A potential new item though not necessarily for Talisman: tokens, including gold and silver. They sort of look like small opalescent backgammon pieces, and there aren't too many in a package for the price, so likely not intended primarily for "cash" counters. Also, when you click on the image for the "gold" ones, the link goes elsewhere. Still, something to watch for as future release if you have a use for them.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp

JCHendee said:

Those are awesome, but NOTHING beats the 4e/4.5e plastic gold coins we have for currency in this game.

There are some online novelty and game places that sell plastic "booty" as well, with coins in different denominations an "metals" (colored plastic). Certainly the ones that come with 4E are the most convenient.

In our games we do not use the game's tokens, we have replaced them with vintage mexican peso coins. The have an Eagle on one side and Aztec ruins on the other. this is what we use for gold coins

I just raided a copy of the Harry Potter: Diagon Alley Board Game for its coins.

The "gold" and "silver" coins are much to big (and plasticy), in my opinion, but the "bronze" coins are just right as replacements or additional coins for Talisman. There are 20 of them and they sport either a crescent moon, star or circle (sun?)

(Image from BGG)

It should be noted that Revised 4th Edition coins are not "antiqued" like those from 4th Edition, so I might put a wash over these to "age" them a little.

I am thinking they might be good to introduce as a new currency of some sort. I had made some new cards and rules for 2nd Edition which brought in gems (as did other editions), but I haven't thought it through yet, especially as there is little enough to spend your money on so far.

Nice... and if you make Mules available in the city where they would be then there'll be plenty for people to spend their "gems" on.

Hmmm... This should have a bit of an effect on the economy...

PS - I am not overly fond of the title "Riding Horse", so have gone back an edition!

YEAH! (On all counts and all decisions!)

Umm, except the sale prices. I'd probably make them worth Half at most (min. 1G). BUT I do see your point in that "Followers" can't be turned in like Objects to an Alchemist to get rid of them for profit. Very similar to what I tried to do with such cards as "Skinner's Post."

That's easily fixed!

Refresh (F5) to see the updated version.

You will note that I removed the Alchemist from the City space, but there is still opportunity to exchange, trade, ditch stuff. You just have to have the right Follower!

Oh, you are quick... even beat my second-guessing edit of my post. Hmmm... now to make an overlay for my board!

Oh wait... I just noticed the comment concerning the Alchemist. Any reason why he's gone from the city? He never ever made sense to me as a Follower at all.

Heh... I'd be interested in seeing opinion about the Alchemist removal.

My idea was, that from personal experience it is not used a great deal, and would give another twist on preventing "I'll give this object to the Alchemist to save visiting the Enchantress..." Hence my comment about the economy.

...or, to mix it up a little, you could just add this card to the Adventure deck -

Yeah, that works. I had another notion about the Alchemist "Follower" that was just tagging along to collect goods for his work. And once he had enough, he just took off for the city and his fellow alchemist to continue their secret work...

"Each time the Alchemist exchanges an Object for a Gold, roll 1 die plus the number of Objects he has exchanged for your so far. If you roll 7+, he leaves for the city, having acquired enough raw materials from you."

However... it just seems a bit glitchy overall and I never got around to it. As a stranger, he takes more effort to get to, but you never know where he'll pop up and everyone still has a shot at him. And he fits better with the other "mage" strangers too.

Thanks for the comments. I think I'll package these up with a small rules card and put them on the site!

It's funny how expansion ideas come up where you least expect them! I shall have a think about other spaces that might be worth altering as an optional rule, with replacement cards for board personalities.

Your idea for the Alchemist Follower has just given me a thought where he could be a bit of a con-man. I doubt it would work in practice, but I thought he could be masquerading as an Alchemist, and when he exchanges the Gold for an Object he would keep it to sell on at full price elsewhere.

I suppose, this is the effect of Purchase cards going back into the deck anyway... but a little more thematic (V word!)

...and here is a little something I've knocked up for use in Strange Eons -

All looks good, Jon! Indeed package it up. And you're take off on the Alchemist Follower is similar to my.

