Board Game of the Week: Talisman
Adventure is a topic popular among young adults and kids these days. If you take a look at big games that have garnered attention you’ll end up finding that quite a bit of them are set in fantastical worlds where magic and monsters are abundant. That is why this week I will be showcasing a game that has the same fantasy feel to it; a game called Talisman.
In Talisman you and your friends each choose a character to start with. This character will be with you throughout the rest of the game. Each character has their own stats with upsides and downsides. You could be the strong troll who has a high strength but low intelligence, the mystical wizard who can cast spells with his high intellect but falls short when fighting in combat, or any of the other interesting characters. Once every player has chosen their characters, the game starts. Within the game each player travels around the board encountering monsters, events, and occasionally other players themselves. They slowly grow their strength and intellect becoming stronger and being able to fend for themselves as they travel to the inner region of the map. The objective of the game is to travel to the innermost region and claim the crown of command allowing that player to slowly weaken the other players before leaving him or her as the last person standing and obtaining victory.
The reason I love this game is because of the wide arrangement of events that are able to happen, and the randomness that comes from rolling dice. Each event is fun and unique allowing for each player to have relatively the same chance of obtaining victory, for example you could stumble upon that fountain of strength; permanently increasing your strength stat by one but remaining there for other explorers to use as well. Or you could happen upon a bandit and have to fight him off. There are a great deal of encounters that will not get repetitive until many plays through.
The game is very fun and if you and your friends ever wanted to play a game like Dungeons and Dragons but couldn’t find the time, this game is a good replacement. It gives the same feeling of grand adventure, but only needs a couple hours to complete.
