Thanks for the comprehensive review. Saw the pdf is currently free on drivethrurpg and found your video while looking for a review. The comments on solo play added so much to the review.
Great video, thanks! Sounds really innovative, I will probably end up buying this for the strangers and followers system, if nothing else. Have a good weekend!
Interesting take on this system; I'm not really into solo role-playing games as much, but it's good to get that perspective. One thing I thought I'd point out for other people who are thinking about playing this in a group - the players running the hero characters might usually be the ones _making_ rolls, but they are not always the ones _declaring_ rolls; the game-master is also allowed to call upon a player to make a roll in response to something potentially happening to their character, which could (with a little bit of mathematical chicanery) have been realised as the game-master declaring and then making a roll _themselves_ instead. Thus, there are still plenty of mechanical jumping-off and jumping-in points for a game-master to take a more active and participatory role in the game, if they want to - which is nice, and IMO quite important. Having fun stuff for people to do isn't the only way for a game to be fun, but it is _a_ way.
I've had this game since shortly after its release, and I wholeheartedly agree that it's a great system and translates well to solo play. As soon as I read the core mechanics, my first thought was to try it solo. Never did because I've been playing too many other games, but I really need to get back to Talisman.
Games in which the players always roll dice are great for solo'ing. Talisman Adventures, Cypher System, and Symbaroum are a few notables off the top of my head. Cuts down on extra calculations, and, sometimes, amount of rolls. Along with smaller stat blocks to keep track of on those NPCs/baddies, which is often something I appreciate in RPGs all around. Edit: I hope they release an extended Bestiary for Talisman Adv. While the one included in the book is sufficient to last awhile and making your own beasties would be pretty easy, I like a wide variety without having to spend the time doing it myself. Plus monster variety is one of the coolest things about these games and an especially big focus of fantasy ones.
@@epone3488 - Thanks! I haven't investigated upcoming releases from them. Guess I like being surprised at that last moment. The rare promo email I get from the publisher is in German, of which I understand very little, so I've not been kept up on things.
I would get this just for the neat backstory and lore to the Talisman universe. Would be nice eye candy to have on the table when your friends are over to play the board game.
My 2 cents about where the Lore is located is a decent # of books put the lore early on. It largely depends on if the book is trying to be supportive of custom worlds and such or if it's meant to be based on a very specific world.
I like Talisman 4ed. I love the art and the adventure style of the game. I don't like the randomness in the movement but I can live with that or make my own rules. Great game for a family. I can't wait for my daughters to be at the right age to play with.
Love that it is respectful to its board game roots instead of making a DND reskin! The structured gameplay and mechanical NPC encounter also seem right up my alley. Also love your bag of fate house rule, such a classic board game trick that works so well in Solo RPG. Lastly, we can use all the talisman board game components we already have! Goodbye blank hex map and hello to the legendary talisman game board
This game really stands on its own two feet--sounds very different from D&D! If you travel and can only take a book--this would be an awesome RPG to have with you!
That's the great thing about this system - it can help different people interpret results to get a cool story! In this example I was interpreting the results through a lens of probability, so the door would have a greater chance of being locked based on where it was located. But a stuck door would also be a great idea because then you would have to deal with the noise of opening it!
nice! some really neat ideas in this vid. I think stone ax channel uses fate die sort of like this too, seems a really elegant way to handle simple questions! love the idea of a business!
As some one with years of rpging (I've been playing weekly since 1979. An entire room in my house deveoted to rpg and wargame storage. This game is one of the most clever designs Ive yet encountered. The combat mechanism is sublime the other systems in the game are well thought out and mesh well with each other. As a simple book rpg its exceptional. Yets its flying under many peoples radars. ( I think the Lone Wolf Adventure game is also a great solo option for similar reasons but to make it sing you really need the core and Heroes of Magnamund and probably also the monster book to wit) Its hard to pass this up as a great all in one book rpg. Yes you can add on a few other bits and bobs but its essentially complete in the core book. Re; Gold Once we saw the lack of
It really is a good system. I just wish it was better edited, and that the Dungeon supplement wasn’t so unfinished. They really dropped the ball on the new classes and ancestries, and them not answering any of my emails is poor customer service! I’m having a bit of a difficult time balancing the game for one hero. Combat happens a lot, and the enemies have a ton of health.