An Alchemist wouldn't really have a way to turn the stuff adventurers just want to dump into gold. But he might have other 'experiments' in which he could use the stuff... or he's holding to sell off, as you say. The only way I could think of to run that for a Follower was that cards turned over to him were placed under his card and the roll was made with some target number, each card being a +1. (Afterall, he can only carry so much stuff.) Until he made the roll to leave based on the stuff he's collected, that stuff didn't re-enter the Land's economy. But overall, let's face it, most people wouldn't want to bother; most people just want a way to "sell" goods without having to go anywhere.

The Alchemist Persona (in the City) was a catchall for all the places in the city where one could sell off Objects (but with nowhere to do the same with Followers until your horse trader). But in the Alchemist Persona you had to GO SOMEWHERE and not magically do it all on the road. (All adventurers are lazy putzes if you don't make them do something.)

So... I kept looping back around in reasoning to the same old place. But your Alchemist Stranger is a nice alternative somewhere between the extremes.

Hey, I just have to ask this...

That last line on the Alchemist's card in 4ER (since that's the first time I've seen it) has always given me pause. What possible (reasonable) loophole of any kind would have led to the need of that addition?

I don't really know about the last line to be honest. It is actually the same as the 2nd & 3rd Edition cards.

Perhaps it is was added to reinforce the idea that he cannot change things back from gold. You would think that the fact you have to discard them was clue enough though...

Okay, I didn't remember the line from 2E/3E, so that's my own faulty memory. But, well, like you said with cards discarded, I just was baffled how anyone might even twist things around to try to "reverse" the process. Oh well...

Back to the subject of "Tokens for Gold" - I just noticed this over at BGG taken from the new Seaside expansion for Dominion .

http://boardgame.geekdo.com/boardgame/51811

Shiney!!

When I was moving to US I took with me my Talisman 2nd ed. I packed all the boards and all the cards but I forgot about dice, counters and character stands so I was forced to improvise. I didn't really liked the old counters anyway so I bought bunch of appropriately colored dice and used them as counters for Strength, Craft and Lives. But I wanted something different for the Gold counters.

There is a lot of websites that sell old coin replicas but usually they cost arm and leg. Finally I found a place that maybe wasn't cheap but the least expensive.

www.greatamericancoincompany.com/Piece-of-Eight-Pirate-Gold-Silver-Doubloon-Replicas-You-Choose-Quantity-p196.html

It still cost me around fifty bucks for a hundred coins but I'm pretty happy with them.

They are quite big in comparsion (around a size of a quarter) but being all metal they have a very nice feel to them.

There was another alternative that I was toying with but ultimately the price was way too steep for my budget. Still, if you are hardcore Talisman player or have a bunch of friends to chip in there are Campaign Coins.

Designed mainly for roleplaying games they look awesome. Different "metals", different denominations... I admit, way too complex for Talisman game but to play with them...

Here's a link if you are interested

www.campaigncoins.com/

You're right, both are excessively pricey... but they are still tempting.

I just went and bought a "cheap" copy of Dread Pirate as it has some nice jewels and dubloons that might see some use.

Pic from BGG -

Perhaps I should make a new feature for Talisman Island...

...tasteful enough?

Returning to the subject of Pimp My Talisman -

I got hold of two copies of Dread Pirate so now have 50 "gems" as shown below, using the clear ones for Fate, I may of course rethink that when it becomes clear what the Dark Fate mechanic is. 50 is more than you get in the game, but I do not have tokens that are worth 5.

The copies I had came with 9 of the lovely metal doubloons missing and when I asked the manufacturer for replacements, they sent some but they were the larger type you see to the left.

I am going to address this by using a selection of them, possibly using 10 large and 20 small coins, with the larger ones being worth 2 Gold. I figure it might impact the economy at some point when there is no "change" to be had...

Oh, shiny! Too bad those coins can't be ordered separately. With the amount of gold reported (by some) as building up in the game with all expansions used, do you think going to 3G value on the large ones might be better... fewer coins to have to pile up for one's booty?

I was going by the fact that the game comes with 30 coins for use. Actually, it would seem better just to use 10 of each then to make that 30G value. I was getting a bit confused with the 40 "other" tokens.

Having them as 2s and 1s means you don't need so many anyway, and you don't risk overegging the economy!