is there a game out there that is similiar to talisman but you can build characters and story over time without devoting a significant part of your life to it? i have always appreciated games where the decisions you have made previously have an impact in your current gaming session. i have not appreciated the time and energy spent creating an atmosphere that requires everyone to participate in every gaming session. i use talisman as an example because it works for my group simply because we can set it up, play and enjoy ourselves everytime no matter who is present and it requires zero prep time. the problem is we are starting to want more. character development and/or leveling them. story and setting themes that reek of 8 sided dice. my question is i want to know if there is a game that combines the casualness of talisman with the depth of a true RPG? something that is so loose that its ok to play if someone cant make it this week as well as not requiring a true DM? please help.

punk666 said:

Similar to Talisman, I can't really say. There are very few boardgame that are designed for league/campaign play. Descent has a camapign expansion (Road to Legend), but it isn't similar to Talisman. It requires longer setup and is more akin to a group dungeon crawl than the PvP nature of Talisman. The World of Warcraft Adventure Game and Runebound both do a better job of scaling encoutners and leveling your characters than Talisman, but again neither are actually setup for ongoing play. That isn't to say that the game cannot be modified to allow for character progression, but it will take some juggling. WoWAG actaully uses levels and restrictionc, while with Runebound there are colored coded stronger challenges.

There might be some other games out there that better emulate character progressions, but the only other Talisman like game I can think of, Return of the Heroes, again isn't geared towards multiple sessions of play (though it is a fun game, I'm just not sure if it is made anymore).

i would try heroquest .