There realy good ideas on the video and the system looks a fun one to play (extra fun for people that like the board game). With Solo play in mind there are some things that i realy dont know if it "lands" in the right way: 1- The combat: Combat looks realy mortal. On one hand it looks like it can be avoided, dont know if all can, and we have followers to mitigate the damage, but the rules look realy mortal for a solo heroe withot followers or other heroes (it is the same as board game, without followers it is hard). 2- Would like to know the lvls showed in the besteary table are for single PC or for PC medium lvl. I realy like the idea of the bag and that "fate coins" going into the bag. One idea it gaves me is to allways be a minium "fate coins" to allways have inside the bag. For example allways have at least 2 good fate coins and 2 bad fate coins. This way we can allways try to push our luck. It for example the Good fate coins goes to 0 theres no reason to gamble. Added to this could be a good way to balance the solo game play aspect. For example start each season of play with for example 5 Good and 2 Bad fate. On the use of Fate dices to awanser yes/no quetions is the only idea that is realy not my taste. I like it can lend to some diferent intrepretations and with that came good thoughs, but generaly for yes/no quetions with some awanser degree i like something more concrete and fast. Getting an yes but, no plus, etc... will speed the game and dont leave me thinking if an +- 0 is something bad or not, for me that is like im making the quetion "Are there any drinks in this place?" cames with the awanser "Maybe". Well if i make a quetion i realy like to have the awanser. Btw that secound book realy looks like a disapointing one. In general this looks realy fun game to play, maybe using the game board as a map and the standees as PC marker may get even more interesting. Realy liked the video as allways, good work and interesting stuff in this chanel.
The Fate draw is an awesome idea - I love it - Much better than a spending system 😃 The 'gold error' may simply be something they put into the game for future expansions like an Equipment Manual 😇 For all the charts- If the GM Screens dont have them - I cut and paste the charts from the PDF of the book and make my own chart collections 😀 Lastly - I love the idea of using Fate Dice to further focus questions and situations - Awesome 🥰
Unfortunately the company never answered any of my various emails / messages about the errors and issues I had with the books. They just don't seem to care at all, which is too bad.
I hope it had the New print smell, I never judge a book by its cover I always dive in head first to understand better and learn fast. But not recklessly. 😁😊❤️🔥✌🏻
All I want is rather large and really interesting chart of locations I can use in my co-op game I play with wife. A large list of things that make sense for a chaotic city kind of like mordheim. I could see me using that list but I'm not buying the whole book just for a d66 location chart unfortunately.
I just ordered this. I think this could replace OD&D for me. Love D6 systems and a "chaos die" element. I'm wondering if there could be a "highest die" hack to expedite things even further.
It has some great stuff. I just wish the publisher would address some of the issues / problems, and that they'd offer up some more support. It seems like it might be a dead game.
@@TheDungeonDive I didn't realize this vid was from months ago until after I wrote my comment. I'm glad I picked up the game. It looks like a hackable system (as you've demonstrated), or even the core mechanics could be laid over BX D&D (though I'm in a bit of a Risus phase for that currently). Unfortunate that it doesn't appear to be getting further support.
I contacted them multiple times via multiple channels to ask for errata / corrections (especially the stuff missing), and I finally heard back "we'll look into it." That was a couple months after posting the video. That's really bad customer service.
I agree that the book could have used more editing and a different structure. There's a free Quickstart Guide PDF that does a much better job of introducing the rules. Instead of starting with a glossary and then taking a detour on the world history, it explains the concepts and rules right at the start and does a better job than the full manual, just by arranging the text in a more logical (to me) order.
