That's nice JC. I had forgotten about your other cards, so no problem with the addition to cope with those.

And a new card this time... are you there, H.B.? A little shift of title to fit someone who actually sells information versus just being a "gossip."

I'm really enjoying this thread. I've been checking it every day. At the rate that cards are being created, this will end up being a decent sized expansion.

Regarding the card backs: I like card back #1 & #3.

Regarding the Temple of Balance.:

The roll 3 dice option clearly reflects the lower end probabilities of rolling a "3 or 18" and the relative rewards & penalities. Giving up an Fate or Magic Object to gain an advantage to dice roll will certainly appeal to many player.

I've never seen the dice options on the other Temple of Balance card before but I appreciate the inventiveness of that particular game mechanic. Giving the player the option of rolling 1 or 2 dice is certainly intriguing. I like the fact that 1 die gives results that are more equal with less chance of bad penalty and a corresponding not over excessive bonus. Rolling two dice increases your chance of a greater reward and also your chance of a worst penalty. It would be interesting to see how players choose to roll, whether they go for the 1 or 2 dice option.

I think the concept of choosing 1 or 2 dice to roll could easily be applied to other cards and would add an additional twist to the game.

Finally home but too tired to throw anything new into the forum.

jondee98... I too like Dth's new mechanic of choosing dice, but with that, it should only be used for auto-gain/loss cards and not encounter generating cards. Choosing to avoid some possible encounters wouldn't be fair play. And the 2D6 range doesn't allow enough variation and... well, range to include those rare big effects like on the 3D6 version.

Both I think are better than the first version of ToB with its too severe probabilities. But in the balance (heh heh), I think the 3D6 with the option to tilt the scales for a price is probably the more interesting version, so I might stick with that version.

Still looking for a better illo for the Rumor-Monger. To fess up, that isn't one of my constructed images but a "borrowed" one... something I usually don't do. While I look for pieces to construct the Master at Arms for the Castle, I'm going to keep my eyes out for a replacement figure, background, and fixtures suitable to the nefarious lurker in the Tavern.

Tomorrow I will also post an inventory of how many cards we have so far by Space affected. I think at present we there are twenty cards total.

HinnyBoy... I thought of an additional notion for the Rumor-Monger, if acceptable, unless you (and others) prefer to see him remain purely about Quests.

==============================

"Pay him 1G for one of the following:

• If you have no Quest cards, you may draw 3. Choose 1 to keep or discard them all.
• Draw 1 Adventure card. Discard it immediately or keep it a secret, and when you next land on a space for drawing Adventure cards, encounter that card as if drawn there."

==============================

I've used this trick before on another card in an expansion, the idea being that you pay him to learn of something waiting out in the wild and where to find it. Of course, it all depends on if it is something you WANT to encounter. And you won't know until you pay him first.

Might be interesting to have this extra option for 1) groups that aren't playing with Quest cards, or 2) an adventurer who already has a Quest card and might be searching for something in the Adventure deck. For a gold, you get to learn a secret. Even if it isn't what you're after, it might be something of use, or you just get another card out of your way to speed up your search. Let's face it, if you get the quest to kill a dragon, and one isn't on the board, you are going to have to do some digging into that deck. Maybe you get lucking by paying the R.M.... instead of watching someone else draw and kill that dragon.

Thoughts?

JCHendee said:

OK, now I get what you are after. I completely misinterpreted the card. Mustn't the market (or peddler) be in play for you to buy a water bottle or raft with that mechanic?

The bunkroom is better now I believe. I don't completely understand what you mean by "enemy followers are always 'extra'". Do you pay one gold for each enemy follower? The parenthesis (only) seems unnecessary in my point of view.

I regard the Royal Court and Athenaeum complete if no one else has something to say. Nice exchange.

I think the catacombs didn't update (if that was your intention).

JCHendee said:

Still looking for a better illo for the Rumor-Monger. To fess up, that isn't one of my constructed images but a "borrowed" one... something I usually don't do. While I look for pieces to construct the Master at Arms for the Castle, I'm going to keep my eyes out for a replacement figure, background, and fixtures suitable to the nefarious lurker in the Tavern.

That's too bad, I like the card Rumour-monger card, it is full of atmosphere. I have faith you create an equally good image though. I like your new twist with drawing adventure cards. It also seems watertight rules-wise which can be a problem with these kind of new mechanics. Thumbs up.

As a side note: I think Talisman is written with British English spelling (for Rumour-monger vs. Rumor-monger, Crown & Sceptre vs Crown & Scepter) but that is really just details.

