so, i played a game with 7 players, we used the expansion, we played for 10 hours, we did not finish. anyway, its clear that the number of players greatly increase the length of the game. im wondering if people know of a good way to move the game along

I have personally never tried it, but I have always felt that a Bloodwar version where there is only one Talisman in the GAME would make things a lot quicker.

After all, the whole way to win the game is to be the last person standing.

We always limit the number of players to 4. rather than play 7, have to boards going - one for 3 players, onr for 4.

We've typically seen games in the old 2nd edition last for 40-60 minutes per player consistantly; and that was from playing for almost ten years. Haven't played enough with 4th in varied player counts, but a like estimate seems appropriate. Haven't seen 4th truly shorten games with 4 players, though it does somewhat with 2 or 3 (30-45 minutes / player).

Fewer Talismans never sped up our games; we tried using 1 in 2nd during a game of 7 and then 4 players; play time almost doubled. (We started a game once with 9, and gave up after only 4 hours, realizing we'd be up all night.) Constant PvP led to too many players getting bumped off and having to start over. Spells were rotating much faster, with the discard pile often turned over and reshuffled, and so certain spells useful in acquiring a Talisman (one way or another) got used a lot more often. Most Good characters who even suffered for an alignment change didn't care anymore. Healing wasn't even sought that much, because the instant a character was down to 1 life, it would get wacked by anyone, whether it had a Talisman or not. Because...

Rule of thumb... fewer Talismans =

1. more delays in acquiring one to win,
2. more (group or single) assaults on the one who has one, making winning slower.
3. building inequity and lessening competition as game proceeds due to "new" characters starting further and further behind.
4. speed up occurs only when too many players have started over late in the game and one hasn't. (Not always the case - one character in the "lead" in build up got wacked three times with the Finger of Death. We gave up then, because the game got too long at 6 hours with 4 players all starting over). By the time one player is more than double the others in Strength and Craft, not counting equipment colleted, half the players don't even try for a Talisman anymore. Might as well just call it a win right there, since that's the only point at which game speeds up... through other players giving up.
5. Winning the game is no longer about achieving the CoC; its all about a deathmatch and nothing more.

Availability of Talismans should be a minimum of half the number of players and contributes to speed of game according to its intended endgame. We actually liked long "adventurous" play versus using the game as some FPS mulitplayer, but that's just our preference. If that's what you have in mind, then the number Talismans in the Adventure deck should remain as is, the balance of remaining ones should be acquired some other way.

And I would suggest you pull the Reaper off the board as well if you want to increase speed in the game. Aside from mechanics, the more players you have, the more rolls occur that activate the Reaper; the more time it takes to finish a whole round for all players. Anyone who takes the time to study both game and play mechanics (even without ever playing with the Reaper) should realize it has a geometric (not arithmetic) influence on game length. It throws the FFG claim of speeding up the game out the window.

i definetly agree with you about the reaper, but even without that the game would be long. i like a long game with lots of players, but we started it at noon and did not have enought time in the day to finish it.

11 games done with Reaper, 2 hours is pretty much to upper "limit". No real limit imposed of course, but 2+ hours seems very slow play (2-3 player games). Fastest so far was a 5/7 (Str/Craft) Dwarf rushing to Crown in about 40-45 minutes. That even with him getting Destroy Magicked at Pits, forcing a backtrack to Plain of Peril and then back again.