I did not. I'm extremely disappointed with their customer service. I've message them three times, different ways, and I've been totally ignored. That's a terrible way to treat customers.
@@TheDungeonDive that's unfortunate! Hopefully the upcoming Tales of the City book doesn't have such odd omissions... It's a shame to set up something as cool as the aspirations and then just forget about it.
I've never been straight up ignored by a game company before. It's really weird. Even before I was doing the channel, companies always responded. Not sure what's going on. I need to do a follow up video, but I'm going to give them another month.
Nice vid, looks super quick to pick up and play with flavoursome Talisman rules. One thing, could you turn the auto focus off as when you move your hands it was making the shot move in and out and that was making me feel sea sick.
Wow I also thought I had no interest in this rpg, but it looks pretty interesting. I am fan of the board game, any thoughts on being able to use the board game elements? My first thought was maybe using the deck of cards for random encounters, less likely is perhaps the board as the map.
Daniel, did you ever receive a reply regarding the missing content from Tales of the Dungeon? Also, did you pick up the other two books for the system? I'd be interested to hear how you got on with this game! Please make another video about Talisman Adventures, this is my favourite video of yours. Thanks. Edit: i Just looked in the City expansion and that is missing the same elements as the dungeon book. Pretty poor because the aspirations are one of my favourite things about character creation. I can't find any errata or faq online, as this game is dead and buried. Still, I'm glad i have everything for it and will try to run it solo, using the fate pool you demonstrated in the video. Thanks again. Hope you're good, and if not, i Hope you are soon!
I have a print out of a simple gm emulator based on Mythic called GMER that uses 3d6 similar to Talisman. I can so easily adapt your fate system house rule to GMER! P.S. Just spent the last couple of hours working on this. I now have a good way to use Talisman's Fate Points with GMER, and I figured out how to use this with other games using it kinda like how EZD6 does Karma Points and Hero Dice! Thank you so much for the inspiration!
There's no such thing like solo RPG. You can't role play like that man. With who? And who will award you with XP for your role playing? PS. I see you have same game board as I do. Funny fact. Back in late 80's, early 90's Talisman was released in Poland as Magia i miecz (Magic and Sword). Well... Dirty Dancing was translated to Whirling Sex and Terminator to Electronical murdered. So who am I to judge.
🙂 New Dungeon Dive video.
😁 It’s a Solo RPG Friday video.
🤩 It’s nearly an hour long.
This one got a little out of hand! :) I had a lot to say.
I just ordered this. I am deeply impressed with this game, this is what every edition of D&D since the late 80s should have been.
Thanks for the comprehensive review. Saw the pdf is currently free on drivethrurpg and found your video while looking for a review. The comments on solo play added so much to the review.
Glad it was helpful!
Great video, thanks! Sounds really innovative, I will probably end up buying this for the strangers and followers system, if nothing else. Have a good weekend!
Interesting take on this system; I'm not really into solo role-playing games as much, but it's good to get that perspective.
One thing I thought I'd point out for other people who are thinking about playing this in a group - the players running the hero characters might usually be the ones _making_ rolls, but they are not always the ones _declaring_ rolls; the game-master is also allowed to call upon a player to make a roll in response to something potentially happening to their character, which could (with a little bit of mathematical chicanery) have been realised as the game-master declaring and then making a roll _themselves_ instead. Thus, there are still plenty of mechanical jumping-off and jumping-in points for a game-master to take a more active and participatory role in the game, if they want to - which is nice, and IMO quite important. Having fun stuff for people to do isn't the only way for a game to be fun, but it is _a_ way.
I've had this game since shortly after its release, and I wholeheartedly agree that it's a great system and translates well to solo play. As soon as I read the core mechanics, my first thought was to try it solo. Never did because I've been playing too many other games, but I really need to get back to Talisman.
