So, when I was writing my review last week, I suggested that part of the problem with Talisman is that it only offers the illusion of choice. Quite often when you go to a space you will draw one card. The card you drew would have been the same regardless of the space.
Jokingly, I suggested placing facedown cards on each space, which of course wouldn’t work! But then later on an idea came to me. By separating the adventure deck into 5 draw decks separated by different terrain types, you could solve two problems.
Firstly, now if you move to the woods you draw from a different deck than if you move to the Hills, for example. Secondly, it splits the adventure deck into 5 smaller decks, meaning it’s much more manageable.
To set up this variant simply shuffle all the adventure cards together and then split them into 5 smaller piles, The decks should be about equal but it’s not an exact science.Then place them with a label next to them that indicates which terrain that deck is used for. Alternatively you can use this board I designed.
(Click to Download the High Resolution PDF)
I printed my version onto a sheet of A4 label paper (available in the UK quite cheaply from James Labels). I then stuck this to a piece of A4 3mm foam board and carefully cut it out. Finally I added a sheet of card to the back to give it a nice smooth finish.
The board was designed to be 11 inches long, 5 inches wide, approximately and will fit into the original box.
Obviously you could theme each Deck with a little time and effort, but that could lead to balance issues and metagaming. For example players always choosing to move to the hills to increase the odds of getting the Gnome. I just shuffled everything together and made random piles.
This variant does create a problem with the Divination spell. I would recommend either removing it (it’s only one spell) or giving it a function identical to the Orb of Knowledge, discarded after use. l would also suggest off setting the cards upwards slightly so you can see the associated terrain type, it’s easier than reading the text.
If you do try this variant out please let me know what you think either by commenting or the Contact Us button.
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