Talisman, A board game with hacks.

So in preparation of my group project and main project I have been looking at different non digital games, My latest test I decided to look into a board game that had eluded me for a long time..... Talisman.

Talisman is alot like munchkin where players are put into a roleplay environment without actually developing a backstory for their player and campaign, The goal is to complete tasks to get to the crown of command in the center and progressively kill off the other players. Sounds complex? Thats the simple part.

So we began! We each selected 2 random classes and chose our preferred one, we were warned that a class had been banned as it was considered overpowered and broken to use. Once we started we each ran around completing tasks etc. in preparation for the end.

Early in the game i realised how overpowered my class was, In exchange for not taking items off of a player i could deny them combat bonuses against me and only take a life from them thus killing them faster..... That was a interesting turn of events for me (being a pvp player by nature) which i later realised had no ill effect if it was used on a wild creature (as they are not deemed characters) so i would guarantee wins early on.

My inner munchkin took over as i cleaned the board of posessions and wins and eventually raced into the middle to stop the other players from winning, This is where the game became complex.

As a warrior my friends could roll an additional combat dice as well as being naturally good in combat, This eliminated the chance i had with my rolls as my ability was not allowed in the middle and i was out matched in combat. My abilities were slowly stripped, my armour removed and my allies turned against me. All in a few combat phases..... As a person who spent the entire game searching for items and quests to power me up so i could go in no problem I felt angered that my quest was in vain as it gave no real help. But sure bad loser right? I only lost it cos i was bad? Nope, The rules had messed us over.

Now when i say the rules, I mean the initial rules we started on. You know the ones that should make sense and by the time you got them all working and the games rolling..... You realise that one is out of place and your just clutching at straws while you lose everything you love. The rules state that you may perform one action on a space (Hell they even included a flowchart) but the actions we were coming up with meant you could avoid a hard challenge by just dropping a item on it then picking it up next turn when you were sent back..... The whole point of the last section is to test the player each step.... But we could re write it how we saw fit just by doing one action that we were legally allowed to do..... Now ive been doing games design for 3 years.... My tutor would spit on this game for its complexity and the little evidence of testing.

I could take all of these rules into a machine to rewrite time, Submit it and get a 3- because it was that bad when it came to flaws. Everyone remembers the first time they found an exploit? (Nintendo world championships die twice and get 50 coins in record time) but really? In a board game that has expansions, a title and a publisher? Was it really tested with todays audience in mind? I played for 5 minutes and was already killing advanced monsters but got messed early on the end? Hell we had a guy grabbing the rulebook every 5 seconds to test if he could walk in one direction and say "Actually, We cant do this.... its X when you can" But the testers didnt see this coming?

All in all... it is a fun game, But why make it so complex? Every gamesjam, Every module and every god dam game online that make it big.... are the simple ones! Why do we still bother with complexity? We almost didnt play it cos of how long it took to arrange and play.

Rant over though i advise you to check it out, See if the same happens to you and maybe see if the monk really is that overpowered?