For the record, in respect of the card backs, I like 2 and 4 best.

The perfect one would be a combination of 2s background with 1s colouring

Ok, here is some feedback on the whole concept;

1. I really like the ideas here and all the cards are great. Expanding on the spaces in the game is brilliant and I especially like cards which add new ideas/feed into other expansions (like the Rumour Monger is wonderfully compatible with JC's Talisman's Quests expansion).

2. The roll 1d6 or 2d6 version of the Temple of Balance is exactly the kind of thing I was looking at. Good work. My thoughts here are that the mechanic is cool but shouldn't be employed too much. Perhaps 1 for each corner and the Temple? Its just that element of choice.

3. One of the principle ideas that JC has employed is limitations based upon your followers. This is something you'll see throughout his work. In any other game, I would totally be on board with it. Insofar as Talisman is concerned, I'm not so sure. Now I must stress that this is a personal issue for me (and my silly gaming group) and JC's idea is a sound one. And yet the thing for me is that it adds unnecessary complications and text to the cards. I'm all for adding new things to Talisman that keep in mind that Talisman is supposed to be a basic game.

So rules which roll 2d6 for combat etc, quests which require certain conditions other than simply going to a new location are all brilliant mostly because they don't actually add extra complication. Adding contingencies/book-keeping detract from the easy, stream-lined nature of the game. Perhaps that's just me? I don't know.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I don't want to sound negative because I really do think this is sterling stuff!

What I'm not going to do is go through every card, critiquing it and stating how I would change it. I did that for JCs Talisman Tasks expansion and it felt like I was nitpicking. I could do the same for this expansion but since so many people like the stuff that's been done, I'm inclined to believe that the changes I would propose perhaps aren't as widely accepted as I would have thought. In fact, I think its just my silly gaming group

I will be lurking in the shadows of this thread, monitoring the progress while I finish the sixth version of my own all new board game. Yes, version six...

Best Regards

DTH

Hinnyboy said:

Well, that card obviously needs some tweaking. And no, Market or Peddler shouldn't have to be in place to use the Market Square. Listing all prices on card could be troublesome, so I went for s shortcut... that obviously isn't working. Suggestions for replacement text? The idea is to have the Market Square be a place to buy anything not available through the Blacksmith or Horse Trader.

Hinnyboy said:

And another problem. I think the Followers are big loophole in the game that I've seen exploited too much, as previously noted. And characters with Enemy Followers have a particular advantage at times which should be balance in similar situational ways. But Dth is right, the Follower issue is just my personal peeve, so maybe it shouldn't be on the cards for general use.

Hinnyboy said:

I agreed unless someone spots and issue on those.

Hinnyboy said:

I took out the bookkeeping on losing a life for 3 turns if the Craft roll is failed. You may need to do a hard refresh/reload of the page to see it. Try doing a refresh while holding down you Control (PC) or Command (Mac) key. It now reads "If you fail, lose 1 Life or Fate." I may change that to "lose 1 Fate" vs the Mausoleum being a Strength roll and "lose 1 life" for failure. Both spaces are alignment limited, Since Chapel is a healing place, I can't see it taking a Life from those allowed there by Alignment, now that I think about it.

Hinnyboy said:

Okay, I'll add that in on the next edit. It's nice mechanic for "rumors" and didn't want to throw in yet another card just to add it. The R.M. seems like the kind of figure who'd offer both types of information. As to the image I used it is one put out by and obscure non-professional obviously playing with Poser 7 or 8. It wasn't very good, and the file was at least 4 years old. Had to rework it in 4 seperate passthrough layers to get to where it was. But the guy in background holding out a pouch of gold is almost lost. I'll see what I can come up with as I look for pieces to go on the Master at Arms.

Hinnyboy said:

Oh yes, that's a good spot! Need to keep those little things consistent in the game. Keep and eye out for such things.

And Dth, for TT, I needed that nitpicking, so THANK YOU! But certainly if you don't see anything in a card that would go against what most groups would find playable then there's no need to cover every card with a comment. And I'm still waffling on the ToB as to whether you option roll or the sacrifice mechanic with 3D6 would appeal to most players. The 3D6 has those extreme results that the 1D/2D option doesn't have room for... but the 1D/2D might be the cleaner approach... if any other groups out there feel the standard Temple roll is too much in what it does.

