Just thought of couple of new mechanics for monsters etc. What do you think?

Berserked enemies:

If you lose by difference of 2, you lose 2 lives instead of one.

A little bit more dangerous than typical opponents, and punishes for travelling around the board with low lives.

Poison:

Poison lasts for three turns. At the start of your turn you lose one life if you are poisoned. You can skip this loss of life by skipping your turn.

If you are low on lives, you lose three turns. If you are high on lives or are in a situation where it is important to move, you can risk it and lose a life. Could be used in spells, monsters with venomous bite or poisoned weapons etc.

And of course if we have poison, then:

Antidote: (item)

Discard antidote to remove the poison.

Of course, some sort of antidote spell could also work (Purify etc.)

So, would these work? Have been playing 4,5 edition for so little time i don't have that much experience with it, and is a looooong time since i played 2. edition last.... (and sorry for bad english, not my first language)

Shangfu said:

Win or lose "margins" is mechanic used sometimes in many home brew expansions. Most commercial players focused on the win more than adventure don't care much for them. Some into home brews groups frown as well, but I use them on some cards.

Given opponents of equal Strength (or Craft), a margin of only 2 means a 66.7% chance of an extra lost life on a 1 to 6 range. That's too stiff fro my tastes for losing an extra life (vs. other less lethal effects... miss a turn, carry a time limited penalty, etc.). More so when we remember that an armor roll will only save one of those lost lives, not both. A "margin" of at least 3 (50%) for anything in the lethal category is likely more acceptable. 4 would probably get no gripes from most players, and that's still a 33.3% of getting whacked hard when you lose in combat. Adventurers just starting off a new game would not be devastated too quickly. And of course it depends on how many cards have such an effect.

Shangfu said:

Again, too lethal, too much slow down, and both commercial and home brew players wouldn't use it. The most common way to link a poison from turn to turn is by the movement roll. Typically high rolls mean losing a life (for exertion) until visiting a location for healing. In most cases, healing 1 life automatically removes further effect from the poison. Missing a turn simply means you are stuck if you get hit with poison and have to seek help; missing a turn means your stuck because Talisman's movement mechanics are so random (more so in 4ER with a changes to older edition movement modifying cards). And the timelapse approach requires turn to turn accounting, even for a short span time. Another thing that "win" focused players don't like.

Having an Antidote card is an okay idea, but in most cases any healing persona on the board or a Follower or Stranger that can heal lives is the most used option... both for card design and in game play. It's leaning, cleaner, and integrated right into the game.

All of these are still sound ideas, but I've seen such in game play being tested, so my view is from experience. I'm currently going back and reworking my expansion's mechanics (including poisons, venoms, and margins) based on testing in 15+ games with different counts of players that I've played or directly watched. Even had to encounter my own cards and didn't like some of the way they worked. In the end, all you can do is make those cards the way you want, and then see if they're what your players group wants. But don't assume your crew is like most or true measure of all. They never are, believe me.

Yeah, true, didn't take into consideration the early games, when both of those would definitely be lethal. Maybe would work better on an extra board, with rewards that are well worth the extra danger.

So, maybe i just increase the margin on berserked enemies and rework the poison. For example, if you are poisoned and roll 1 or 2 for movement, you lose life, but are able to prevent the loss of life by skipping your turn. Healing removes poison. Better?

Shangfu said:

A margin can be applied to both win and lose. Not winning by enough can have an effect just like losing by too much. Also, the mechanic is separate from the effect. Losing a life isn't the only effect. Though it may seem the most pertinent one for Battle and Psychic Combat, that really isn't the case.

For a margin of Loss, effects for the game include (in order of least to worst effect from player perspective) movement penalty, non-combat other roll penalty, combat penalty, loss of life, loss of a spell, loss of possesions and followers, loss of fate, loss of strength, loss of craft. How such are described (poison/venom, disease, fumble, etc.) is also pertinent to a lesser degree as certain terms used will be connected to and/or over come by spells, objects, special abilities, etc. that can overcome an effect based on a very specific term describing it. There is a lot that goes into the details.

For a margin of Win, the most typical effect is that nothing is gained.... as in a trophy. However most players who gripe about it aren't paying attention (players can be very dense). It is still a win. So in encountering cards and space in order, they can still proceed, whereas a loss means they don't and their turn is over. You wouldn't believe how many times I've had to explain this when some says "hey, okay, it has a tough hide, but I don't really win unless I beat it by 2 extra." SIGH. Players aren't really focused on the win here; they are focused on gains and losses, and don't often think ahead to a half gain, so to speak, in being able to continue a turn where further activity and potential gains are available.

Using margins for victory in place of an additional random roll also moves things along a little more quickly (or so the players think, and we'll let them continue to do so). That extra roll, so long as there's no dawdling, typically takes all of 10 seconds tops. There aren't that many that among commercial cards. Margined enemies only stick out because they are different than what players are used to, so they notice them more. Though there might be no more of them then those old random roll enemies that resurrect, etc., it may seem like it to them. They think its more time consuming that that random roll, though they also like the random resurrect less than in the old days of 2E. This attitude has gotten worse with modern players I've watched who are focus on the win more than the playing. At the same time, elimination of randoms in a victory....

