I know this is an odd question but can Talisman be played solo? I have played a bunch of times and I can honestly say that I have NEVER been on the same place as another player and never been in PVP combat. I know it can happen there are rules for it but for the most part its been kinda a solitaire game but with other players.

Any thoughts?

Can be, I'm playing a lot of times alone for testing some mine and not only expansions. In these games You must be equal to all the characters, and know what player could do in given situation, how he would react while being in given situation. Mostly that happens to Spell cards as they are hidden. While playing alone You must play as chess computer - perfectly for all of players.

Sometimes it is fun just to wander the board and see what turns up.

I have play the game in my own for play testing some characters.

But i must say, that it is really boring to play it in your own. You really need to play the game with 2 or more players

I have a card game called "Monster Romp". If books have a "Vanity Press" (i.e. books you pay the publisher to print, for, well, your own vanity because you usually pay out more than you get back), this came from a "Vanity Board" type shop. You make your own game, and pay the company to put it on the shelves, and rarely see a return. It was obviously influenced heavily by Talisman, though there is no board. You basically play monster cards on the other players.

It was meant as multi-player, but, there was a solo-play option = "Go through the deck. You must play all the monsters and 'bad' spells on yourself. If you go through the whole deck, you win."

To extrapolate this, then, if you want to play Talisman solo, with 1 character, use the same rules. No CoC ending. You must go through the entire main deck (and dungeon deck if you have those). Any "bad" spells (Toadify, Destroy item, etc...) you get, you must play on yourself. Any "stolen" items or followers (ex: Mesmerism) goes to the discard pile. Anything purely PvP (Rod of Ruin), you must cast on yourself. Get to the end of the Adventure deck (+ end of dungeon deck if you have it), you win. If your character dies, you lose. You don't get a second.

That's off the top of my head, of course.

However, in all fairness, once your past the ST 10 / CR 10 point, I hardly see how you'll lose unless you get self-toaded, or random-ed out of cones. Maybe add a "You must land on the 'worst' space" i.e. desert with no water bottle, etc... to add spice, but, essentially, I see the game being decided pretty early on. You're either toast by Turn 30, or you win. Maybe even add a "On a 6 for movement, you land on yourself" and, whatever "bad effect" happens to you, i.e. as the Thief, you steal an item from yourself, i.e. discard 1 item, or something, anything to kill that ST 10+ long dry run.

(Sidebar = I don't consider ST / CR 10+ phase of the game a problem with other players, because, as you know, we go to CoC when we're really tired after a super long game, after any other saner person would have gone for CoC 5+ hours earlier, but, with our games, there's a cool "I have 15 red cones. You only have 12" kind of comparison / competition. Solo play, well, wouldn't have that element. Heck, lets admit it, Talisman, for us, is an excuse to chat for hours over the pretext of a game, instead of just chatting in front of the tube...)

Even for a home-rule-r like me, doesn't sound like much fun, but if it does to you, consider the above ideas, or some variants, too see if that works.

What's missing here is a concept called "scenario." Talisman does not have one. Without other players there is no "other" to compete against, and the random generation of events against you doesn't equal that. Perhaps consider playing two characters; one is yourself and the other is you nemesis, who doesn't care about winning, and only about making you lose. Whatever it draws, whatever it does, what ever it has that it can use against you it does so at the soonest opportunity. If it has a choice of gaining something to its advantage on the board for later, then it does so. If it has a chance to come after you, it will do that instead. If it dies, it resurrects per the rules. If you die, your dead... you lose.

Pick yourself a character, the randomly draw one for your nemesis... and have at it.

Tons-Home-rules said:

This is a really interesting variant I will have to try.

I've played a few solo games recently, mainly to test out some of the new characters that can with Frostmarch. Basically, I play the game just like I would with other players, but there is only me. I Played with the Walock Quest alternate ending. It's pretty much the same game when playing alone without a few factors, like I never feel a sense of urgency, I will just play until I complete the objective (in this case complete 4 warlock quests and get to the Crown space).

The only real change that I need to do was to discard and redraw any spell that specifically required another player. Otherwise, I would roll, move, draw cards, fighting enemies (I would roll a die of one color for myself and another color for the enemy). In order to make this worth while, I kept track of how many game turns it took me to complete the objective, so even missing a turn meant something: Necromancer 85, Ogre Chieftain 73, Amazon died at turn 26, Prophetess 60.

