I love Talisman. My boyfriend loves Talisman. But our friends don't. Within the past few years, we've all really gotten into board games and RPGs like Mansions of Madness, Descent, Heroclix, Dungeons & Dragons, but for some reason my friends are really turned off by the slow nature of Talisman.

We've taken cards out of the adventure deck to try and make things go a little quicker, but that didn't help. My friend who suggested we play it last night threw a fit, saying that if she ever suggests we play that again to shoot her. It doesn't help that the two biggest complainers are the slowest turn-takers who also play on their phones when it's not their turn.

We do play with the Eagle King expansion, so maybe that's what slows it down. I've glossed over the win conditions, but they're all conditions that you have to enter the portal of power for, which generally takes my group about 2-3 hours to do. Does anyone have any suggestions to shorten the game up a bit without having to eliminate all the expansion stuff? I also really wanted to get the City expansion when it comes out but I'm worried it'll only be my boyfriend and I playing it.

Hey there,

I have your problem but worse, my wife and I were players of the 2nd Edition, waaay back. I'm 57 next month (Scorpio!) and she is 55. We have no one we can get interested.

Here's what really sucks, all my friends (my age or under) are really into "Big Bang Theory" a tv show I'm not really caring about, but apparantly on occasion they either talk about Talisman or play the game on the show.

So our friends are like "We love this show X amount - oh they play that game you always talk about. But we don't want to play the game that our beloved show's characters play" (not really, but sums it up).

Can't even get our 29 year old son to play with poor old mom and dad either; he only plays "Monster Hunter" and similar video games.

Oberon

Ringskipper said:

Hello Ringskipper,

You are saying that you are playing with the Highland expansion?

If you stay too long in the Highland, then it will slow the game down.

The Highland is meant to grab some objects and find some goodies. You must not stay too long there.

If you want to level up quickly, then you must stay on the mainboard, or if you are strong enough, then you can go into the Dungeon.

Another point to speed up the game is, that you must decrease the trophy's from 7 to 5. This will help a bit.

Talisman is meant to be fun, so maybe you can better play with your boyfriend, and not with those 2 complainers who are grabbing their phones when it's not their turn..

Kind regards,

Velhart

0beron said:

That's not good. Hopefully you'll find more people interested to play with you two!

Velhart said:

That is so helpful, thank you! I don't know why we didn't think to decrease the trophies needed to level stats like that! I'm actually really excited to play again now.

You could also start out with a bank of strength or craft tokens - everybody gets 2 extra to begin with, for example. This speeds things up.

On top of previous suggestions

1) ban phones

Seriously, are they there to have a social experience with you or someone in another room? Unless they have a partner who is about to give birth or something. Blight on society.

2) Chanting Gloating Laughing

Ok, so I would guess almost everyone who has played this has chanted Toad ! Toad ! Toad ! when rolling for that particular outcome. Get involved, get nasty, and wish ill on others and gloat in your success. Laugh at other's misfortune. It's only a game so don't go overboard but hey, it's a game, so get competitive. When another player gets Raiders and loses all their objects.. in their face!

3) Reaper

If you don't have this expansion - get it. Every time you roll a 1 for movement there is a threat to someone…

We have done a "Reap! Reap! Reap!" (sounds like knife attack in Psycho) when rolling for the Reaper.

Good luck, I don't have any friends who would be interested in playing board games of any kind. Mrs Fodder not adverse (she has beaten me every time she has played) but mainstay would be replicating my youth and playing with my brothers. We all have small children though so opportunities are slim.

Zozimus said:

Another great suggestion, thanks!

BanthaFodder said:

We do get into it a bit and chant things, but after an hour or two, I think people start settling down.

And I actually bought the Reaper expansion a few days ago, ironically!

Another quick question, how does this game compare with Runebound? I've had my eye on Runebound for a while now, and I'm curious to know the similarities and differences from Talisman, if anybody here knows.

I was going to give some more ideas but then I saw zealot12 pretty much nailed every point I was going to make. Read his post in the "new to all this…" thread

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=49&efcid=1&efidt=725140

Never played Runebound so can't help you there.

Actually I just remembered another thing you can do, this may be one of the alternative endings now but:

Bloodbath

Remove all but one Talisman from the game. If you pick it up, you become a target.