Hi everyone,

I've seen a couple of threads like this one on other sites, but I was wondering if I could share some of my ideas on how to manage having multiple expansions and encourage the characters to explore all they each have to offer, and hear what you guys have come up with.

So I am playing with 6 (or rather, 5 and a half) expansions: the highlands, the city, the woodlands, the reaper, the harbinger, and the nether realms (which we have loved way more than we thought possible by the way).

How we have houseruled it is as follows:

The city and highlands are not set up at the start of the game. The woodlands are.

There are two ways for the highlands to become available: 1) an effect requires a character to be placed on a space in the highlands. 2) someone rolls a 5 or a 6 on the crags. Once the highlands is available, it is permanently in the game.

The city expansion becomes available when a player lands on or attempts to move through the city space carrying either 5 gold or 7 points worth of trophies. He can continue his movement into a newly opened city expansion. Once the city expansion is made available, it is permanently in the game.

Both the highlands and woodlands are subject to restricted movement, meaning that if a character chooses to move counterclockwise in either region, that character cannot reverse and continue to progress clockwise until he or she has first left that region (rules as explained in the woodlands and dungeon expansions for restricted movement).

[the above rules were done to slightly discourage everyone from spending the entire early game in the highlands, as would typically occur, and to discourage people from stepping into the city just to avoid the harbinger; basically we decided to make the city more of a later game region, and to discourage people from taking advantage of the waterfall and all the canyons and ravines at the end of the highlands to by just hovering there.]

The harbinger expansion house rules: when a character lands on the harbinger, the harbinger can only be moved to a space containing another character not in the inner region (instead of any just any space not in the inner region); if there are no other characters not in the inner region, the harbinger just stays put. Also, if we are feeling particularly masochistic, if the harbinger is on the board, and there are no characters in his region, if a character rolls a 1 on his movement, the harbinger moves to that character's space after he has finished his movement and drawn cards.

[this was to encourage more use of the harbinger expansion. Basically we decided we should either play with the harbinger expansion and really get tangled up in it, or just elect to leave it out of the game if we are playing with beginners.]

Finally, since I have not yet bought the sacred pools expansion with the warlock quest rewards, we have one more houserule: If there are no more talismans available as a warlock quest reward, when you hand in the warlock quest you roll a die on the following chart:

1) Become a toad for 3 turns

2) Draw a potion card

3) Gain 2 fate

4) Gain 2 lives

5) Gain a craft

6) Gain a strength

[This might seem a little overpowered, but we wanted to help move things along a little faster in the late game, and because we are only playing 12 quest reward cards and you can only roll on this chart when there are no talismans to be drawn, we have found it hasn't generally changed the outcome of a game, just sped it up a little]

Would love to hear people's thoughts. Also, I've already spent so much money on this stupid game (I love it too **** much though). I don't feel like I'm missing much by not having the other expansions, but am open to suggestions otherwise.

Thanks!

Seems like a nice thing you got going. I like the idea of not having all corners available at once.

And the idea of a quest reward chart, the quest rewards in sacred pool ain't that good anyway. I would probably put gain 2 golds at 1 though, as becoming a toad ain't much of a reward. Perhaps 'the Warlock thanks you' is an option...

And, almost, everything that speeds up the game is a good thing as we love play but rarely finish a game, I'm sorry to say. But we usually turn in trophies at 5-6 points and other small fixes to speed things up a bit.

As for buying more expansions I would say - go with what you have as long as you like it and then buy a new one. And when you've more stuff you can use different combinations all the time and the game will never get boring.

Seems like a nice thing you got going. I like the idea of not having all corners available at once.

And the idea of a quest reward chart, the quest rewards in sacred pool ain't that good anyway. I would probably put gain 2 golds at 1 though, as becoming a toad ain't much of a reward. Perhaps 'the Warlock thanks you' is an option...

Thanks!

No one has been turned into a toad yet by the warlock (a couple of fate tokens have been used to avoid this from happening) but I think you are right, it seems a little out of character. perhaps we will change to "The warlock thanks you" i.e. no effect.

You know we still haven't resorted to using 5-6 trophy points for stats but we probably will... games can be a little too long sometimes.

In our games it cuurently looks like this:

1. all corner boards are present

2. all expansions are in use except the following:

- reaper card and figure is an alternative ending card, mostly new rules

- werewolf card and figure and redone lycanthrope cards are an alternative ending card. mostly new rules, All spell and adventure cards that refer to lycanthropes or werewolf are removed from the game,

- entire Dragon expansion (except characters) is an alternative ending card. Changes to how dragon tokens are drawn and more.