YAAAS! Love it - and entirely fitting that a video on talisman should be long!
Games in which the players always roll dice are great for solo'ing. Talisman Adventures, Cypher System, and Symbaroum are a few notables off the top of my head. Cuts down on extra calculations, and, sometimes, amount of rolls. Along with smaller stat blocks to keep track of on those NPCs/baddies, which is often something I appreciate in RPGs all around.
Edit: I hope they release an extended Bestiary for Talisman Adv. While the one included in the book is sufficient to last awhile and making your own beasties would be pretty easy, I like a wide variety without having to spend the time doing it myself. Plus monster variety is one of the coolest things about these games and an especially big focus of fantasy ones.
Myths and monsters IS on its way. If you go to the developers site or Talisman Island they have blurb.
@@epone3488 - Thanks! I haven't investigated upcoming releases from them. Guess I like being surprised at that last moment. The rare promo email I get from the publisher is in German, of which I understand very little, so I've not been kept up on things.
I would get this just for the neat backstory and lore to the Talisman universe. Would be nice eye candy to have on the table when your friends are over to play the board game.
My 2 cents about where the Lore is located is a decent # of books put the lore early on. It largely depends on if the book is trying to be supportive of custom worlds and such or if it's meant to be based on a very specific world.
I really love your homebrew fate system. I may even borrow it for a morality system in UnderQuest. Great video as always!
I would love to see that further developed by you!
Love the music. Superb.
Thanks! It's from my album Cycles - carlsagansghost.bandcamp.com/album/cycles
@@TheDungeonDive Reminds me slightly of Vangellis. Its wonderful. Do you like Zero 7?
I am not familiar with Zero 7.
@@TheDungeonDive Threyr'e a UK band. Ambient kinda music. "When it Falls" was an awesome album.
I've been loving TA since watching this video. Would love to see more playthroughs with it!
I like Talisman 4ed. I love the art and the adventure style of the game.
I don't like the randomness in the movement but I can live with that or make my own rules.
Great game for a family.
I can't wait for my daughters to be at the right age to play with.
Another awesome video! The structured gameplay of this system indeed seems like a great fit for solo :D
Love that it is respectful to its board game roots instead of making a DND reskin!
The structured gameplay and mechanical NPC encounter also seem right up my alley.
Also love your bag of fate house rule, such a classic board game trick that works so well in Solo RPG.
Lastly, we can use all the talisman board game components we already have! Goodbye blank hex map and hello to the legendary talisman game board
Yeah. They really did a great job of making this feel like Talisman. I thought it was just going to be another typical fantasy game.
This game really stands on its own two feet--sounds very different from D&D! If you travel and can only take a book--this would be an awesome RPG to have with you!
I would say a neutral roll for a locked door check means the door is stuck instead.
That's the great thing about this system - it can help different people interpret results to get a cool story! In this example I was interpreting the results through a lens of probability, so the door would have a greater chance of being locked based on where it was located. But a stuck door would also be a great idea because then you would have to deal with the noise of opening it!
An outstanding review, thanks so much. You've convinced me, I want the game.
nice! some really neat ideas in this vid. I think stone ax channel uses fate die sort of like this too, seems a really elegant way to handle simple questions! love the idea of a business!
That d6 system sounds great! As well as your fate system idea.
As some one with years of rpging (I've been playing weekly since 1979. An entire room in my house deveoted to rpg and wargame storage. This game is one of the most clever designs Ive yet encountered. The combat mechanism is sublime the other systems in the game are well thought out and mesh well with each other. As a simple book rpg its exceptional. Yets its flying under many peoples radars. ( I think the Lone Wolf Adventure game is also a great solo option for similar reasons but to make it sing you really need the core and Heroes of Magnamund and probably also the monster book to wit) Its hard to pass this up as a great all in one book rpg. Yes you can add on a few other bits and bobs but its essentially complete in the core book.
