h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Prompted by the conversation on Hero Quest I thought I'd add the alternative game published by Games Workshop in 1985, which had loads of fiddly bits of card, but a relatively simple rectangular board. You had a character card, an alignment (which could change), cards for spells or purchases (if applicable), little squares for bags of gold and your various strengths. Each turn you threw the dice to move your figure card around the board and pick up Adventure cards, aiming to head for the centre once you had a talisman.

"The game board represents a fantasy land. Players chose a character from a list of semi-standard fantasy types: Barbarian, Wizard, Monk, etc. The objective of the game is to travel through the land encountering event cards and gathering strength along the way. Hopefully players will eventually become powerful enough to travel to the center of the board, endure the trials there and take the Crown of Command for the victory. There were also several expansions released for this game, which add new character choices and new places to travel."
taken from http://boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid=714

Although it could be played by up to 6 people I usually had to suffice with just my brother, which no doubt blunted the possibilities of alliances with other players, such a feature of games like Risk.

Pimms

Hi pimms

I remember talisman!

My then husband and I used to take it down the local pub and play

had all the expansion pack and even had lead figures that we had painstakingly painted

It was good with 4 people, a thoroughly enjoyable game

unfortunately when we split, he took it and all the figures
and you can't get it anymore here.......

Hi Helelou the 2nd
Am I hopelessly confused or could you be turned into a frog? I'm fairly certain it was in Talisman this could happen, and then you could only hop one space at a time until 'cured'

Pimms

yep, or you crossed running water, (there was a creek I think at on of the corners), I think it was a toad, not a frog


Hel2

Talisman was invented by a very good friend of mine, name of Bob Harris. You can find out more about it from Bob's website at: http://www.harris-authors.com/talisman.html

Bob is a soialable chap and more than happy to talk about it if anyone wants to get in touch - contact details on the site

Can't believe I missed this conversation!

There were various ways you could be turned into a toad - you then lost all the equipment, weapons, magic etc. that you were carrying and could only hop one space at a time. You would turn back automatically after three turns.

The 'crossing water' thing was the poltergeist, which simply meant that you could only move one space at a time until you got rid of the thing.

A great game

Ah that's what it was..

wasn't there something with the hag too......




and not succeeding, and no, I am not a budgie

it's just evening here and I an pleasantly tiddly.......

Now the Hag cursed you and meant that all your Followers deserted you - a real pain if you'd been playing for a while and had managed to accumulate all the really good ones!

I remember some really good games, we had all the expansion packs and some games were quite long

which got expensive when playing down the pub!

our flat was too small for more then two players, so we used to meet down the local, often ended up with other drinkers joining in...our biggest game had 12 players !

12 players? I think the biggest game I've ever played is with 4. I'm trying to imagine playing it in a pub, with all the hundreds of cards, boards, figures and gold tokens that always ended up distributed all over the place. It must have been chaos

nah, was a small pub, we just put 4 tables together and laid everything out, we had lead figures for characters and plastic counters for gold

lots of skullduggery and bribes went on for possesions and items though

everyone used to help in packing up, never lost a thing

Doesn't sound like any pub I've ever been in

It's been too long since I played Talisman

we lived in a very small beach suburb, the pub was so small 50 people was a very crowded night !

used to have a blues/rock jam night once a month, and regulary got 100 people was 4 deep at the bar, we would pass our order and money forward and would get our drinks (and change!)back about 5 minutes later, so .

I lost Talisman to my ex whan we split up, so I haven't played for years, this thread brought back some fond memories though

I still have all of the box sets carefully put away upstairs waiting for my 6 year old to be mature enough to play it...!

Now there's an argument for having children that hadn't occurred to me!

>and you can't get it anymore here.......

If you look you can. GW did make a reproduction copy. I got a copy a couple of years ago from Forbidden Planet.

Quite few years ago (for whatever reason) all the Talisman games and booster packs were remaindered to those discount bookstores like the Works: they were being sold at ridiculously low prices, really silly money, and I remember buying the lot with a vague intention of painting up the figures (plastic, rather than metal) that came with them... this was circa 1996, as I recall. Alas, a favourite nephew inherited all these when I ran out of space to store them...

I mention this because the same discount bookshops are now selling off the "Dungeons and Dragons" games, with figures that loook as if they were ultimately designed by Games Workshop, at £9.99 a time.

Oh, yes, this is a wonderful and fiddly game. It is still in production as well. I believe the game is up to the 4th edition of the rules and printing. I purchased it after playing it at a friend's house. It was great fun. There are several expansions for it that add additional playable characters and more cards and even separate game boards that you can move onto from places on the main board. Quite the setup. And I believe just over a year ago, a digital version became available for iOS (possibly for Android as well, but I'm not sure). It is lots of fun, but there is definitely a time investment. Plan to put aside at least 2-3 hours to play the game to completion (more if you're still learning, even more if you're drinking while playing/learning). But overall, I enjoy it and look forward to my next opportunity to play!