< Disclaimer >

I like my games consistent and I like to split hair . If you don't care for either of those you may stop reading now

< /Disclaimer >

Release of Highland expansion marks an advent of the new class of Objects - Trinkets.

Me personally, I love the idea. I hated the four object limit since the first time I've played Talisman. I have problem, however, with the way this idea was executed. Haven't some of the Objects got the Trinket quality too easily? Shouldn't some of the old Objects get this quality retroactively?

Let's see what the Trinkets are and what they supposed to be in the game designers' mind. We have no way of knowing how the creative process looked like but we can extrapolate from the finished product.

Most of the Trinkets fall into two categories (I'll discuss exceptions later): precious / magical stones or single use potions. Precious stones (Opal, Ruby, Emerald, Diamond) are pretty straightforward - it's just a gold in different form. Gold doesn't take a room in inventory and so precious stones don't either. Magical stones ( Spell Stone, Dawnstone, Luckstone) and all the potions are "single use" - they have to be discarded after they are used up. Makes sense they don't take the precious inventory space since they work a little like a Spells. In addition - from the adventurer's point of view all of the above are small items that can be stuffed in your pocket or tucked in the folds of the robe and shouldn't be treated like a sword or plate mail in terms of encumbrance. There are few other Trinkets that meet the "small/single use" condition : Dragon's Teeth, Ring of Protection and Dragon's Eye. I'm a little uneasy about their "Trinket" status but they're not the worst of the lot so I'll leave them for now.

Now there is Crystal Shard and Eagle Talon. Both give you constant bonus to Craft or Strength and don't take inventory space. There are other Objects that do the same but for a price of one inventory slot. Unbalanced? Maybe it was intentional - to give us some incentive to go to the Highland - but to me it feels unbalanced.

And than there is Ice Sceptre! Sceptre is a blunt, impact, hand weapon. I should know - I played paladin in Diablo 2 . Picture on the card looks positively vicious. Why the blazes it is Trinket?!? The idea behind this card is nice - a type of enchantment that don't take space and changes any of your weapon (or your brain in case of Psychic Combat) into Frostbite sword from Frostmarch expansion. But the name and the feel of the card should be completely different. Right now we have a weapon that is not a Weapon (mind the capitalisation), that don't give you Strength bonus and which you can stuff in your pocket. Ridiculous.

OK. Enough of the new Trinkets. Let's look at the Objects from the previous expansions that could or should be made Trinkets retroactively.

First obvious group would be potions: Elixir of Wrath and Elixir of Rage from Dungeon deck, Elixir of Wisdom from Reaper expansion and Potion of Strength from base game. All of them are in essence a single-use potions (pun not intended) and should be treated like the ones from Highland expansion.

If we agree on the "small/single-use" description of the Trinkets (and I would emphasize "single-use" rather than "small") things will become a little fuzzy. What exactly is "small" enough to count as Trinket? Some items shouldn't pose a problem - Spell Ring and Weighted Dice from Dungeon deck, Lucky Charm from Frostmarch expansion - all small and pocketable. What about Scroll of Exile from Dungeon and Royal Decree from Frostmarch? What about Book of Wizardry from Frostmarch or Rod of Ruin and Staff of Mastery from Reaper? All of them "single-use". Where is the fine line between balancing and breaking the game?

That's why I was uneasy about the Trinkets. Idea in itself is great and have great potential but it should be implemented from the very beginning and with more consistency.

So that's me. What are your thoughts?

I actually love the implementation. Sure some of the old objects may seem not as potent in comparison. Then you have to think of how far ahead are the game designers thinking?

I am pretty sure they could always throw out a trinket expansion which would give additional trinkets to each deck.

Heck they may do that with the next expansion pack. Then again they could wait and do a cross over pack which will give all kinds of cards to all the decks.

I love the trinket idea.

It's something that only the Highland has ( at least for now)

i am still waiting for my copy..

I feel for you. I hope you get it soon. Though it will be worth the wait.

As of Highland, most of my group has decided to give up verisimilitude due to some of the things you mentioned. Sure, I’m keeping true to my name, and we’re keeping a lot of home rules. However, we’re doing this for the “fun” aspect, not the “real” aspect anymore.

We had tons of Special Rules to prevent you from insta-grabbing any items from mules, rules to prevent swinging a sword, yet it’s protected by the concealed pouch, rules that the assassin can’t “sneak up” on creatures that encounter’s him ergo, can’t assassinate and so on (insta grabbing, swinging a concealed sword, assassinating draw cards, all RAW in the rules, if I understand it right). Actually, trinkets caused the death of many of these, because it brought up your very points. Should the Ring of +1 ST +1 CR be a trinket? Should the scrolls? Lots of questions.

I’ll admit, that was just too much work to come up with pages and pages of home rules / exceptions, and then, we’d start to shudder at the thought of new expansions, and the rules cascades we’d have to revise and create to compensate for the newest thing, instead of “Cool. This is what rule-X is going to be… today.” with each expansion. I also agree it would have been nice if they’d thought of some of those rules from day 1, and that it’s obviously something they are doing to keep selling expansions, but hey, whatever keeps the Franchise going.

So, far, +3 (2 Red, 1 Blue; or the reverse) is the best weapon out there. I have no doubt, we’ll eventually see +4 weapons, maybe even +5. See it like a computer game. You buy an expansion, and you get more levels, and bigger spells / weapons. Sure, it throws away the base game, but, at the end of the day, the company has to keep selling. I do look forward to any ideas you have about home rules about trinkets though. I think as a community we can all benefit from great ideas.

As a side note, we've gone a little the other way on one point. We've ruled that all "rings" are now Trinkets... but also that a Trinket carried by a Follower or in baggage does count against that Followers or bag's load. I know, since when would someone give a Trinket to a Follower since it doesn't count against Object limit... but well, some instances have come up for strange reasons. Some characters can use abilities that might require leaving something aside (we have a rule sometimes used where only one of a type of adornment - crown, ring, brace(let), etc. - can be worn at anytime).

It's a very simple rule and doesn't amount to much fuss - Ring = Trinket. We've also ruled that a weapon (or for more future nonsense, any type of tool that must be gripped) is never a Trinket. In general, something that would fit in your coin pouch could be a Trinket. As to documents, the fold up and tuck inside you vestment. A book is another matter and would never be a trinket by size, whether one use or not.

As to the rest mentioned, I really have no more ideas at this point. But if it goes too far towards the ridiculous in online and offline gaming... might as well play a video game instead. Our group likes Talisman for a boardgame, not a videogame knock off. We have videogames already for that and buy boardgames for an entirely different set of reasons and desires. I'm guessing my group isn't the only one that feels this way.

Felis said:

I should also point out that the concept of Objects that do not count against limit are not something new that FFG came up with. It has been done to death for a long long time in the fan community. And therein, there are variations on standards created. It's not easy to come up with standards that cover all possibilities, but I agree that even for the Highlands cards unto themselves, there is a lack of perceivable consistency and standards for what should qualify as a Trinket.

I'm not hopeful, but... wouldn't it be nice if they released a free update, printable, for previous cards that might or could be considered Trinkets as well. The Potion of Stength would certainly be a possibility, regardless that the bottle in the image would not fit in a coin pouch or pocket.