Re; Gold Once we saw the lack of
It really is a good system. I just wish it was better edited, and that the Dungeon supplement wasn’t so unfinished. They really dropped the ball on the new classes and ancestries, and them not answering any of my emails is poor customer service! I’m having a bit of a difficult time balancing the game for one hero. Combat happens a lot, and the enemies have a ton of health.
There realy good ideas on the video and the system looks a fun one to play (extra fun for people that like the board game).
With Solo play in mind there are some things that i realy dont know if it "lands" in the right way:
1- The combat: Combat looks realy mortal. On one hand it looks like it can be avoided, dont know if all can, and we have followers to mitigate the damage, but the rules look realy mortal for a solo heroe withot followers or other heroes (it is the same as board game, without followers it is hard).
2- Would like to know the lvls showed in the besteary table are for single PC or for PC medium lvl.
I realy like the idea of the bag and that "fate coins" going into the bag. One idea it gaves me is to allways be a minium "fate coins" to allways have inside the bag. For example allways have at least 2 good fate coins and 2 bad fate coins. This way we can allways try to push our luck. It for example the Good fate coins goes to 0 theres no reason to gamble. Added to this could be a good way to balance the solo game play aspect. For example start each season of play with for example 5 Good and 2 Bad fate.
On the use of Fate dices to awanser yes/no quetions is the only idea that is realy not my taste. I like it can lend to some diferent intrepretations and with that came good thoughs, but generaly for yes/no quetions with some awanser degree i like something more concrete and fast. Getting an yes but, no plus, etc... will speed the game and dont leave me thinking if an +- 0 is something bad or not, for me that is like im making the quetion "Are there any drinks in this place?" cames with the awanser "Maybe". Well if i make a quetion i realy like to have the awanser.
Btw that secound book realy looks like a disapointing one.
In general this looks realy fun game to play, maybe using the game board as a map and the standees as PC marker may get even more interesting.
Realy liked the video as allways, good work and interesting stuff in this chanel.
The Fate draw is an awesome idea - I love it - Much better than a spending system 😃 The 'gold error' may simply be something they put into the game for future expansions like an Equipment Manual 😇 For all the charts- If the GM Screens dont have them - I cut and paste the charts from the PDF of the book and make my own chart collections 😀 Lastly - I love the idea of using Fate Dice to further focus questions and situations - Awesome 🥰
Unfortunately the company never answered any of my various emails / messages about the errors and issues I had with the books. They just don't seem to care at all, which is too bad.
Really good video. Great explanation and critique.
Thank you.
I only played Talisman on my ipad, i realy like that board game.
If you haven't already, take a look at the boxed version of Dragonbane, it's a great RPG with an excellent solo system. Loving the channel.
Yep! Have a review of it. And I agree - it's fantastic. Such a great value!
I hope it had the New print smell, I never judge a book by its cover I always dive in head first to understand better and learn fast. But not recklessly. 😁😊❤️🔥✌🏻
All I want is rather large and really interesting chart of locations I can use in my co-op game I play with wife. A large list of things that make sense for a chaotic city kind of like mordheim. I could see me using that list but I'm not buying the whole book just for a d66 location chart unfortunately.
Yeah. Don’t buy it if it doesn’t have what you want. That’s sound advice.
I just ordered this. I think this could replace OD&D for me. Love D6 systems and a "chaos die" element. I'm wondering if there could be a "highest die" hack to expedite things even further.
It has some great stuff. I just wish the publisher would address some of the issues / problems, and that they'd offer up some more support. It seems like it might be a dead game.
@@TheDungeonDive I didn't realize this vid was from months ago until after I wrote my comment. I'm glad I picked up the game. It looks like a hackable system (as you've demonstrated), or even the core mechanics could be laid over BX D&D (though I'm in a bit of a Risus phase for that currently). Unfortunate that it doesn't appear to be getting further support.
