So I was looking through one of the Arkham Horror expansions I had and thought of a nifty idea i'd love to see implemented somehow. In AH, one of the expansions introduces these cards that correspond to a particular playable character and contain objectives unique to them. Upon completion of these objectives, they get a permanent bonus.

This sounds like something that could be introduced into Talisman with entertaining results! I'm thinking of two decks of cards, one where each card has a written quest that corresponds to a different character and are assigned at the beginning of play (a Mission Deck, if you will), the other with the corresponding personal quest reward card (let's call it the Paragon Deck) you get after completion. These bonuses essentially become a permanent character ability or bonus! Unlockable character abilities sound amazing and could be just the thing to spice up those characters some feel are a little sluggish in the power-department. Some examples:

Mission Card: Sylvan Whispers
Character: Elf
Quest: Visit 3 Woods spaces, then visit the Forest and miss a turn. You may use your ability to teleport to other Woods spaces to accomplish this

Paragon Card: Elven Archery
Character: Elf
Benefit: If you begin your turn in a space that has an Enemy or character in an adjacent space, you may use your turn to stay in your space and encounter them, even though you are not in the same space as them. If you lose, the encounter is treated as a stand-off. If an Enemy is killed, you may take it as a trophy, but you may not take any items in that space. If you defeat a character with this ability, you may only force them to lose a life. Spaces are only adjacent to each other if you could move into them with a movement roll of 1 (so you could not use this ability to attack across the Storm River unless it is on the Sentinel firing into the Hills in the Middle Region)

********
Mission Card: A Tankard or Three
Character: Dwarf
Quest: Discard 3 gold at the Tavern and roll 3 die. Miss a turn for each dice that results in a 4, 5, or 6.

Paragon Card: Dwarven Constitution
Character: Dwarf
Benefit: Any Armour worn by you has its range of protection increased by 1. For example, a helmet would protect on 1 or 2, armor would protect on a 3, 4, 5, or 6, etc.. In addition, any card or space that says you are poisoned doesn't affect you and you cannot get drunk and miss a turn when visiting the Tavern.

********
Mission Card: Scholastic Pursuits
Character: Philosopher
Quest: Visit the Village, the City, and the Castle in that order and miss a turn in each.

Paragon Card: Scholarly Focus
Character: Philosopher
Benefit: Whenever you draw a spell, instead of discarding one you do not wish to keep and drawing another one, you may draw a second one and choose which one you want to keep. In addition, once per turn you may ignore effects that rob or drain you of your spells

********
Mission Card: Dark Secrets
Character: Warlock
Quest: Accumulate enough Spirits with a total Craft of 15 as trophies and discard them at the Warlock's Cave (without gaining any Craft counters)

Paragon Card: Fiendish Reserves
Character: Warlock
Benefit: Your maximum number of spells you can possess increases to 4. This extra spell slot is not dependent on total Craft.

********
Mission Card: The Reddest Wine
Character: Vampiress
Quest: Drain the life of 3 followers while visiting the Graveyard. You do not have to have health missing to accomplish this.

Paragon Card: Children of the Night
Character: Vampiress
Benefit: You can assume a bat swarm form in combat. Enemies and characters must beat you by at least 2 in battle or psychic combat or else it is considered a stand-off. In addition you may ignore effects that change your alignment.

********
And so on and so on. Adding flavor text to the quest card may be a good way to establish a bit of immersion and understanding as to the character you're playing and their motivations for going after the crown of command. If you want to get super ritzy, you could include TWO different paragon cards per person, and they have to CHOOSE a benefit to take when completing their Mission. I realize these benefits are pretty overpowering, but I feel a hard enough mission to complete should grant a correspondingly powerful ability, especially for characters generally considered weaker than others.

Cheers!

A couple of variations on such "task" oriented cards have been made by others before. I don't know the location to find all of them. I did one called "Talisman Tasks" as an alternative for the old Quest cards before the new "Rewards" cards were issue. In each case, the type of reward was on the "Task" card itself and the reward matched the task in some way rather than being randomly drawn.

So far, some of these seem interesting, though without additional mechanics of movement for completing them, rather than just random luck in movement, they will not appeal much to most players. I ran into that stumbling block as well, and in the end had to come up with some additional movement mechanics and requirements where tasks were concerned. And still, TT ended up a niche expansion, loved by the few, ignored by the majority, and almost none in between.

Additional Special Ability cards, which had a cost and conditions to be met to activate them was also something else I tried. In most cases, since the abilities didn't just activate upon gaining them, most players weren't interested. (For both tasks and abilities I designed a new card template to fit the games motif.) What can I say... Talisman is built on drawing freebies straight out of the deck that can be used immediately with no effort. Anything more difficult to put into use gets ignored.

Talisman isn't really a "quest" game, since a quest takes effort and requires some actual control over doing something. Most Talisman players want something fast and free... the game inherently is built for that. There is also the factor that such ability cards when given away like that unbalance the game, as any type of randomness in their acquisition could mean a sudden activation of a game tilt that just leaves other characters out in the cold. Rigging them to specific characters rather than available for all to try for accentuates that imbalance.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try these if you and yours find them a fun idea. I'm just sharing what's come and gone before, what happened to such, and why some weren't popular even before they were finished... or revised the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. time.

There was (/is) a small expansion for 2ED that goes in that direction but is very simple and only gain is gold. It's called Talisman Contracts and can be found at Talisman Island . It required City expansion though and was just another way to get (more) gold

JC is right of course. There aren't too many players interested in long and complicated sessions of Talisman but for those few of us who don't play the game like it was intended it might be an interesting addition.

I agree with JC and Felis but a funny idea that I also have played with in my mind. I came to think of the 3ED title cards that you could earn in the city expansion.

cheers

i think that is a great idea that builds on the whole idea of each character but again some seem like they would be easier or more worth while to complete and others would be pointless to complete since its based on certain characters instead of just being like the upgrade characters in the the city expansion