So, I don't really have 60+ bucks to buy the new edition of Talisman to play these expansions. Nor did I understand that I could not play this expansion I bought, with my own Talisman. The biggest question I have is, if I bought the Upgrade Pack, for the 4th edition, will it work just as fine with my 1st edition Talisman?

These two editions are somewhat similar but there are differences as well. It would be like trying to play poker with a tarot deck. So in short: no, they are not compatibile.

BUT...

They are close enough that if you are willing to sit down and tweak with them it should be possible to merge them into one. It all depends on what expansions you want to use, which set of rules you want to use (old or the new ones), if you are willing to create 1ED versions of R4ED cards etc.

You can get the new rules in PDF format from FFG support page (here) . Buying upgrade pack might help - you will get all new Adventure, Spell, Character and other cards along with Character miniatures and more importantly Fate tokens which didn't exist in 1ED.

Main board in 4ED has exactly the same layout as the 1ED but is much bigger (roughly twice the area) which may make it difficult to fit big corner boards from 4ED expansions around 1ED board. Also the space instructions were somewhere altered a little (like drawing card on the Desert).

As for the expansions themselves there shouldn't be any problem with small ones - The Reaper and The Frostmarch. They just add more Adventure cards, few more Characters and few additional rules. The Dungeon however is completly different than a 1ED one. It has roughly twice the spaces and four times the Dungeon cards. You even enter it and move through it differently. And it has the end boss .

So, yeah. You can do it if you are willing to commit your time and brain power You will miss out on the beautifull new artwork on the main board and out-of-the-box compatibility but I've seen and done myself stranger things than that.

Lastly, you might want to browse through ebay. If you are lucky you may save quite a bunch on the main game or a whole bundle with all expansions. Definitely worth a shot.

I hope this helps

I have 4th edition, first edition (no fate). A friend bought me the upgrade pack and it all seems to work well. Though I didn't want to put the stickers on my board that change the die rolls for some of the praying areas. This makes regaining fate a bit tougher.

I feel it should work very well with the very first edition of Talisman, as I believe the boards are identical, from what memory serves. (20 years ago)

To be honest, I don't trust Ebay, Amazon I trust more, but you are still leaving your money in other people's hands without have the product up front and personal. YOu are trusting in other people's honor.

Well, I guess I'll have to save my money and let dust collect on the expansion I bought, which is the Dungeon one. It really depresses me that I have to go and spend MORE money to enjoy stuff. Why can't things come easy, eh?

Here is the text of my post on another recent thread (started by coasteray) which may be of interest:

"Some initial thoughts...

The 14 characters in the base 4th edition game are the same as in 1st/2nd edition. In Revised 4th edition the characters are almost the same except for the addition of Fate points and a couple of tweaks (eg Monk now only adds his starting Craft to Strength in battle not his total Craft). Also in Revised 4th Edition some of the Adventure cards and Spells have been tweaked (most notoriously, Raiders are not as dangerous now). The Revised 4th edition board also has a few changes to integrate the Fate rules, but many players who don't like the Fate rules just refer back to the earlier board versions.

Overall, though, there is a large degree of compatibility between all editions. The main problem of integration is the different card backs and sizes. You could just simply shuffle everything together - it won't look pretty, but there is a sufficiently large number of cards so that predicting what is coming next will be nigh-impossible other than what set the card came from. I guess certain specific cards may need to be removed to avoid confusion between versions, though you could always agree that each card is played as written, even if there are slightly different versions within the same deck.

Hope that helps."