Not as fun as playing with other players, but it was still fun and I like the game. Even playing solo, I would roll a 1, become a toad, spent a fate and re-roll another 1 anyway, just like when I am playing with other people.

Tons-Home-rules said:

Hmm, I kind of like this idea. Though playing though ALL the cards that exist would be... alot, & would become even larger with each new set.

Maybe make like a preset number of cards to get through? And then randomize out that set number in each deck (adventure, dungeon, spell) before the game starts. This would keep the game length reasonable as well as keep every solo game very unique.

Then maybe combine this with like the Warlock Quest alternate ending card (along with a random normal alternate ending card) so you have some other objectives to concentrate on during the game.

I also like JCHendee's nemesis idea, which could also be incorporated into this.

Neat.

Mattr... that's good point about trying to get through the whole deck. So I'm wondering what method you would use to randomize the deck. In theory, the deck has a balance for Enemies (by type), Objects, Strangers, etc. I suppose once could do something like shuffle all cards and take the top 104 for a standardized size, but then there wouldn't be a balance to it. It would still work, but some games would be overloaded with certain types of cards. Again, that might be okay for just the heck of it. But aside from trying to separate out all card types and mix them by standard proportions to make each game roughly the same challenge, do you have any other notions?

JCHendee said:

Hmm, yeah sorting through the different types would be too much work. You could maybe just use the base game cards only, as we know that is balanced, but I guess you would still have to sort out stuff each time, plus that would get old after a while. Other than that I can't really think of easy ways to do it.

I myself would probably just go with the "just for the heck of it" method, & randomize out like 100 Adventure cards, 30 Dungeon cards & 30 Spells (these are just hypothetical numbers as I haven't really put much thought into what type of numbers would work best). But I don't think this would be too bad. There's so many Adventure cards now with the expansions that the different types get a bit clumped even during normal games a bit. It doesn't seem to unbalance those games too much, just adds to the wackiness of Talisman. So I guess it would work well enough for my own personal tastes.

Then like I said, I'd probably always use the Warlock ending, a normal alt ending, & your nemesis idea. It might be pretty hectic, but so are most normal games of Talisman, heh.

I dunno, too unbalanced that way you think?

Hmm, though, thinking about it more, I guess the counter-argument for my Talisman normal games getting the piles a bit clumped is that EVENTUALLY you will hit some objects, or some enemies, etc. So even if it takes a bit you will still hit what you need since you are playing with all the cards. With randomizing the piles I guess you could end up with really bad luck & get like hardly any items or something.

So yeah, this method is far from perfect. Though I can't seem to think of any other really good ways. :/

Then I guess I'm not alone in the impossible balance thing. Couldn't think of an answer myself, though when playing "run the deck" style solo, it's probably still best to have a target count of cards that's MUCH LESS than the total Adventure deck with all expansions. And a target count let's one compare one game to the next... and we all know that comparing for whose win was "better" (not just faster) comes up around here. And at least with a count you'll know roughly how long the game will take if you have time constraints ... or until you die.

ASIDE: Anyone here have a notion of how many Adventure cards get run through, on average, in one game? Just ballpark. Of course it depends on number of players somewhat, but even that could be helpful as well. I'd say up to double used divided divided by players in a multiplayer game would be the max for solo play.

So basically we have three types of solo play, though they can be combined.

1. Run-the-Deck (with or without the difficulty "doubler" for negative spells and magic objects turned against you).
2. Nemesis (which requires option 1 or 3 or something else with it... unless you choose to play in "duel" mode where your are out to kill each other... and the first death ends the game).
3. Traditional Solo (just get to the endgame and maybe see how long it took, how well the character came out, etc.)

With these there are then 1) combos and 2) alternative endgames to use as well. Overall, that's a pretty good variety to choose from for solo play.

ASIDE: The advantage of the Nemesis as an addition or unto itself is that it eliminates the need of on the spot ruling of "negative" spells and magic objects. It puts the competition for solo play back where it belongs in Talisman's design. You play the game at the way it was designed, and whatever you end up with is to your advantage... or not so much. And the same for the Nemesis. On the other hand, it doubles the length of a solo game in some ways, since you have to play a character that isn't you and you don't want it to "win."

