Ok, played Talisman (4th ed revised) with all its expansions for the first time with a new group and there are a few topics that I wanted to get a clear answer for.

Temple, a player who enters the temple and rolls a 5 to become enslaved or becomes the target of the various card that mimics the temple enslavement. Do you roll 1 Dice and become free on a 4 5 6 or do you follow what the space says and must roll 2d6 and hope to get a total of 4 5 6?

Warlock Quests, the card says Deliver (Discard) one follower/Object/etc. When cards list Discard, does that mean drop on the space you are on, or toss into the discard pile? So for the warlock quest, what is the meaning of Discard?

Warhorse, same question as above, it says if the player is beaten in combat you must discard the warhorse. Is it saying you are simply knocked off it and its now on that space to be picked up, or is the warhorse "killed" and discarded to the discard pile. Events and strangers have that nice easy saying "And then goes to the discard pile" so we are confused as to what discard means when its stated on the card by itself.

Spells, is there a limit to the number of spells that can be cast per turn? Could a sprite cast all its spells, draw new ones and cast them, and continue to do so?

Neodarkside said:

You roll 1 die for your normal movement. On a 4-5-6 you move that number of spaces, on a 1-2-3 you remain enslaved and Turn ends.

If you don't roll the die for movement, the FAQ state that you roll one die just to get free from enslavement with a 4-5-6 and then you move 1 space only (with Poltergeist or in Toad form).

Neodarkside said:

"Discard" is always on the discard pile.

Neodarkside said:

Yes, the limit is clarified at page 13 of Rulebook:

"The maximum number of Spells a character may cast during his turn is equal to the number of Spells he had at the start of that turn. A character may only cast one Spell during another character’s turn."

Thanks, that cleared up those questions, had another about spells but I don't have the card names, but I can at least describe them. A player has 2 spells, he casts one that targets another player, I retaliate by casting the spell that forces that player to lose all spells, can he cast his last spell and what order do the spells go in? I will look for the actual spell names when I get the time.

Talisman uses queue instead of stack. You can't do anything "in the response", like many players are used to from other games (MtG for example).

When you play a spell, it takes effect immidiately. The only exceptions are spells which have text that says "cast it after someone else casted a spell. Counter that spell" etc. In your example player A who owns 2 spells cast spell number one. It takes effect. You play spell number two targeting this player. It takes effect, this player has to discard his last spell. And he can't play this spell (unless this is counterspell etc)

Yes, that's the general rule.

Many questions will raise when casting Spells, but you have to make your group aware that a Spell, once cast, is active. It can only be stopped by Counterspell or Reflection. Assuming that a cast Spell is working, you can use other Spells to influence the result of that Spell, but they cannot contradict or counteract a Spell that's working.

Example: I cast Marked for Glory before rolling the die for combat. Another Character casts Freeze that says I cannot roll the die. That's not possible, because Marked for Glory increases my die roll. If you want me not to roll the die, you should have cast Freeze first and I wouldn't have had the possibility to cast Marked for Glory (since I do not roll the die, actually).

Is there priority? Does the person who’s turn it is get to choose which spell is cast 1st? Or is it the 1st person who says they are casting a spell or yells it louder get to go 1st since 2 people trying to cast a spell at the same time might say they are casting spells at the same time. The yelling/faster option seems silly. Like if player A is waiting to cast vindication on Player B and right at the start of Player B's turn, Player C says he is playing Nullify on Player A at the exact same time player A says he’s casting vindication on Player B, which spell goes 1st?

Other examples might be player A's character gets to draw a spell at the start of his turn (he already has one spell in his hand), as he is drawing the spell or about to draw the spell signifying it is the start of his turn, Player B plays vindication on player A. Player A tells player B to get bent because he didn’t get enough time to read his spell he just drew (which of course is a nullify), Player A says I wanted to play nullify 1st.

Thulsa_Doom said:

I do never have issues like these you mention, because even in the most tense moments the casting of a Spell is never done at the same time. If a player wants to cast a Spell, usually he addresses another person or calls everybody's attention. As soon as he does this, he's already casting and the Spell will take place, provided that no Counterspell is used against it and the player didnt't make a mistake (target, timing, etc...). Any useful ideas that other spellcasters may have, are resolved after the Spell.

It's not necessarily a childish yelling, you just call attention in some way. I heard of experienced players using the keyword "Spellcasting" to set the point when a player wants to cast a Spell. Me and my Italian game mates usually say "ALT" or "NO".

I never had so many players wanting to cast a Spell at exactly the same time, even with high presence of spellcasters in a game. Should this occur, I'll solve everything with a die roll. Who scores the highest resolves his Spell first and so on... Talisman is not for in-game rule debating.

I just seem to me using queue instead of stack could cause more problems then it solves. Queue causes tons of exceptions like, counter spell, hydro, refection, misfortune, etc etc. Use a stack and all the exceptions go away and there is order and forget about using a queue with no exceptions, which would be pure chaos. Priority also seems needed. Rolling a die to see which spell goes off 1st seems too arbitrary, given the last example.

Our group has been using a stack and if a spell says cast anytime that means you can cast it, even if its in response to someone else casting a spell. We also give priority to the player whos turn it is, if someone else wants to cast a spell on someone elses turn they have to ask if they are passing priority, then priority goes clockwise, you can even ask for a priority check and not cast anything. This seems to work well for us.

Such situations are extremaly rare. We played tons of games and never such situations occured. Talisman is not a tournament game, so there is no vital need for 100% rule clarification.

And by the way, by changing queue to stack you are changing the game balance and moreover, you do not solve any problem that you described.

Queue scenario A.

