How do the two compare? My main reason for never picking up 4ed is that 3rd was really just a roll and move game and, if I wanted something a little more tactical, I already have Runebound.

Well you dont need it at all, but it just depends how much you like Talisman. This version, the revised 4th edition, is very very nice, there is lots of new cards and lots of small modifcations, and some quite big modifications (such as the introduction of fate), but overall, its still role and move.

I have all of the 3rd edition, and all of 1st/2nd edition (except dragons exp), I intend to get all of this edition too, but thats me, I like Talisman.

Personally I probably wouldn't have bought this edition of the game if I had already owned one of the older editions. Being as I didn't, though, I jumped at the opportunity for a shiny new edition. =)

Mechanically it's almost entirely the same as previous editions I've played. There's the Fate thing Yyami mentioned, and some new mechanics introduced in expansions like the Reaper, but by and large it's the same game IMHO.

You may even be able to take a small expansion like Reaper and kitbash it into 3rd edition if you want to do that. The cards won't match, of course, but you could print up your own ideas base don those or come up with some way to make them work (sleeves maybe?) The rules for the Reaper himself would probably work just as well in 3e as the do in 4e.

I doubt that idea would work so well with the bigger expansions like Dungeon and Highlands, but if you already have everything for 3e, you probably don't want those anyway. =)

Personally, I find this to be a lot better than 3rd edition (which my wife was kind enough to buy for me as a birthday present). 3rd edition was in many ways a cut down version of 2nd edition, with better components and a lot of rules cleanup but somehow I found it to be less fun. 4.5 is shaping up to be my favourite Talisman; particularly as more expansions get released. Really, I think that FFG are a lot better at play testing than Games Workshop were.

vandimar77 said:

Hah!

They have been getting better lately, but FFG's older games (by which I mean two years ago and older) make so many mistakes one wonders if they were playtested at all. Even recent material occasionally slips, such as Sea of Blood printing two independent images back to back on one tile - images which are required to be used both at the same time in at least a couple places. The majority of the cleanliness in Talisman I credit to the fact that they're building on three previous editions of the game, expanding and refining a ruleset that had already been through the ringer for over two decades.

Games Workshop (in my experience) writes some pretty solid core mechanics. If they have one flaw (one huge, glaring, embarrassingly obvious flaw) it's that they have no concept of self-restraint when it comes to power creep. Every sourcebook or expansion they create does everything in its power to outdo the past material, and as such things get ridiculous very fast. If you try playing 40k or WHFB with nothing but the core rulebook of any given edition it's actually pretty tight.

Talisman - in particular 2e, which is the one I spent most of my time playing before 4.5 - was solid as a base game. Dungeon was good. City was a little crazy but it worked. Timescape was just stupid. Those were all the expansions I ever saw in the old edition, so I can't speak to the 2e version of highlands or forest (if they even existed.)

Steve-O said:

They diddnt exist in R2, but these corner board expansion idea was in R3