I haven't done too much solo play over the years in any edition, but I do like the notion of throwing in an new endgame on top of a nemesis. That will have to be tried! Are there other options or sub options, or does pretty much hit most of the possibilities?

I only ask because the issue of solo play for true Talisman fanatics always comes up, but it's been a while since people had a good talk about it.

If you have the Reaper expansion you have an enemy on the board, rule it so he is always moved towards your character when he must be moved. If you don't have the Reaper use a character that moves towards you on a roll of 6, and boost it up with 1d6 Str,Craft and Life...max spells too!

Use the Ice Queen on the CoC or use a character if you don't have her. Boost it like described above.

There is no way to make a rule for every contingency but the spirit of this version of the game is that the NPC is out to get you so any decisions made for it are against you!

The only problem I see with using a persona on the move, vs a semi-normal opponent is that it is too random and too potent. In a normal game with multiple players, its negative influence is divided and thereby counterbalanced. With only one player on the board, its influence may be to too intensified, making solo play too difficult. But... it is certainly viable for those who want to try it.

I like the "get through the adventure deck" idea, might need a bit of work, but a great suggestion.

For a simpler approach, you could play as per a normal game but race against the clock. Set a time limit - either in minutes, or in number of turns. Land on the CoC before time is up and you win. Die or fail to reach the CoC, you lose. Once you win, you can reduce the time/turn limit and try to beat your own record.

That's sound fine if you're into it. For me, an external time limit defeats the purpose of the game... the adventure along the way. It makes all the cards and spaces themselves pointless except for a pure number crunch.

Yeah, I can see your point. Really it was just a suggestion that would involve the fewest rule changes for someone to play solo.

If you're concerned that the story factor will suffer by playing against a time limit or turn count, you could always say that your character is trying to save the kingdom from some sort of magical catastrophe that will occur in X turns - maybe there's some extra-dimensional horror that a wizard locked away long ago, but prophecy says that the beast will be released the next time the planets are in a particular alignment. The only way to save the kingdom is to recover the Crown of Command before the planets line up.

Boom. There's your story factor for the time limit.

Well.... that's actually a good start for a "scenario." Now... just for curiosity, can you come up with something that actually starts to make that happen? How would that catastrophe begin to manifest along the way? Is someone or something causing it that has to be eliminate (which would be the standard way Talisman works... though its endgames are never rigged that completely)? Do effects come into play along the way to slowly make things harder and harder to complete the quest? How might you add effects in the game where the wizard, the thing, the event is trying to take control?

Do you see where I'm going here? Instead of a pure time limit, the game's purpose (more than just its endgame) is changed with a new challenge. I like the notion of story you've come up with (or rather premise, or conflict). That actual story would come out of what the player... the adventurer... does along the way... and presto... there's the real story that's a little different each time. That's Talisman Plus, when it becomes not a travelogue but an actual story. But that conflict has to manifest as something more than just accessing the deck. It doesn't even have to be based in adding new cards, commercial or homebrew. Maybe its laid out in just some simple rules for effects that are somehow triggered along the way.

What you're talking about could step beyond solo play into a full game that is competitive or cooperative or both for more than one player. I understand story, and its underlying structure and mechanics - its my livelihood. Though Talisman really isn't built for its full complexity, you've touched upon a key starting point that it has always lacked to make the story different by choice... by a plot.

For example: are there perhaps game based influences that make things harderer or altered along the way. They could even be setup as time based, where some influence comes in effect after specific counts of turns. That would certainly make the game faster and put urgency into a solo play.

Well, at the moment, no I don't have any more to add to my suggestion. I personally have not seriously thought about playing Talisman solo, but when I saw the thread the idea I posted just popped in and I thought I would toss it into the mix here. I figured either someone would try it out and report back on how it worked, or someone would add onto it or combine it with some of the other suggestions.

Your comments about having other time-based events or influences that affect the story during play are very interesting.

Okay, no problem... and as you say, someone will try it out eventually. Perhaps we'll hear back on it, though solo play isn't something done too often.