For my own preference on card back, I was leaning toward #4, but most people here like the map details, so I'll work with those in combination with the average preference for variation in color saturation and depth of color contrast. Now that I'm home and recovering for the trip, I will try to work out something on that as well. I'll have some new card edits later today while watching for any new comments. For now... look to the next post for an inventory of where we are and potentials (if desired) for other spaces.

Space Expanders Inventory
Total Cards: 22

Temple (4): Athenaeum, Altar of Powers, Fount of Powers, Temple of Balance

Tavern (2): Bunkroom, Card Sharp

Chapel (1): Catacombs

Black Knight (1): Darkest Knight

Desert (2): Desert of Fate, Desert of Faith

Village (3): Herbalist, Rumour-Monger, Storehouse

City (5): Horse Trader, Port, Market Square, Sewers, Sheriff

Graveyard (1): Mausoleum

Castle (2): Master at Arms, Royal Court

Oasis (1): Sheikh

City and Temple have the the largest count, followed by the Village; City and Village are the highest populations, so those make some sense. If we were to add more cards, maybe targeting for at least 24, we should probably look to spaces other than those three. Maybe there are spaces were haven't look at, or maybe the above list are the best.

The Desert spaces and the Oasis are the only draw spaces modified so far, but they are rather unique spaces overall versus Woods, Plains, etc. The one for the Oasis is actually interactive with cards drawn and the Raiders card as well, so quite suitable for a multiple draw space (I think).

The standard roll spaces (Forest, Crags, Chasm) I'm not sure should be messed with, as at least two will likely be entrances for future commercial expansions. The only thing I see there would be an expanded encounter roll table, but even that might not be necessary (though it still might appeal to some groups). Ruins and Runes also remain, if we wanted to go after more draw spaces, though that's questionable. Warlock's Cave probably shouldn't be messed with. I'll leave it at that for others to think over and comment on.

I don't think it would hurt if you wanted to add in cards for the Forest, Crags and Chasm spaces, even if they were just 2d6 spaces to add a little variety to the game. If you wanted to stick at 24 for the time being, just make it the Forest and Crags...

Don't know about others, but I'm not married to any card count limit. And roll cards for the Forest, Crags, and Chasm might actually be fun if something interesting could be added to encounters. Likely the probability of being lost should remain the same if expanding to a 2D6 table. Actually, as far as I'm concerned, anything goes if it would be appealing to more than just a single groups of players.

A note on terminology: After some terms being pointed out, I realized another habit of mine that could confuse others. I use the term "adventurer" on cards in my expansions, but it is explained in the documentation included. This might not be suitable for a general purpose expansion. Should that be changed, and if so, should the term "player" or "character" be used instead? Consistency of terms throughout components of a single expansion is probably a good idea.

talismanisland said:

Seconded!

JC - you remember when you were working on your cut down board?

Surely, SURELY, you might want to revisit that using your custom space expanders, so you have a random board every game? Or even just "Travel Talisman"

Yeah, okay... but that board has been sitting fallow for a while now... that says something. Some day I'll get back to it.

The space expanders I think are a better place to go for now, though our little diningroom table is overwhelmed with just the main board, the dungeon, and four players. (Six players gets ugly with the elbows flying; for eight we have to go to the floor... and old foggies whine a lot... including me.)

So... what could be done with the Forest, Crags, and Chasm? Since it keeps coming up... who has a starting point? Or something for any other space for that matter.

Haven't had time for cards today; was overwhelmed prepping to rip out carpet and put in fold'n'lock manufactured hardwood. They said six hours for a 10'+ by 10+' room. Yeah... right.

A notion occurred to me for the Crags and Forest. It could work for either a 1D6 or 2D6, though the latter allows more outcomes. Instead of a straight roll, you add your current Strength or Craft as well. Thereby, as Strength or Craft skill points (tokens) are accumulated, the less likely it is that you pick up another free one and the more likely you don't miss a turn. In addition, maybe you keep missing a turn on extremely low rolls and also have less chance of missing on high rolls. Thereby Strength and Craft accumulation reaches a point where you can't miss a turn but you are also less likely to pick up a freebie.

Currently, there's a 16.7% chance of gaining a Craft or Strength. The median on a Starting Strength or Craft range based on 1 to 6 is 3.5. The average on a 2D6 roll is 7, so a roll of 10.5 is the mid-line for a 2D6 + S or C.

Example:

2-3 Lost; Miss a Turn and then roll again
4 Lost; Miss a Turn
5
6
7
8
9 A [whatever] leads you out.
10 You discover a way out; Gain a Strength (Craft)
11 On your next turn, you may move 1 space instead of rolling a die
12+ Nothing happens

Thoughts?

