So my friend has talisman 4th edition sacred pool and dungeon expansion.I am looking for a way to clean this up into a 4 hour or less game. Do you just modify which cards you place in the adventure stack? we had a 5 man game go for almost 8 hours today and walked away with nobody winning in the end.

I am looking for suggestions on cards to keep in/take out to speed it up. My idea was to put mainly global events and monsters, taking out all basic items such as swords and bags of gold (but having a starting amount of gold) but still keeping basic items for sale in certain areas.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,

hopped

One of the best suggestions is actually in the rules book. Changing the cash in for trophies really boosts the speed of the game.

We play sometime with up to 8 players, when we do, the cash in is dropped to 5. We can come really close to finishing the game within 3.5 - 4 hours.

Though I personally like going longer, not everyone has the time for such a long game.

You can just change the trophy limit to 5 or you begin the game with some extra strength and craft points.

trading in cash for trophies? like 1-2g per strength or craft? I dont think im understanding entirely.

hopped said:

No, I think they mean drop the trophy cash in ratio from the standard 7 to say 5. So you'd only need 5 points in trophies to get +1 to a stat.

oh ok i get it now, that could work. thanks all.

We find that "powering up" by paying the equivalent in trophy points to the number of Craft or Strength that you need to get to the next level works well. For example, if your Craft is 2, you pay 3 points in trophies. That way, the initial power-ups are quick (helpful if you die early and have to reincarnate), but it curtails the runaway powermongers late in the game who just squish whatever pops up and gain more Strength automatically. Sometimes to speed things up we start off with an extra Strength or Craft, too.

Another good boost is to give everyone a bonus Strength and Craft token at the start of the game. It can make some interesting changes to strategy too.

oh, I like the "powering up"-idea. Will suggest that for my next game.

We also use the 5 point cash-in to speed it up. Since we use to play with the Warlock quests (3:rd solved gives a Talisman (if able)) it usually pretty easy to get a Talisman, and one can play with only one quest per player (or just have to solve one quest of 3 to get the Talisman).

Removing the expansions regions may also speed it up, it gives more player interaction and more focus on reaching the middle, but since it's nice to play the "whole" game we just use it as a sollution for extra quick games.

Less players have a huge impact on how fast a game goes. 3-4 is the best and we sometimes to finish a game in 4-5 hours even when playing with 7 point cash in and all expanisons. But when we are 5-6 players it use to take 8 hours (no break).

I used to say that the old Talisman (2:nd edition) took 1 hours playtime per player included. So a 4 player game would take 4 hours (if picking new characters when you died).

But 4th edition is mush slower (to many objects, events etc instead of enemies) so I guess its closer to 1,5 or 2 hours per player in game time.

Wow 8h that's really long. But you play 5-6 player games maybe that affects. We usually play 3-4 player games and it takes on avrage 2-2,5h if you draw the eagle king ending it always takes 1h extra (I hate that freaking bird rider boss ;-) )

Also hearing that it takes 8h, I assume you guys don't do much pvp action. The times when we played 5-6 player games we usually play that if you die youre out, that way it encourages pvp a bit more.

Draii said:

Wow. 3-player average is 75 minutes for us ( with all minus Sacred Pool), vanilla 7-point trophy rule and no start up or inheritance variants either.

Wow that's harsh, I would feel bad if Death killed me in the first few turns and I have to wait a couple of hours to play again. In our games when a player die we let him take a new character, that way he is still playing even if in some cases he doesn't stand a chance, it is still better than not doing anything for hours on end.

Hi we used to set up a deadline for the end of the game before we start. When it comes to the last hour, we close off the board (if nobody is near to win the game), and we swich for a dead match where every player attack an other player of his choice (no rolling dice for movement anymore), until it remains only one player who won. I know it differs from the original idea of the game, and we don not play with that in mind but at least, we have a winner every game. And its pretty amusing to kill each other too

Yeah, we have set a deadline a couple of times too, when people are getting to tired. We usually choose to play for about 15 minutes more, so everyone have a chance to do some final stuff, and then we either move everyone to the crown of command and start a Battle royale, or everyone takes a fight against the Lord of Darkness, and the winner is the one who got closest /or to the Crown of Command.

We've found that graduated power ups make the game too much race and we get bored. The standard rules of speedy games based on reduce flat rates (say 5tp per S or C) are just as good and less accounting fuss.

Average game length is about 20 minutes plus 20 minutes per player... if we're not socializing and just processing turns. if we plug the expansion backdoors and hobble some of more ridiculous shortcuts... maybe 30 minutes per player. Add 5-10 minutes per player if socializing or spending moments on the "tales" the characters, and it can get longer... but nobody cares under those conditions.

The only 8+ hour game I remember was in the 2E days with 8 players and using no expansion boards, and the playing area itself was too overcrowded.