I contacted them multiple times via multiple channels to ask for errata / corrections (especially the stuff missing), and I finally heard back "we'll look into it." That was a couple months after posting the video. That's really bad customer service.
@@TheDungeonDive That's disheartening. At least the game exists for people to enjoy.
I agree that the book could have used more editing and a different structure.
There's a free Quickstart Guide PDF that does a much better job of introducing the rules. Instead of starting with a glossary and then taking a detour on the world history, it explains the concepts and rules right at the start and does a better job than the full manual, just by arranging the text in a more logical (to me) order.
The worst thing is that all of my questions to the publisher have been entirely ignored. Super bad customer service.
I think I have watched it played Rodney Barrow-Smith.
did you ever get an answer about the aspirations and starting kits in the dungeon book?
I did not. I'm extremely disappointed with their customer service. I've message them three times, different ways, and I've been totally ignored. That's a terrible way to treat customers.
@@TheDungeonDive that's unfortunate! Hopefully the upcoming Tales of the City book doesn't have such odd omissions... It's a shame to set up something as cool as the aspirations and then just forget about it.
I've never been straight up ignored by a game company before. It's really weird. Even before I was doing the channel, companies always responded. Not sure what's going on. I need to do a follow up video, but I'm going to give them another month.
Nice vid, looks super quick to pick up and play with flavoursome Talisman rules.
One thing, could you turn the auto focus off as when you move your hands it was making the shot move in and out and that was making me feel sea sick.
Yeah. Had a bad camera angle on a new tripod. Won’t do that again!
Wow I also thought I had no interest in this rpg, but it looks pretty interesting. I am fan of the board game, any thoughts on being able to use the board game elements? My first thought was maybe using the deck of cards for random encounters, less likely is perhaps the board as the map.
Oh yeah - you can totally use the board and cards for certain things. You could build an encounter deck for random encounters.
Daniel, did you ever receive a reply regarding the missing content from Tales of the Dungeon? Also, did you pick up the other two books for the system? I'd be interested to hear how you got on with this game! Please make another video about Talisman Adventures, this is my favourite video of yours. Thanks.
Edit: i Just looked in the City expansion and that is missing the same elements as the dungeon book. Pretty poor because the aspirations are one of my favourite things about character creation. I can't find any errata or faq online, as this game is dead and buried. Still, I'm glad i have everything for it and will try to run it solo, using the fate pool you demonstrated in the video. Thanks again. Hope you're good, and if not, i Hope you are soon!
I never did, even after a couple of follow ups. Super disappointed with their customer service.
Nice review…I’ve been curious about this one… are there any modules for the game? Love to see some pre programmed adventures
Not sure.
I often feel tempted to buy Talisman 4E but one concern is that the games are said to drag extremely long and have a weak end game. Is it true?
I’ve use a bunch of house rules that speed up the game.
@@TheDungeonDive I figured but it's great to hear that!
It's long, but the end game is the best part. Often epic!
I have a print out of a simple gm emulator based on Mythic called GMER that uses 3d6 similar to Talisman. I can so easily adapt your fate system house rule to GMER!
P.S.
Just spent the last couple of hours working on this. I now have a good way to use Talisman's Fate Points with GMER, and I figured out how to use this with other games using it kinda like how EZD6 does Karma Points and Hero Dice!
Thank you so much for the inspiration!
Have fun!
I clicked the video to find out where to get the cardboard standees.
Talisman.
What next 3 hour playthroughs.
We can hope.
There's no such thing like solo RPG. You can't role play like that man. With who? And who will award you with XP for your role playing? PS. I see you have same game board as I do. Funny fact. Back in late 80's, early 90's Talisman was released in Poland as Magia i miecz (Magic and Sword). Well... Dirty Dancing was translated to Whirling Sex and Terminator to Electronical murdered. So who am I to judge.
Solo RPGs are some of the best selling things in the hobby space, have been for some time now. Get with the times! ;)