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Talisman may seem like a lot of rules at first glance, but stick with it. The majority of the rules revolve around rolling a dice against opponents, adding modifiers and following the instructions written on the board. If you are still struggling by the end of this, fear not there's still hope! There are plenty of how to play talisman videos online that may provide a better learning format for you. In this guide if their is an exception to a general rule i”ll highlight it with the symbol *. Also if there is an alternative play option based on player choice i'll use the # symbol to make you aware of it so that you look it up in the manual at your own leisure. Are you ready? Let's delve in!
Game Components
Health Tokens
The green cones are used from the start of the game to keep track of your current health. All the cones come in two sizes, big ones representing 5 and little ones representing 1. As a bonus all the tokens stack quite easily for neatness.
Craft And Strength Tokens
Unlike the health tolkens the strength and craft tokens (red and blue respectively) are not used right away. They are only put on your character sheet when you gain strength or craft from a source other than a follower or object. Some examples being from your trophies and certain adventure cards that we'll get into at a later point. Craft is used in psychic combat and also allows you to gather and cast more spells. Strength is the default stat used for all standard combat and doesn’t do much else. Below is a photo of a late game character to give you an idea where all the tokens, objects and followers will be stored later in the game.
Fate Counters
Fate allows characters to reroll a single dice of their own. Rules for fate usage state that you can spend no more than 1 fate on the same roll and must accept the new result once rolled.
Gold coins
Gold is used to buy things at shops and markets, quite often weapons and armour to keep you alive or services otherwise vital to your health such as healing at the local docs.
Game Cards
Alignment Cards
Whenever a character's alignment changes to one that's different from their starting one these cards are used to keep track of it. There is one side for good (the white side) and one for evil (the red) *any character's alignment (including the druids) can only change once per round and if this causes players to discard alignment specific items they must do so.
Talisman Cards
Unless you are lucky enough to find one in the adventure deck the next most common way to gain a talisman is by completing a quest for the warlock in the middle region. Visit their cave and choose a quest. As soon as you complete this quest you are immediately teleported back to the cave and receive a talisman. In order to enter the valley of fire players must have a talisman, or turn back so they are vital to win the game.
Spells Cards
Players may hold and cast spell cards according to their craft level. 3 craft allows you to hold and cast 1 spell per turn, 4 or 5 craft increases your limit to 2 spells per turn and at 6 craft and above your maximum spell limit increases to 3. If at any point a player gains access to a spell with an insufficient craft level to own it they must discard it immediately to the spell discard pile. Players can only cast as many spells per turn as the number of spells they had at that turn's beginning and they may also only cast 1 spell on another player's turn given they still have spells to use. All spells have limits stated on them such as when they can be cast and all spells that target creatures cannot do so in the inner region.
Objects Cards
Objects grant all sorts of buffs, powers and abilities. Players can only carry a maximum of 4 objects on them at any given time however. *If a player owns a mule they are allowed an additional 4 objects. If at any time a player wishes to pick up an object when they are at maximum capacity they must discard an object first to make room. If an object or a follower is dropped it can't be picked up on the same turn by the player that discarded it. It remains in the space at which it was discarded until any player chooses to pick it up.
Follower Cards
Followers are similar to object cards except you have no limit to how many you may accumulate. Each has its own set of rules and buffs written on their instructions telling you what they do.
The Game, the board and the Characters
The Board
The board itself is made up of 3 regions: Outer, Middle and Inner. The difficulty and ferocities of the regions become progressively more challenging the closer to the inner region you get.
You will spend the majority of your game in the outer region building up strength and craft from encounters, objects and followers before venturing into the middle region. The middle region is similar to the outer region but with more card draw, creature buffs and squares which harm players outright.You’ll want to be around strength or craft 10 minimum to have better odds at surviving here. The inner region is where the gameplay changes the most. Players no longer roll for movement and instead move one space per turn. You'll need your stats to be at their highest to navigate this region successfully as you'll face the toughest roll offs here.
Board Setup
First things first this board game is BIG, so make sure you have ample room at the table for both it and the player character sheets.
To start with the board game, cards and tokens should be set up in a similar layout to one of the photos below. Cards and tokens should be placed in a convenient spot for all players to reach.
Character selection and set up
1: Deal out all character cards equally amongst players.
2: Players will randomly select a character out of their given to play, keeping the rest aside for their respawn choices upon death. (#)
3: Players will set up their chosen character with its correct amount of fate, health, gold, and spell cards as stated on their card. Unless stated otherwise the general starting gold is 1 and spells are 0.
4: collect your character miniature from the box and choose a player colour ring to attach to it for easy identification.
5: place your character model on its given starting spot, which is written at the bottom of the character card along with your alignment (evil, neutral and good).
Turn Example
The player whom the board game belongs to goes first, failing this roll for the highest number.
1: On player 1’s turn they may cast a spell (given they can)
2: They then must move and interact with the space they land on or another player on said space.
