Bringing back the main deck

By Draii, in Talisman Home Brews

With the addition of Dragon expansion there is very few adventure cards drawn when we play. With all expansions the adventure deck is about 20 cm thick, and after a full 8 hour game maybe 3-4 cm is played. This is mainly because the dragon scales are occupying the board, and it's easier to "level up" encountering dragon cards. The expansion regions have their share of it too of course.

To bring back more focus on adventure cards we tried last night to increase the number of scales required for a new dragon king to be crowned from three to five. This slowed down the process of filling the board with scales for some time, and we managed to get though a third of the adventure deck during the game.

We also tried to have all event-cards from the adventure deck in a separate pile, and draw a new event each time a new dragon got the crown. Although it was interesting to set more focus on new events during each dragons rule, it was a extra moment that made the game more whimsy than before.

Conclusion:
If you think there is to few adventure cards drawn, and to many dragon cards, try to increase the number of scales to crown a king to 4 och 5. The board will be filled eventually, but more "normal" game for a longer time before the dragons take over.

Nice idea. Don't care the Dragon myself, but this is a worthy approach that might let the core game resurface a bit more.

A simple rule change helps the game move right along:

Always draw a card on any space that states "Draw 1 (2 or 3) Card(s)", even if there is a card already in the space. That way, going to a space with "The Pool of Life" card face up may mean you'll still have to fight something to get to it...or maybe not. The Ruins space (Draw 2) has a tendancy to get filled with multiple enemies that you'll have to fight all at once in order to survive; challenging. Moving onto that pesky green dragon that you've been trying to kill for the past eight turns just to find out that you'll be fighting an ogre as well. Landing on a space that has had the Demon on it since the first round to find out that the card you drew upon landing there is the Holy Lance...now if you could just kill that demon, there's that nice reward...

Just thought I'd throw that out there with some example scenarios, if people are not already doing it.

We tried the always draw once a couple of times. In the latter third of the game it speeded up the rush to the end by increasing trophies gained. But in the first third of the game it slow things down as characters rushed about trying to find healing for getting thumped a bit more often.