I play Nullify against you. You hold vindication. You must discard your spell.

Queue scenario B.

You play vindication against me. I hold vindication. I must roll a die to pray.

Stack scenario A.

I play Nullify against you. You hold vindication and play in the response. I must roll the die to play. Nullify takes effect but you have no spells on hand.

Stack scenario B.

You play Vindication against me. I hold nullify. I play nullify in the resonse but it does not do anything since vindication is already on stack. I must roll a die to pray. (so playing nullify did not help at all)

With stack, spells like Nullify, or spell steal (forgot the name) lose their their potential.

ah why there is no edit button

Queue scenarioB

You play vindication against me. I hold nullify. I must roll a die to pray.

Stacking Spells is not the correct way to play Spells in Talisman. If you choose to use a stacking system for Spells, you are completely twisting around how Spells are played and the effect they have. It might work in other games, but certainly not in Talisman.

The queueing system is exactly the correct way to handle Spells. If a player wishes to cast a Spell, he must announce it by saying out loud "Spellcasting". First in with this casts his Spell (this is the way we play it to prevent players from trying to cast Spells at the same time).

To summarise:

Stacking - Incorrect
Queueing - correct

Ell.

The example/problem I gave was about priority not necessarily about stack vs. queue. Your examples do not address the problem of priority. Who gets to cast a spell 1st, this is a problem for stack or queue more for queue because in stack everything is most likely going to happen, its just the order it happens you my have a problem with, if you don’t know who has priority. With a queue being 1st usually means a whole lot more.

My point about stack vs. queue is that with a stack you don’t need to make exceptions, with a queue you need to make tons of exceptions and the more spells from expansions you get, the more exceptions you need to make. Using a stack clears that up and since other aspects of the game use stack, why not go with what is already a common thyme.

I mean I could just as easily say by changing stack to queue you are changing the game balance. That argument is perspective. I honestly don’t see any change in balance, I only see a more clear way to play, powerful spells are still powerful and weak spells are still weak not much changes except a clearer understanding of the rules, it not like playing with spells on a stack makes certain characters are unstoppable or certain characters are guaranteed to lose, the difference is ease of play.

Spells like Nullify, or "spell steal" do not lose their potential, I could argue that a stack makes them even more powerful because they are now more versatile but when its all factored in, power levels remain the same.

Like if Player A has (2 misfortune and 1 spellsteal) in hand and cast spellsteal on Player B who only has (nullify) in hand, Player B casts nullify on Player A in response to the spellsteal. In that example nullify is now more powerful then it was in a queue because its now more versatile. Truly though. The power of the spells are unaffected, it’s the elimination of exceptions that happens and a streamlining of how spells work. To me, simple is better.

I understand what you say, in the above examples I only tried to figure out that priority is not a problema for us, in practical terms. But I second your idea that in some situations and with some players it becomes a problem to determine the priority in a queue.

I don't think stacking Spells is the right solution. In your last example, Nullify is "upgraded" to a Spell that can counterspell basically everything, since it can be played in response to Spell-casting. Mind Steal (the spell-stealing spell) is on the contrary down-graded: it can take only Spells that can't be played "as required". Let's say you cast Mind Steal and the other player has Shatter & Healing in his hands. Before your Mind Steal takes effect he's able to destroy one of your Objects and heal his Lives; if he's able to do both, he has no Spells to be taken by your Mind Steal. The essential condition for casting has expired. Does this mean that you have to discard Mind Steal with no effect? For me it's not correct, you have a logic hole here and a much bigger problem than everything you have with the queue rule.

I don't see where so many exceptions are needed if you apply a queue, that are not needed in a stack system. The only exceptions are Counterspell and Reflection. Everything else cannot be played BEFORE the first Spell is considered to happen. Still you can play some Spells that change things, but you have to do this considering that the first Spell will happen. Care is needed, method and some experience. Not exceptions.

In my example, Marked for Glory sets a priority that makes Freeze impossible to cast. With stack ruling, the same situation would have been solved with a non-rolling and the impossibility to use an already cast Marked for Glory. Talisman Spells are generally not designed for stacking and they should not be considered like a MtG interruption battle. They're usually power-ups used to change the outcome of situations, not to prevent things from happening (except Counterspell). If Talisman Spells had been designed for stacking, this whole topic probably would not exist.

Bearing in mind that Jon New and myself were directly involved with the design process of the game with John Goodenough, I think I can say for certain how Spells are meant to be played in the game. If you have any doubts about it, just post a question to John Goodenough who will give you the definitive answer. Spells are played strictly according to which Spell is cast first period!

Elliott Eastoe.

You can play the game the way you want by introducing house rules. If it makes your group happy, go for it.

However, as you can see quite a lot of players do not like this house rule since the game is designed to use queue, not stack (and believe us, there is a balance shift). Personally, I think that the game should not be treated so serious, there should be no bad blood between players arguing who tried to cast the spell first. If you can't stop arguing, you can always try those house rules.

Just one thing, is there really a stack vs queue a problem here for you? From what I read, I assume that all of your problems would be solved by introducing priority rules instead of messing with queue.

Player A owns spell A1. Player B owns spell B1.

First situation: Player A starts his turn. He has priority and says I want to play spell A1. Now player B knows that his spell B1 is useless so he does not cast it.

Other situation: Player A starts his turn. He has priority but decides not to play spell A1. He tells, I am not going to cast spell this time. Priority goes to player B. He casts spell B1.

Ok that makes alot of sense that a spell when cast is resolved immediately and can only be countered by Reflection and Counterspell. I've played to much WoW TCG and Magic the Gathering so the whole spell chain made things confusing, but this makes alot more sense.