3: A battle commences between player 1 and a bear for which they are victorious.
4: Keeping the monster as a trophy player 1 ends their turn.
5: Play passes to the next player.
Movement
Players roll two dice and move the total amount in one chosen direction. *It should be noted that when crossing the sentinel bridge to the inner region you can change direction once you cross over to the middle region to complete your move.
Players must move each turn and must follow any restriction from spells or encounters, items or otherwise which affect their movement.
Encounters
The outcomes for landing on a space are as follows.
Interact with a player in that space, follow the instructions on the space or engage with cards that already exist on the space. You can also pick up any objects and followers on the space freely. *Note that if 1 card exists on a space requiring two, one more card must still be drawn. A way around this is to discard objects or follower cards up to the number of cards you need to draw to lower or remove the need to draw cards at all.
Player Combat
1: The attacking player may choose to use one of their character’s special abilities or choose regular combat, this decides the stat players will roll on.
* passive abilities don’t need activating and some characters can choose psychic combat at this stage if it is their turn.
2: If a defending player can evade, they may do so now.
3: Beginning with the active player any player that wishes to cast spells must do so now before rolls.
4: Each player rolls a die and adds all modifiers relevant to the chosen statistic. These include tokens, weapons (1 per battle), spells and followers.
5: The victor may take any 1 of the following from the loser. A gold, object, follower or choose to wound his opponent for 1 life.
6: The player ends their turn. *If the losing player is killed from this battle the winner of the duel may instead take all objects, followers and gold in any combination of their choosing from the loser. Any items not taken are left in the space.
Evading
Evading is a power granted through the use of spells or some followers abilities. The following rules apply to evasion. A player can evade other players that are attempting to attack or use a special ability on them and any other creature that attacks them that isn't in the inner region.
Player Death
When a player dies there are a few options to choose from depending on what game mode you decide to use (#).Typically they respawn as if starting a new game with one of their alternative characters they haven't used yet. *if a player has reached the crown of power players do not respawn they instead lose the game.
Spaces
Spaces usually instruct a player to draw x amount of adventure cards minus the amount of cards that already exist in the space (if any). Sometimes the space will have options, extra rules or dice rolls, in which case the player must follow the instructions for that space.
Adventure Deck
Drawing from the adventure deck can trigger events, monster combats or provide you with objects and followers. The order you resolve multiple cards is shown by the turn order which is the number in the lower right hand of an adventure card. Always resolve the lowest numbers first and the same numbers at the same time. Event cards that affect an entire region will do so on the region the triggering player is in unless specified otherwise. If an event or adventure card sends you to another location on your turn, interact with the new space you land on following the same rules as if you had just finished your movement. Repeat this process any number of times you are required to do so.
Monster Combat
When a creature encounter is drawn from the adventure deck the Player must fight said creature on its terms. Whatever stat is displayed on the monster card will determine the type of combat (strength or craft). Another player then rolls a die on behalf of the monster (If two creatures of the same combat order are drawn, roll once for both and add both their stats to the roll against the active player).
1: If a draw is achieved the player's turn ends Immediately. The creature remains in that space until defeated.
2: If the player wins, they get to keep the card as a trophy.
3: If the creature wins the player's turn ends immediately and they lose one life.
Trophies
Creature cards players defeat are kept as trophies. At the end of a player's turn they can discard any combination of trophies of the same stat combined to a total score of 7 to gain one token of that stat. Any surplus from the sum of the cards is lost.
Crossing to the middle region
The few ways to cross into the middle region are.
1: fight the sentinel and cross the bridge (note he will only fight people travelling from outer to middle region not the reverse way
2: get lucky at the tavern and get a boat to the temple on your next go.
3: Find a raft or get an axe and make one yourself in the woods . rafts must be used right away on your next turn or they are left behind (their kind of hard to carry)
Crossing To The Inner Region
Winning the game and conquering the realm
When a player reaches the crown of command they stay there for the rest of the game and if they are the sole player there they must cast the command spell. To do this roll 1 die and on a roll of 4-6 every other player loses 1 health. If two players exist on the space at anypoint they fight on their turn until there's only one player left. Once any player makes it to the crown of command players can't respawn for the rest of the game and once you are the only player left alive you win the game.
Other Mechanics
Turning Toad
Talisman is a weird game. I don't know what you did to the hag or the enchantress to get on their bad side but I can tell they didn't like it. When you turn into a toad you lose all objects gold and followers (leave on the space of your toadification) and replace your model with the toad model and character sheet likewise. You keep your life stats but everything else including your movement per round is reduced to 1. You can't carry anything as a toad or have any followers, but all is not lost as it only lasts for 3 turns. Hop to it, as your prime picking for your enemies in this state.
End Review
That’s all folks, remember the best way to learn is to play the game and have fun. Talisman is a really great game to get into and I hope this article made things alittle easier for you.
Enjoy conquering the realms!