On the 24th of February, Talisman Island will turn a youthful 13…

I have decided to give a bit of advance warning for the competition, as it will require a little thought and preparation.

What I have in mind, is for people to have a go at creating a mini-expansion of 13 items. Each component will count towards the total, hence a little thought is required!

There will be a couple of prizes up for grabs, namely a copy of Talisman: The Dragon and a set of promo cards ( Doppelganger and Instructor ). I am not sure what else I have around the place, but there may (or may not) be other bits to score of interest.

Even if you already have a copy of something offered as a prize, it would be cool to get some entries in and you have the option of passing on the prize should you win, which will help spread the Talisman Love about the place…

Rules will be kept to a minimum, though most will concern how to get to your Lucky 13 components -

Characters must come with a playing token, so that will take up 2 of your slots.

Rules or Info cards will count as 1, even if a Rules sheet spreads to 3 pages (this allows for an A3 sized piece of paper to be used to print a four page rules booklet, though how complicated can a dozen cards be???)

Ummm… that's about it. I told you they would be kept to a minimum.

More news later as time allows and as more ideas spring into my head!

Interesting challenge. Looking forward to hearing more.

I hope it is turns out to be a bit of fun that might spark some interest in the home brew department.

Just to clarify a couple of points raised over at BGG -

I am not too worried about what artwork is used, if you would rather not step on toes then feel free to send cards in with no artwork at all. It's the ideas that will be looked at for merit and not how cool the artwork you found via Google is...

Multiples would add to the component count. So this will be 13 bits of card/paper complete.

It should be a cool challenge to (a) come up with something interesting in 13 "cards" and (b) come up with something "new".

I am not worried if it is "just" a set of 13 Adventure cards, but it need not be limited to that. You might mock up a completely new type of card or mechanic or indeed a themed set of cards with a Character, Spells and other equipment.

Sounds interesting Jon.

Will have to put my "Helmet of Creative Thinking" on....

as well as my "Ring of Counting" ....

Another point recently asked was about reusing existing components for the competition.

I would say that if you are repurposing, say a Strength token as a marker of some sort, then it will not count towards the total of 13 components.

This would only be true if the components you are using come from the base game, as it is the only box that everyone is likely to have. I suppose you may add in additional rules for if another expansion is in use, but that would not be ideal.

I hope that makes sense!

talismanisland said:

Does this mean that the expansion should be base game only?

Not really, but I think including content from other expansions means that people might not be able to actually play the expansion...

I'm close to having something (sort of) to share. Do you want it posted here (and at the BGG topic) or submitted otherwise?

Entries will be best posted directly to me. That way it cuts out any chance of giving things away, not that I think people are going to be cheating in any way!

It would be cool if you just add to the thread and mention that you have sent your entry in though. It might gee some people up a bit.

"Cantrips Sampler" on its way to you in moments via email.

Also mentioned on BGG...

So, that's the first entry in!

Get your thinking heads on and have a bash. I will be adding something to the site in the run up to the anniversary, but you might as well take advantage of the head start!

Just a small update.

I will be posting something on Talisman Island in the next week or so about the competition which will "officially" launch it, so it will run up to the anniversary and a little beyond.

In addition to the Dragon expansion and bonus cards, I have a set of character cards and a board signed by Mr John Goodenough which will be used as spot prizes, so you could win a little something even if you don't end up winning.

Lucky 13 indeed!

Nice! And I'm most curious to see what people come up with.

We're working on something here right now but we're quite new to this StrangeEons buissness and can use some help with a few issues.

Is it possible to change the back of the card to a picture of your own? It would be nice as we're making a new deck? For the moment we're using the Talisman back and it doesn't seem quite right.

Also, we're no painters, but I don't know how people create their home brew expansions now anyway. Do you use pictures from the internet or do you make your own?

I know this is not a problem for this competition but still it would be interesting to know. Hopefully will be able to try our idea this weekend or the next. I think it's quite difficult to know if it's balanced or not without trying it.

Thanks in advance for all help and a really good idea for a competition. I'm quite new to both this forum and the Talismanisland home page, but I'm sure happy they exist.

Ah, found the answer for the first question myself at last. But still how about copyright issues if the expansions are published on Talismanisland or some other website?

There are sources of royalty-free art available on the Internet, and although there is a definite grey area surrounding the use of art (well, it is usually described as, or hoped to be grey but is mainly black and white...)

If you would rather not use art, then that is perfectly acceptable as one should not need pictures to describe the action of the card, any pictures can be created in the heads of the player. That said however, it does create a bit of eye-candy for the table.

If anyone ever has a problem with things hosted at Talisman Island, I would of course remove it without question. To date, nobody has, but then again I am sure 99.9% of people are probably unaware that it even exists.

Now, if someone created an expansion with Googled artwork and tried to sell it or even claim it as their own, I am sure it would be stamped on by GW or FFG and others with more powerful lawyers than I!

So, whichever way you wish to create it, just have a go! Even if you don't win you might end up with a cool signed card for your collection!

Watcher... what kind of back do you envision for the deck? Perhaps just creating a texture background and putting a bit of glitz and symbol in the center might work.

JCHendee said:

I found a picture on the web which works perfectly as a card back. I think I'm going to go with that and if someone recognices it and doesn't want it to be used I'll change then. But perhaps I look into your idea a bit more anyway, I didn't think about it but it sounds like a simple and working solution. Thanks for the advice.

Otherwise I think we're all done with our "expansion", or whatever it should be called, except that we haven't tested it yet. We want to see if it's balanced before we send it in and hopefully someone will like it. I haven't played all older editions and there were no expansions to the swedish versions but I think it's something new.

All right. Look forward to seeing what you've come up with when the contest is settled.

A second entry has now landed on the beaches of Talisman Island.

I will be posting something about the competition on the site in the next few days (provided I can find a few more hours in the day!)

Entry number 3 is in, and still about a month to go!

News on the site this week, then updates as we progress.

May I suggest that you make it so competitors submit their work to you VIA a link in your signature? it would make everything a lot easier unless this has already been determined?

I would participate but I have already posted over 13 character cards for everyone to see and don't feel like rushing to make 13 more seeing as they may be Overpowered because the lack of testing. Example; my first home brew topic post, most of those characters have been nerfed because they were very overpowered.

Ultimately, I love your competition idea but you should promote it more like have a simple javascript or jquery popup on your website for everytime some visits the site. Giving important info about the competition and then if clicked it takes you to a .asp or .html page that goes into more detail about the competition.

Once I have made a page for the comp I will post a link in my sig, otherwise people can always contact me here, at BGG and through the site.

I may be blind but there is no "Contact" button except for the Facebook one and I get a 404 Error on it... I want to ask you something but I will private message you some how lol probably VIA FFG.

Facebook page is in flux, but there are many more ways to contact me further down the page above the links.