I dusted off Talisman the other week for a festive game with my wife, her sister and our neice. A good time was had by all, but I couldn't help but feel that the game is too confusing for newbies to just "drop-in" to a game.

The main sticking point for people is when to move into the middle, and then the inner board regions. They just don't have the experience to be able to make that judgement call (which of course meant that I won :-) ). You really have to be familiar with the inner board and each of its spaces beforehand.

Anyone else find this when playing with non-hobbyists? If so, is there a simplified way of letting them decide whether or not to advance to the inner regions. (e.g. you should really have at least X Strength or Craft before tackling the inner region.)

If you're using the default Crown of Command ending, then saying you need Str or Craft at 9+ and a Talisman, then you should be going for the center (for Craft characters, need Str of about 6).

I've played Talisman with complete newbies to these types of boardgames.

On the first playthrough I just take it easy on them as a player and explain everything in detail along the way and I don't go for the CoC in general, just let on of the newbies go for the win. It's no fun beating someone in a game if they don't understand it.

It's quite enjoyable to see someone new to the game have a great time and a win on the first playthrough encourages them to come back and then I steadily ramp up my efforts to win.

As it turned out, I've never hosted a game of Talisman to newbies where they didn't have a thoroughly great time.

In fact I use Talisman as a springboard to get people into playing Tabletop RPGs and it works well.

Afer a couple of playthroughs they pretty much understand how to play, Talisman isn't difficult to learn how to play if you take the time to explain everything.