- entire Harbinger expansion (except characters and terrain cards) is an alt. ending card, no changes

- adventure cards from Firelands that refer to fireland tokens or burning make a new Firelands deck (i have them sleeved and with homebrew backs). Firelands is an alternative ending that tells how to use that deck. Spells that refer to those things are removed from the game.

- warlock quests can be obtained as normal, but also one (or two in 4+ player game) is always on the table available for anyone to finish. Rewards are completly redone as well.

3. We also add some homebrew stuff to the game, although not much.

- about 20 enemy cards in the adventure deck to have various enemy types better represented (cultists, constructs, etc.)

- 6 errata cards on the board that change some spaces, mostly in minor ways

- 2 new Stables cards

- 5 new purchase cards

Cough, FOREVER TALISMAN! https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/176044-forever-talisman/

This topic should really be moved over to Home Brews.

Whoa you are right! Sorry wrong place. Is it possible to switch categories on a topic?

3. We also add some homebrew stuff to the game, although not much.

- about 20 enemy cards in the adventure deck to have various enemy types better represented (cultists, constructs, etc.)

- 6 errata cards on the board that change some spaces, mostly in minor ways

- 2 new Stables cards

- 5 new purchase cards

Oh, care to post copies always wanting new ideas.

Man, I have a LOT of those.

5 errata cards, plus 1 addition to the Tavern:

Man, I have a LOT of those.

5 errata cards, plus 1 addition to the Tavern:

Elephant? Does it scare warhorses?

Nope, but for 6 gold you get:

(Sorry for slight offtopic)

And what happens if you encounter a mouse or rat .

Man, I have a LOT of those.

5 errata cards, plus 1 addition to the Tavern:

So you put those spaces right on the board? I have a bunch of spaces on the board changed permanently but I used photoshop with the fonts from Talisman Island and sticker paper so you can hardly tell they are not original! :-)

For instance I changed the village to get rid of the blacksmith for "the smithy" as Jon New had made a card for.....he will upgrade your weapons rather than sell you weapons. I did this primarily because no one ever visited him since the city came out. I also changed the text of the tavern for gambling with a cover-up(from talisman island I believe) and then I changed the city space as well so you can buy things. Dropped the alchemist and added the trader. The alchemist was added to the deck as a stranger.

For instance I changed the village to get rid of the blacksmith for "the smithy" as Jon New had made a card for.....he will upgrade your weapons rather than sell you weapons. I did this primarily because no one ever visited him since the city came out. I also changed the text of the tavern for gambling with a cover-up(from talisman island I believe) and then I changed the city space as well so you can buy things. Dropped the alchemist and added the trader. The alchemist was added to the deck as a stranger.

Same in my games wih the blacksmith, but different solution. I improved some items he sells, and weakened most items armoury sells. Now every object at both spaces is a valid option.

I'm familiar with Smithy, but it didnt strike my fancy.

I think alchemist is an important part of the game, it clears the board from junk.

As for stickers, I would never do this because I make changes to my homebrew material all the time.

I personally try not to edit board spaces etc, etc (I did when I started with making Talisman better with house rules and home brews) I tend to now fix the board spaces and other rules through a new set and new cards trying to limit the amount of cards on spaces.

I do because I believe the board was designed before all the expansions were thought of and become diluted. Personally I have 2 boards so if I really wanted to play the base game without expansions I could. My changes came around because our group commented on the futility of the corner spaces once the corner expansions had been released. The village blacksmith needed some help so we turned him into a smithy that upgrades weapons rather than selling weapons; makes a lot of sense. If the corner expansions were not being used though, it makes less sense. The tavern was sort of boring and needed a pick me up and the alchemist was only being used so everyone could purchase a flail with crap equipment on the outer region. Personally our group prefers the outer region to be polluted with crap to force everyone into the corners and inner region.....

Me and my friend have an all expansions anniversary sesh on or around 5th November.

Our house rules include:

If using the Dragon Tower as an extra region, we use an Alternate ending creature on the core board Crown of Command

Using the Nether Realm Gauntlet ending rules

Using all four Harbinger omen decks

For the Cataclysm, we'll most likely put this into play when either the last Harbinger omen has been discarded, or one player defeats the Dragon King. Everything on the table is put away except the characters and their strength, craft, gold, objects etc.