Hi all,

Since the City expansion release I've been playing Talisman again recently and finishing a game has gotten longer and longer since we have been playing with All the expansions! So I started thinking of improvements to both make the turns a little faster, provide a bit less randomness in movement, and also to put more of "the journey" into the game.

Here's what I've added or changed for House rules which have both sped the turns up a little and also enhanced the "fantasy journey" (my term) of the game.

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RULE 1 - Players must announce travel direction (i.e. their intent) prior to die roll. That is the direction they must move after the roll.

Benefit A - It removes the after roll "where can I land" decision process. No longer is it am I landing in the Crags? Oh, I'll go the other way.

Benefit B - It adds to "the journey" feel. If the player intended to go into the Highlands that's where they must move toward on that move. No more avoiding dangerous spaces if that's what was rolled that's where the player must move.

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RULE 2 - Players may announce their intent to Visit a corner space (i.e. on the main board) prior to die roll. The player rolls the die as normal and with sufficient move must stop at that corner space and proceed normally. This applies to the 4 corners in the Outer region (Tavern, Village, Chapel, & City) and also to 3 spaces in the Inner region; the Warlock’s Cave, Temple, and Castle (well, almost a corner).

Benefit A - This removes the randomness for situations when trying for things like healing. For example a Good character seeking healing and having to spend multiple turns rolling to attempt to land on the Chapel.

Benefit B - "The journey" is enhanced because the player can announce they are going to the Chapel and stop there and heal if their move roll allows.

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RULE 3 – Players may announce their intent to stop on a space that has a Monster in their direction of travel. The must stop on that space if sufficient move and encounter the Monster. This does not apply to dragon scales, only to monsters already manifesting on the boards.

Benefit A – Another removal of some randomness of the movement. If you want to battle some monster you announce that intent and with sufficient move may stop and do so.

Benefit B – Again “the journey” is enhanced.

Benefit C – Speeds up character development by allowing monster encounters quicker than having to roll the exact number to land on them.

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RULE 4 – Adventure cards (also Dungeon and Highland deck cards) of type Place, Object, Magic Object, etc (i.e. not Monsters) do not count toward card count in the space they are on. They become part of the board. Thus if a space says to draw 1 card and only non monsters are in the space, you DO draw 1 card and order by card encounter number.

Benefit A – The adventure deck is accelerated a bit as most spaces will require drawing a card unless a monster is in the area.

Benefit B – No longer are those beneficial places guaranteed accessible (for instance, those that give strength). The fact that you must draw another card gives the possibility that a monster has appeared since a player last visited.

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RULE 5 – Place cards that provide New paths of movement for that game follow the above announce intent rules. For instance, if a player wants to take a new dungeon entrance which was revealed previously, they may announce and do so.

See above benefits.

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These are the 5 new house rules I’ve added to our games and we are enjoying the enhancements provided.

See what you think and feel free to use in your games.

If you have other house rules you use, I’d love to hear them.

Enjoy !

- LindaLilRose

LindaLittleRose said:

Not sure how many times you've played, but around here, as soon as the die stops, we know what spaces you'll land in going either way. Takes less than a second most of the time to decide.

I found most of these house rules interesting.
Might try them, or modified versions of them.

One house rule we have is that you can always announce that you want to go 1 space instead of rolling for movement.
This makes it easier to fine tune in where you want to land, but there is a penalty for this "cheat"-move and the mechanics we have for Reaper, Werewolf etc to activate increases when using this option.

RULE 1 - Players must announce travel direction (i.e. their intent) prior to die roll. That is the direction they must move after the roll.

I wouldn't like this at all.

RULE 2 - Players may announce their intent to Visit a corner space (i.e. on the main board) prior to die roll. The player rolls the die as normal and with sufficient move must stop at that corner space and proceed normally. This applies to the 4 corners in the Outer region (Tavern, Village, Chapel, & City) and also to 3 spaces in the Inner region; the Warlock’s Cave, Temple, and Castle (well, almost a corner).

I used to do something similar, but only with the City space. It makes it too easy to spam the Mystic.

RULE 3 – Players may announce their intent to stop on a space that has a Monster in their direction of travel. The must stop on that space if sufficient move and encounter the Monster. This does not apply to dragon scales, only to monsters already manifesting on the boards.

That's interesting. I would have to playtest it before I could judge it's real impact.

RULE 4 – Adventure cards (also Dungeon and Highland deck cards) of type Place, Object, Magic Object, etc (i.e. not Monsters) do not count toward card count in the space they are on. They become part of the board. Thus if a space says to draw 1 card and only non monsters are in the space, you DO draw 1 card and order by card encounter number.

Same as above; but I don't really care for this one.