Some new card edits... don't forget to do a hard refresh if you don't see the changes. Still working on the Master at Arms graphic.

And finally....

JCHendee said:

I like the concept. I was going to suggest a slight amendment, however, after thinking about it, I believe you nailed it.

If you go the d6 vs 2d6 risk/reward, you have have the 2d6 have some fights/automatic life lost but have an opportunity to gain Craft, where as on a d6 roll, the worst that can happen is missing a turn (conversely, the best result would be having your next turn as normal).

Yeah, the trick is what to use to fill the different slots of probability. If one takes out the +3 for starting attribute, the roll of 7 (which is 10) is the highest probability for a roll. As the characters two attributes rise, it has less of a chance of getting lost AND less of chance of learning something thereby to gain a Strength or Craft. But also less of chance of other things as well... which might be boring. But I guess that might be acceptable and another tiny hint that its time to move on to the Middle Region. Now, to fill those other roll slots with....???

Oh, and I just realized that on that table a roll of 2 is impossible, and a roll of 3 is very unlikely, so perhaps the table should start at "4 or less"???

I've also started reducing or eliminating some Follower effects I added on other cards (besides their count). I figured the Tavern is enough of a rough and tumble place that Enemy Followers might be tolerated. Still like making adventurers face consequences for some of the extreme stuff they haul around, but most groups wouldn't want to go so far. Also aligned the cost of the Port with that of the Bunkroom (it was originally 1G for yourself and then extra for any Followers, limit of 3). If you can think of any card that needs like adjustments (and an edit hasn't been put in the topic), remind me. Remember the hard refresh to see the changes.

I wanted to cover another issue; Bantha earlier on mentioned the notion of using a different sized/dimension card. Below is a proportional graphic showing this notion in comparison. The alternative card you see is one I quickly slapped together by "stretching" that standard temple. Up close it doesn't look so good and would need a more careful redimensioning. There are advantages and disadvantages.

The City space (as an example) is about 2.8" x 4.3" from border line to the outside edge of the text scroll. A typical card is 1.65" x 2.5". The square card is 2.5" x 2.5".

The square card does allow more room for text, and can even have formatting more like a space. Multiple columns would be easier as well for a roll table non-standard paragraphs. On the work side, illustrations need to be reconstruction to fit new dimensions. For the one shown, I merely resized it and that won't work for all of them. I'm fine with that, but is it worth it?

As you can see, the square card covers up a fair amount of the space's standard instructions. This might be acceptable for cards that replace space instructions, but most of ours are additional options and modifications to a space. The only replacement card so far (that I remember off hand) is the Darkest Knight. If we also did the Forest, Crags, and/or Chasm, those are narrow spaces and the square card might protrude into nearby spaces.

I don't know how others feel, so I put these images up to demonstrate. Overall, I think the deficits slightly outweigh the benefits of a non-standard card size. Any other thoughts?

Great thread, I've read through everything and enjoy the ideas greatly.

As ideas for Forest and Crags space expanders are now being discussed, allow me to throw some ideas out there.

Forest - Faerie Glade

Encounter the Forest as normal. If you are "lost", you cannot encounter the Faerie Glade.

You may trade objects for spells. If you trade magic objects, you may draw 2 spells and choose one to keep.

You may trade spells for objects from the purchase deck. You must trade 2 spells for Weapons or Armor.

Crags - Dragon Nest

Replace the original instructions on the Crags with the following.

Whenever you are defeated by a Dragon on this space, you must drop 1 Object or 1 Gold on this space.

You may only pick up Objects or Gold on this space when you defeat a Dragon, or when you roll a 5.

1 - Fight the Elder Dragon, Strength 10.

2 - Fight a Dragon, Strength 7.

3 - Lost in the Crags, lose your next turn.

4 - Fight a Dragon Hatchling, Strength 4.

5 - Found the Dragons' hoard. You may pick up Objects and Gold on this space; OR gain 3 Gold.

6 - Summon any enemy in the game with the key word "Dragon" to this space and fight it; OR gain 1 Strength.

Forest - Druid Circle

Encounter the Forest as normal. If you are "lost", you cannot encounter the Druid Circle.

You may have the Druids perform a Change of Nature ritual. Roll a die and use the following results:

1 - Lose 1 Fate and 1 Life

2 - Become Evil

3 - Become Neutral

4 - Become Good

5 - Become the Alignment of your choice

6 - Become the Alignment of your choice and gain 1 Fate and 1 Life.

