Talisman (board game)

Talisman

The Talisman 2nd edition game cover.
Designer(s)	Robert Harris
Publisher(s)	Games Workshop Fantasy Flight Games
Players	2 - 6
Age range	9 and up
Playing time	240 Minutes
Random chance	Card drawing, Dice
Skill(s) required	Role-playing game skills

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game is a fantasy-themed adventure board game for two to six players, originally designed and produced by Games Workshop and now published by Fantasy Flight Games.

The game was first released in 1983 and has gone through several revisions. The Second Edition was available longer than the Third Edition. The Third Edition and some of the Expansion Sets are loosely connected to Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting. Though the game has been out of print intermittently for years at a time, it is currently available in the most recent revision, the revised Fourth Edition (2008).

The game was created by Robert Harris who thought it up for the amusement of himself and his friends. In its original inception, the game's objective was to become prefect of a boys' school. Changing the theme to fantasy, he found a publisher in the form of Games Workshop and agreed a contract for royalties (Games Workshop would later buy out his remaining interest sometime after the introduction of the Third Edition). The game was renamed "Talisman" and it was shown at Games Day 1983.

The second edition of Talisman was nearly identical to the first edition, the differences between the two being purely cosmetic. The 1st edition's black and white deck cards were replaced with coloured versions in the 2nd edition. Early runs had a colour version of the folding board of the 1st edition, but this was later replaced with a 4-piece board which fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. The box art was also changed from the pen and ink drawing of the original to the painting that appeared on the second edition, which enjoyed a much longer print run. The third edition, in contrast, made numerous changes to the artistic design and mechanics of the game.

The object of the game is to progress through a series of regions and reach the Crown of Command. The game contains three regions: the Outer Region, the Middle Region and the Inner Region. Players start in the Outer Region and try to progress inward. The Inner Region contains the Crown of Command, the central board position. To reach the Crown of Command, players must pass through the Valley of Fire. Only characters possessing a talisman may enter the Valley of Fire, hence the name of the game.