Deep Thoughts on Games by Ubarose
A group of people who can not remember to move out the car at the foot of a driveway, before attempting to back out the car at the head of a driveway, should not play fiddly games unsupervised.
Play responsibly. Appoint a designated turn marker mover.
27 comments:
are you sure your good friend Basil Hayden isn't to blame?
-M
Basil may be partly to blame, but in all fairness, Sam Adams and Mary Jane are equal offenders.
The worst is playing with all three at the same time. Mary Jane is just slow and stupid, which makes Basil start yanking her chain to hurry up and move already. Meanwhile Sam keeps holding up the game with his frequent trips to visit John.
In Mary Jane's defense, however, she does transform Talisman into a game of difficult and challenging decisions. Maybe Tom V doesn't like Talisman because he has never had the pleasure of playing it with Mary.
Talisman came out...I got it...it has a classy flocked insert and is awesome. Fuck "discerning" gamers...
Talisman, awesome....?
Barnes....You sold your soul for a bit of flocking?
Personally, I'm a bit unhappy that they mostly just took the second edition and stuffed it in a spiffy box.
Wake me when they reprint Timescape or City expansion.
Jack Hill said...
Personally, I'm a bit unhappy that they mostly just took the second edition and stuffed it in a spiffy box.
Wake me when they reprint Timescape or City expansion.
I heard they re-printed it without correcting all the text errors from the 2nd editions. Is that true? If it is, that is a pretty stupid thing to do. One of the biggest problems with Talisman was having to explain to a new player that the card or character they just picked didn't really do what was printed on the card.
Timescape is fun (Jetpack), but I think the Dungeon is vital to the game. It transforms Talisman. Instead of wandering around trying to find a Talisman/ trying to land on the wizard, you need to make critical decisions timing and risk management decisions.
1. When do I go for a Talisman?
2. Do I push my luck and attempt the Wizard?
3. Do I go for the slower, but surer Dungeon?
Also, if two or more players are racing through the dungeon together, you have a higher probability that they will land on each other for a little PvP, than when everyone is in the outer and middle regions.
As best as I can tell, Talisman 4th is 2nd with a new box, some minor card and text changes, and a better Crown of Command rule. (It hits all players instead of just one.)
I don't really remember the errata getting THAT long until you started getting into the expansions.
I forgot about Dungeon in the second edition, but it has a similar effect in the third edition, where you also have forest and mountain boards that work the same basic way. And you are right, it is useful.
The City was really nice as it allowed you to shop and pick up specific items and healing without having to hope for a specific die roll.
Personally, I think I would have been happier if they'd just stuck Prophecy in the box instead.
Yeah, but rule #1 about the City is make sure you've got a lot of money before you go there. Otherwise, it'd be a quick trip to the jail.
--Mike L.
Frank Branham said...
I don't really remember the errata getting THAT long until you started getting into the expansions.
Thanks for refreshing my memory. You are correct. We have been playing 2nd edition with most of the expansions, plus our own house rules for so long that it is difficult to remember which cards, rules and errata are part of the base set. We also pulled all the talismans and some of the cards from the expansions out of the Adventure Deck, so we are also playing with a customized deck.
We have always played that the Crown of Command spell hits all players. Was that not in the original rules? I am going to have to pull out all the rules and figure out where that came from.
I also saw that 4th edition now has a rule about how many spells a player can cast per turn so that people can't cycle through the spell deck. I think that was the first house rule we made. I'm glad they officially fixed that.
The City was the expansion I was most excited about, but was the most disappointed in. Shopping bores me, and when I'm raining down death from above, I don't want people to be able to run to the city and get all healed up. Either come up and get me, or die trying.
I like Timescape. The concept amuses me. Here's the elf running around this medieval like fantasy landscape, and, oops, he's sucked into the future. It is so Full Moon Video/Up All Night/MST fodder.
Who needs an FAQ when you've got sense and creativity?