1. remove frustration of random trophy loss when you kick ass on a Strength / Craft 1, and
2. let players know ahead of time not only the risk of trophy loss but that the extra risk is in they're control, their roll (sort of), and their skill (Strength and Craft) rather than yet another random chance machine in the game.

So... what's all this long winded stuff really mean? Use margins wherever you want; just be aware that the margin is only the mechanic (and it has variation and subvariations which players won't see) and is balanced by the effect and the chance of it occuring based in the margin. You don't have to abandon margins to some alternative border or deck. They work just fine anywhere if you try to be judicious.

Shangfu said:

So, maybe i just increase the margin on berserked enemies and rework the poison. For example, if you are poisoned and roll 1 or 2 for movement, you lose life, but are able to prevent the loss of life by skipping your turn. Healing removes poison. Better?

PERFECT!

ADDENDUM: I was actually reconsidering your use of 1 and 2 vs 5 and 6 on the movement roll. The higher roll to me meant exertion, but that's not really how movement works in Talisman. And then I thought... rolling a 5 or 6 might get an adventure to healing more quickly. If those were also the rolls on which it lost a life, then it forfeits a life to get to healing faster... well, maybe faster. So the 1 and 2 actually makes more sense, or is a bit more lenient. Giving up the 1 or 2 to avoid losing a life would be seen (from the players view) as more acceptable. It was a good choice that'll I keep in mind myself.

Thanks for the positive review of the Poison mechanic

As for the things about the margin effect, you're absolutely right. Got faced with the same thing about winning fights when roleplaying (always as GM....). Was just weird that people complained about victories if there wasn't any reward for it, the reward for plain success didn't matter. Now that we all are a bit older and more into characters and the story, that hasn't been that much of a problem. And that got me also into thinking, how about monsters that join as a follower if you win by large enough margin? They would be so amazed of your superior feats of strength/power that they forfeit the fight to join you. For example: Goblin Whelp: Strength 3. If you win by a margin of 3, you gain the goblin as a follower and he adds +1 to your strength in next battle. Thought about adding the goblins full strength but that sounded like a too powerful boost to me.

And yeah, there's no limit to what margin in win or loss can accomplish, and i really liked the idea of a trophy loss if you win by a too large margin. Margins also add some realism to the battles. It's not only "you strike, monster strikes, you win, monster dies", but the way the battle works out and how each combatant performed their moves determines the outcome. At least two players in our group would propably approve this kind of thing as an addition to all combats (extra rule), as they are mostly just interested in roleplaying the Talisman, other two maybe not as they are still a bit more keen on powerplaying. I'm all for the weirdness and randomness of Talisman, experimenting with unusual strategies and taking risks, with roleplaying at the same time.

That's why i think Talisman is such a wonderful game. Even as it is pretty simple and straightforward (compared to Arkham Horror for example), it has a lot of depth under the simple surface.

Shangfu said:

It is an interesting notion, though there are already characters that pull in Enemies as Followers. Some are well done with restrictions; many of the new ones aren't... they are slightly to terribly overgunned. There's also the problem that such a general rule for subduing Enemies would then make those characters perhaps too weakened. Their few special abilities wouldn't have as much value when measured against all of the others being able to do something similar without the special ability to do so.

I think maybe if such were a possibility, it should have a built in limitation by declaration. If an adventurer were to try to subdue an Enemy, it would require them to declare non-lethal combat. They would have to risk their neck knowing they would not get a trophy if they succeeded. They should not have the option to choose after the Battle is over. That's not how combat works at the most basic and oversimplified level. There might even be the need to put limits on what could be used in that Battle to subdue, such as no Magic Objects or spells of any kind. No monster is going to join willingly someone who has to lean on crutches.

Shangfu said:

True, but much as I am advocate for verisimilitude (not quite the same as realism) in Fantasy gaming of any kind (and I spent half a year on and off learning a little about fighting with dual shortswords and handaxes), Talisman is intended to be simple to a degree. The Battle roll really doesn't have a lot in it to interpret for details of outcome. Even the margin mechanic is an add on that doesn't exist in the game's components anywhere. If it wasn't a simple game for the most part, it would step too far out of a boardgame, and the players would be better off in FRPG.

Shangfu said:

Yes, it is a tough balance to find... a little true character playing but still keeping it as a boardgame. My problem with some players is how much they treat it like a video game, where all that matters is what you can get away with ... what the programming "code" (rules) lets you get away with. Any time someone asks a ludicrously obvious and easily reasoned question for the FAQs, 3 out of 4 times you can bet their looking for a loophole.... something that didn't get plugged in the "code."

Shangfu said:

We have Arkham as well. Tried it three times and on the third time actually got through the torture of understanding the rules of play and actually played it for 1 hour (never finished). By then, we were just tired of the game rather than tired of playing. We'll get back to it someday, maybe. For now, we just got into Runebound (right when the 2nd edition was official retired for the coming of Runewards). We'll need to keep playing that for a while to see if it holds up, then ****** up any expansion before they vanish. The Midnight major expansion is already very very hard to find... at a high price too boot.