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I've gone through many revisions and houserules. Interestingly enough my game at one time had alot of elements seen in The City expansion, but it was all stuff that I came up with myself.

1. When you killed an Enemy you could take XP or Gold. Much like Wanted Posters. I did this because with all the expansions in play (before Dragon, City, and Bloodmoon) there was less gold available, and it was scattered farther throughout the deck, everyone was always poor.

2. I had set up a secondary "purchase deck" using items from various expansions and setting a price to them, which you could purchase in the City. That's one reason you could goto and stop in the city.

2a. Any item that gave only a straight Strength/Craft bonus. These were priced at 5gp for the first +1 and 3gp for any additional +'s. Under the assumption that it took 7xp to gain a Stat, it only took 5gp… but you had to go to the City, and you had an item that could be taken.

2b. Potions. Like the Renewal Potion, cause we all hate getting spell-locked (stuck with a spell you can't get rid of easily) when you "always have 1+ spell". Most of the potions in the game were in here.

3. I put a livery stable in the Village.

4. You could "go looking for trouble". I pulled all the Highland Enemies out (cause I don't use Highland, it sucks) and set that deck out. If you wanted to draw from it instead of the Adventure Deck, you were allowed to.

5. We were recording our games, Win/Loss and who was what character. We had it set up so that over 25 games you could pick any character you wanted to be, but you couldn't play that character again. It was one way to increase variety, and for everyone to learn all the characters.

6. Was doing this thing with "Trade Goods" for a few games. The simple way was you buy them in the City for 1gp, go all the way around the board to a "different" city and sell them for 2gp. It was another attempt to influx gold. The advanced version was you bought them for 1d3gp and sold them for 1d3gp; or you could go full 1d6.

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Those are my old houserules that I don't use. My current game is different (streamlined a bit). The original Adventure Deck has… I can't remember… 104 or 109 cards? So I now play with a 200 card Adventure Deck. So I doubled the amount of Enemies, the amount of places, etc. Each catagory has roughly the same % of cards as the original Adventure Deck has. I've put together what I feel is a good Adventure Deck for my group, I've playtested it 4-6 times now and the games go pretty smoothly, with basically everyone staying in contention to win the game the whole time. Barring of course very bad luck (which happens in Talisman). I use a 50 card Spell Deck.

1. I still use XP. I use very small glass beads. When you kill an Enemy you take XP not a trophy. Stating the obvious but the value is it's Strength or Craft. It costs 7xp to upgrade Strength or Craft. This speeds things up because you don't have to match STR to STR and gain STR… but it doesn't speed it up too much the way reducing to 6or5 points in trophy's, which can sometimes cause someone to jump out ahead of the pack too fast.

2. Anything that causes Toad status has been removed. The Enchantress just makes you lose a turn.

3. Character Generation is done by shuffling the character deck and dealing each person 5 cards, you choose one.

3b. If your character dies you may choose any remaining character to come back into the game with. If you don't have all your pieces set up by the time it's your next turn, you miss your first turn. You can take it slow and just miss one turn, goto the bathroom, whatever… or you can get right back in the action.

4. Characters we've taken out of the game: The Monk is out because after 100 games, of which hes been in 30 of them, he's never lost. He's broken. Dread Knight is also out because we aren't using Warhorse's currently, mostly knee jerk based on the Monk… so he'll probably get put back into rotation eventually. There is a stable in The City expansion, so next time we play he's likely back in.

4b. Weak Characters Removed: Magus, because his ability isn't that useful since he can't "attack psychic"; However with the Crystal Scepter in The City expansion readily available, he will likely go back in.

Chivalric Knight: He slows down the game, and sometimes he ends up losing too much growth and can't rally in late game. I'm also currently not using Warlock Quest and Quest Rewards.

Necromancer: Burning trophy's is underwhelming.

Elf: All he gets is a +1 craft. Even when we changed "not roll in forest" to "roll 2 dice and choose" he still isn't that great.

Priest: Weak

Highlander: Dumb

4c. Other. Fire Wizard is out because his main ability is only useful against other characters, and we don't generally play that way. Not a rules thing, just a style choice… so he is worthless to us.

Dragon Priestess: Simply not enough Dragon's and Cultists in the deck to support this character.

Ogre Chieftan: Don't like that burning trophy's mechanic.

Dragon Rider: Still on the fence; Every Dragon from every set is in my 200 card Adventure Deck, but I haven't decided if it's enough to give the Rider a fighting chance.

5. Troll: as is except he doesn't lose his turn when he regenerates. If he has a Riding Horse he rolls a second die of a different color, he only regenerates on the one normal movement die.