BTW Jack- I got one for you.
Talisman came out...I got it...it has a classy flocked insert and is awesome. Fuck "discerning" gamers...
Also, Michael, it's not a strategy game, nor does it do windows!
I can hardly remember City - wasn't all that interesting.
Also, the two best thing about Talisman:
1. No language independent hieroglyphics.
2. No designated marker mover/tile puller/phase upkeeper required.
They got rid of the "unlimited spells"?
Dammit, that was the rule inspiring one of the best sequences I've ever had in playing Talisman. I was playing a 5 player game, and 3 of the other players really didn't "get" the game. About halfway through the match, one of the guys was about to win, and I was mired way back in obscurity at the time so I really couldn't do anything.
Just then, some guys I knew stopped by after drinking at some houses in the university village. One of them took stock of the game and where it was, and started laying into the three guys who were just going to sit around and let this person win the game. He eventually told one of the players to "get out, I'LL SHOW YOU HOW ITS DONE!" He then proceeded to start whipping out spells left and right and eventually beating the leader back into the pack. He must have gone through something like 7-8 spells in a 2 minute span. The other players were all agog that you could actually do something like that, and I was laughing my ass off.
--Mike L.
Thanks Barnes.
And I didn't get you anything.
Uba:
Full Moon needs to do something as cool as a Timescape movie. Have they done anything particularly deranged since the last Dollman movie?
Although, a movie called Weirdsville turned up a few nights back on Tivo. No outre elements, but a movie with garden gnomes, burying hookers, satanists, icicle lobotomies, Matt Frewer, and midget SCA-ers in armor is well worth the trip.
The best way to find out if a new gaming group is simpatico is to play a 1st/2nd ed. game with stock rules. If you can amicably finish intact even after the Prophetess gets the wand and nobody dies of boredom during the CoC endgame then you've got a group worth keeping.
I remember one Talisman game with an intelligent but very slow gamer who would agonize over every decision.
In Talisman.
There is one card that allow you to search through the spell deck to choose a spell. It took him 20 minutes.
Then he got the wand and I cried myself to sleep that night.
A/P that bad in Talisman, of all things? I'd hate to see that guy in a game of Third Reich.
--Mike L.
I'm writing about TALISMAN (and KRULL) in the next Gameshark column...my favorite TALISMAN story is part of it.
AP gamers...I'm now going to start calling them "Fun Murderers".
You are so not going to diss Krull, are you? We would have to have...words.
Moo,
Frank
We always played with a spell limit, I think it was that you only replenish your spells at the end of your turn. I remember it being a pretty common house rule, going by the innernets discussion at the time.
Krull was okay, but for some reason the scoring done by James Horner seemed off in spots. There were points where I expected different music than what I got, and it kind of grated a bit.
The story is good, tho.
--Mike L.
Ah, when I was in college, the internet was something that you had to get permission from a professor to access. There was bitnet, however.
I guess I just dated myself.
--Mike L.
Dis KRULL? Are you kidding? It's a paen to my purely platonic love for the picture.
I guess I just dated myself.
You put out at least, didn't you?
For myself?
Well.... I don't have hairy palms.
--Mike L.
Actually, I put Krull around the same level as the Dune and the Conan movies, and a notch higher than Willow. All of them are good movies, but like you'd mentioned in your review of Tannhauser, I was hoping they'd be something else. My opinion of them probably suffers from that, even though it's not the movies' fault.
For some reason, I didn't have the same concerns about Beastmaster or The Last Starfighter, even though they aren't as good as those others.
--Mike L.
mtlawson said...
Actually, I put Krull around the same level as the Dune and the Conan movies, and a notch higher than Willow.
A notch higher than Willow! No way. Willow = Val Kilmer in a cage.
Remember, I'm a (hetero) guy. Val Kilmer in a cage isn't quite as interesting for me.
Now, Val as Chris Knight in Real Genius, that was cool.
--Mike L.
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