Crags - Dragon's Challenge

Encounter the Crags as normal. If you are "lost", you cannot encounter the Dragon's Challenge.

An Eastern Dragon roosting here challenges you to a duel. You may choose not to accept.

The Eastern Dragon is Craft 6 and Strength 6. You must fight it with your weakest stat. On a tie, fight it with Craft.

If you lose, you must drop a Magic Object or 2 Gold on this space in addition to losing 1 Life.

If you win, you may have the Eastern Dragon steal a Magic Object or 2 Gold from any player in the region and give it to you.

Welcome, B.D.!

Overall, I like the Faerie Glade the best on the trade of an object for a spell, and m.object for draw 2, keep 1. Then again, maybe its partly because of a couple of cards I've done in the past having to do with the Fay Queen in the Forest. Not so certain about Spells for Objects on the flipside, as likely most players wouldn't use it. Spells are hard to come by for most non-mages/theurges without that ol' "always have 1 spell."

The others seem sound enough. I'm not crazy about the Druid Circle for my own games, but that might find favor with some groups. Few if any take Alignment seriously in Talisman, and it is somewhat like the Talisman druid itself... very schizophrenic versus a true druid.

Let's see if others have some feedback as well. There may be a way to merge ideas, since I don't know if it's desirable to all to have more than one card for those spaces. On the other hand, yours are the most complete notions so far for those spaces. And then I can look at illustration and formatting them.

Re: Standard or Square card sizes. Standard for me for sure.

Thanks for the welcome JC! I'm an out-of-work video game designer, coming up with ideas like this helps to keep me from going nuts.

Just wanted to comment on one thing you said:

JCHendee said:

True, the Alignment concept is underused in Talisman, even though free healing / free fate is not to be scoffed at. Nevertheless, the 4th edition Druid is one of my favorite core classes, in large part because of the ability to change Alignment on a whim (the max spells on Woods being awesome, of course).

This may be a topic for another thread, but I have been thinking that there should be more alignment-based stuff to do / get in Talisman. Maybe you might consider an Expander card that allows you to take quests with different flavors for different alignments (e.g. "damage a character" for evil vs "Give Gold to a character" for good), or universal quests with differently flavored rewards based on alignment. Tell me what you think, or ask me to move the topic elsewhere for conversation.

All looking good. Got lost a bit with all the dice roll stuff. Probably because I am so tired. Still working at 1am and up at 6. Sigh

I still thing they need to stand out more. So I thought (and this may well be a very bad idea, I've not thought it through)

what about standing them vertically ?

I guess the biggest problem might be that they get in the way of arms/beer etc.

Black Dawn said:

Welcome Black Dawn.

Oh boy are you asking the right person..

I don't remember the thread(s) but JC is waay ahead of you on that one....

Black Dawn said:

I like it, but even though I'm the champion of Neutral being more than the "alignment of no alignment," I think Talisman has limits even I can't find a good way to extend. I won't go too far off topic, but my first expansion (In the Balance, a revised "2.0" now in the works) tried to give Neutral a little something similar to the benefits for Good and Evil. But that's about as far as I could take it without breaking the game. The notion of aligned quest is intriguing but also too complicated (at a guess) to attract many players. All of us "brewers" like to bend things a bit, but we try (to differing degrees) to remember one thing:

If few play it, what's point of destributing it instead of just keeping it for my own game?

That goes double when we team up on an expansion like this one, which doesn't happen often for a lot of reasons. With this many people involved in the making, before even the playing, what comes out of it needs to appeal more widely... even though we all know users of fan expansions are minor minor minority of players.

So I think I'll take pass on the aligned quests option. Between In the Balance and Talisman Tasks, I think I've gone as far off of Talisman's mainstream as I should with Alignment and Quests (separately)... even for my deviant group and three test groups abroad.

BanthaFodder said:

Uhmm I think you lost me completely on this one. Maybe its just a lot of crossing conversations... or my brains clouded by paint fumes from redoing our home office.

Anyway, I think the standard card size is going to be the better road. When you add in the card sleeve method for making home made cards, it tips the balance away from non-standard card sizes.

So that leaves any notions for additional cards. It think the Chasm (boring as it can be) is probably not a doing one. Forest and Crags maybe with some expanded roll, and I'll think on those a bit with the rest of you. Maybe there's a crossover of notions that will lead to something. Other than that, I think the 22 cards so far are roughly settled... maybe?