Travels of a Toad

My favourite game is Talisman. I've played the second edition when you all weren't even born yet, I own some boxes of the third edition and all of the fourth. Sometimes I can talk people into playing it with me. Nobody wants to play it twice. Some people stopped visiting me. Fortunately, I am a solo gamer. Friends are overrated.

This year I'll be revisiting Talisman: The Magical Quest Game (revised 4th edition, the Fantasy Flight one) a lot for Solitaire Times. I want to take a closer look at each expansion, as I just threw most of them in when I bought them, making this a monster of a game, with huge piles of cards, that can easily take a group six hours to play. On the other hand, I shelved some other expansions because of the new rules they added. Time to have a look where I spent all that money on.

I started this series three years ago on Boardgamegeek. But I lost my notes somewhere along the way and then forgot about it. So I'll first copy some old posts in the coming months, then play sessions with the expansions I have not covered yet.

***

There are fan made solo variants available. I'm playing my own very simple multiplayer simulation though, as I like the PvP aspect of the game.

Me: a spellcaster.

Opponent: a character focused on strength, that will:

1. try to kill me until it's leveled up to 9 strength

2. try to get a Talisman next

3. go to the Inner Region to try and win the game at 12 strength

If the opponent dies, it will be replaced by a new character. If I die, I lose the game.

Is this fun? Are you kidding me? 😄

Of course not.

There will be times I'll be bored out of my skull. Let's face it, this is no game to play solo. You should play it with a group, drinking lots of beer, laughing at each other's misfortune, then roll a 1 yourself, get turned into a toad and see everybody running off with the stuff you managed to collect in the last two hours.

But when World of Warcraft started all those years ago, I spent the first six months just walking around, sightseeing at leisure. I have such fond memories of that time. In Skyrim I even walked around for seven hundred and forty hours, and I have absolutely no idea how the main quest ends. I'm that kind of person. So I'll survive.

And well, it's my altruistic nature. I will be playing this solo so you don't have to. Cool, huh?

***

I aim to post about an expansion every month (sometimes throwing in two small ones at a time), which should get me through 2021:

• January - The Reaper Don't Fear the Reaper

• February - The Frostmarch / The Sacred Pool Rolling Dice with Death

• March - The Dungeon Down in the Dungeon

• April - The Highland Higher Ground

• May - The Dragon Here Be Dragons

• June - The Blood Moon I See a Blood Moon Rising 

• July - The City Summer in the City 

• October - The Nether Realm / The Deep Realms I Put a Spell on You 

[edit - then suddenly we found ourselves in 2023]

• December - The Firelands What's that Smell?

• The Woodland

• The Harbinger

• The Cataclysm

#Talisman #Goodenough #FantasyFlightGames