life and has to roll on the chart again with a -1 modifier to the result to a min of result of 1. that way characters can still die from the Reaper but it less likely plus it weakens the Misfortune.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

Uvatha, I think you took me too literal. I'm not speaking about Death as in "The Reaper"... just in the grander sense of the term. Except, it gave me an idea to maybe incorporate him into the mix. Perhaps The Reaper should be teleported to your square? Maybe you stay with the Reaper until you are respawned? Maybe you even reset The Reaper back to his starting square... what other interesting interactions could that produce?

You guys have given me something to think about.

No I understand you chemical but the major reason why players die late in the game is ether a unlucky Reaper roll or very bad adventure draw or bad combat pc results. I think making characters return with their stats and or items is a bit rude personally. Talisman is a very long game and that will make it even longer. By reducing the reapers effect to just kill on a bad roll you cut down the amount of "shook" deaths.

It's funny, the Reaper always has so little impact in our games. I'm thinking that in the last 2-3 years that we have been playing, the Reaper has landed on a character... maybe twice.

I agree with you, I'm not a fan of the whole returning with stats thing - but like I said, the majority have spoken in my group. Although, the reasoning for this is not to make it longer, but to make it shorter. By returning with full stats, it keeps the player in the game.

We have only played 3 or 4 games with the reaper and it always has had a huge effect on our games. Its indirect effect is that our normally non-combative group is bunched together on one half of the map (the side away from the reaper) and we have a lot more encounters which I love. We also get the reaper landed on us surprisingly a LOT as long as people have fate and are willing to be near him. He has killed someone at least twice, once due to double 1 rolls, and once due to no fate available to re-roll. It will sound like I'm exaggerating, but last night we had in just one single encounter with Death, two people roll 1's which were fated, one person used a fate to re-roll loss of their follower, 6-8 rolls of a 5 , and ultimately ended with a 6 roll. was so EPIC!

What we really HATE are the nether enemies that are ignore all of your stats and items and put your attack dice vs. their attack dice. and you are KILLED if yours is lower. I killed someone because I rolled a 6 for his Nether Blight. It was funny but kind of ridiculous.... that player has died two games in a row to Nether Blight hahahha