Since receiving Talsiman for Christmas, our family has played it almost every day. One thing we've noticed is that the basic game seems biased towards evil characters in that they seem to gain more benefits than good characters, (for example, Evil characters seem to be able to gain Fate back easier than Good characters) and there seems to be a greater chance to be turned evil than to be turned good (for example, there seems to be no counterpart to the Mephisophiles Card to turn characters good). Has anyone else noticed this bias? Are there any expansions or popular house rules to balance the alignment issues out?

Thanks,

Bruce

good chars have more opportunitieto heal. even free of charge. knight is not able to attack good character :-) To replenish fate - yes,this is missing in the basic game. But you have this opportunity with expansions

We've found the ability to heal for free doesn't compare to the ability to replenish Fate, so we houseruled that good characters replenish Fate for free in the Chapel instead of receiving free healing. We also ditched the Mephisopheles card. so far, that seems to even things up, we'll see after a couple more games if it unbalances things or if it works.

Bruce.

Rophan said:

Consider that Good Characters have usually high Fate (Minstrel, Monk, Priest, except Prophetess which is the strongest Character and doesn't need Fate), so giving them the chance to gain Fate instead of Life will bias the game towards them. Fate is not a game breaking element, most of the time.

Evil Characters have the chance of attacking in psychic combat, while Good ones don't share.

Alignment is never a big issue in Talisman, at least it doesn't determine winners and losers. Moreover, Talisman is not a balanced game by any means. There are Characters that are better than others and things change the more expansions you toss in.

If after a few games you believe that Evils are stronger because they win more often than others, this doesn't mean anything. Luck is the primary factor in this game and after my first 30 games with this edition the highest ranking Character was the Ghoul. Evil, but not exactly a "strong" Character.

Strong ones are: Assassin, Dwarf (at least for rushing to the Crown), Prophetess, Monk, Troll, Warrior, Wizard. They look equally distributed between alignments.

Also, bear in mind that penniless Evil characters who are down to 1 or 2 lives are in a perilous position.

I have no problem with the alignment balance at least.

I think you can better buy the Reaper and Sacred Pool.

The basic game alone is boring. i was very negative about it years ago.

But the expansions will change the standard game.

Sacred Pool has a few alignment cards.

Mephistoples don't have to be out of the game.

We play with all the cards so far.