6. You can buy Renewal Potions at the Alchemist in the City (2gp). We hate getting spell-locked.

Monk only gets +3 in battle from his ability (craft value = starting Craft). The Warhorse works exactly the same, a character gets a bonus of their starting Craft - Troll only gets +1, Wizard +5, etc.

Ell.

Those are my houserules (also posted in dragon expansion thread)

NEW RULES (not tested yet)

- Like you propose, I'll mix all dragon cards into a single deck.

- When you land in middle region on a space with instructions to draw cards, first card you draw is from the dragon deck. That means that on most spaces you simply draw 1 dragon card, but in Oasis you draw 1 dragon and 1 adventure, and in Hidden Valey you draw 1 dragon and 2 adventure cards.

- Dragon scales are still in the game, but never go onto the board. Simply put them aside and whenever you kill an enemy from the dragon deck, gain 1 scale of corresponding color.

RULES WE ALREADY PLAYTESTED

- Dragon scales don't improve fighting skills. Instead, they can be spent in two ways;

--- A) spend one scale to protect yourself from dragon rage (this is the same as in original game) OR

--- B) spend one scale at the beginning of your turn and choose another player in the same region. That player suffers dragon rage of corresponding dragon lord. (this rule proved to be much fun )

- Once a player uses dragon scale in any way, it goes to its dragon lord.

- A dragon lord can have any number of scales, and the one with most scales is current king. At the end of game, if someone fights with the lord, the dragon adds +1 to its combat effectiveness for each scale on him.

- Inner realm from the original game and the dragon tower are two separate realms. You can choose which way you want to end the game. Your options are:

--- A) Go through the Portal of power into inner realm and get to the center, where you randomly draw from alternative endings cards, OR

--- B) Go thought the Chasm into the dragon tower. At the end you fight dragon king.

We also play with a bunch of other rules, but not many and they don't alter the game in any drastic way. For the sake of completion, they are:

- We use all expansions but play without the reaper figure (werewolf is enough)

- If you get into highland or dungeon, you can't turn back. You literally have to go one direction until the end. (this made those regions much more exciting)

- To advance Strenght or Craft by 1, you need a number of trophy points equal to your current S/C plus 1.

- At Crags and in Forest, if you roll 4 or 5, you draw 1 adventure card.

- If you finish a warlock's quest, you claim reward immediately and don't teleport to Warlock's Cave. The reward is a reward card, and a talisman if you don't already have it.

- We removed some cards from adventure deck, dragon decks, and spells. From adventure and spell decks we took out some cards that were in multiple copeis (like some gold bags, talismans, axe, mountain trails etc.). From dragon decks we took out cards that make no sense with our house rules.

Since I bought the City today, some changes to Alchemist are more than likely.

Here's my house rules. PART 1

Characters- characters have been split into three groups a) weak b) normal c) overpowered "cheese"

The weak characters needed to be buffed and the "cheese" characters needed to be nerfed, however i didn't want to handicap them as that would make

them less fun so instead I made the rule that if you aren't a cheese character you get to start the game with a quest reward thus the cheese characters

get nerfed by omission. The weak characters get to start with a special item I made based on something they were holding in their picture (for example

the priest starts with a priest staff). The dwarf was so bad after the dragon board effectively eliminated all his abilities that I just remade him.

Rules changes-

- Toad rules are the same but you dont drop your stuff so you get it back when you turn human again.

- If you draw Dragon rage you may choose instead of suffering it to lose that turn.

- There is no forward teleporting in the inner region (closer towards crown), however you may teleport backwards.

- If you beat LOD by 8+ you dont teleport to crown of command you teleport to plain of peril. This way its always a race and fight in the final stages.

- All instant death cards have been removed (for example angry mob or basilisk) ; that is to say a card which says you are killed.

- In order to prevent bitching, Horrible black void is only added if unanimously voted yes. (For the record it has been added in all my games so far).

- 2 copies of Livery stables were placed on boad one on city space one on castle and are treated as printed text so cant be removed. This was done

before the city expansion came out to give gold a use. After city came out I decided to leave them on board but on castle and village instead. The

prices are different than on the city expansion stables but decided that you pay based on where you are buying them from.

Here's my house rules. PART 2

-I have bought multiple copies of this game. I had the black industries board so when FF bought it i didnt want to

deal with the board erratta so I just bought another copy. Since I did this it gave me an idea and I also bought

a second copy of reaper, frostmarch and sacred pool. I then took all the cool items from these sets and the

base game and added them to the dungeon rewards cards. Now when you beat LOD you can choose from

this new larger pile. If you complete a warlocks quest you get a random draw from this pile if you dont choose

to take a talisman (and of course you also get a quest reward).