Hi there

Today I posted a small interview that John Goodenough (Talisman Revised 4th Edition designer) agreed to do for Talisman Island. It covers some interesting ground regarding the revision and the reasons behind some of the changes, including those being discussed on these forums.

http://www.talismanisland.com/interview_johng.htm 

I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers for now
Jon

By the way - If you'd like the chance to pose your own question to the man behind the Revised 4th Edition of Talisman then here's what you need to know.
 
John Goodenough has agreed to carry out a follow up feature to the interview in the form of a "20 Questions" article, and this time the questions will be from forum users!
 
What you need to do is simply post the question you would like to have answered in this thread and I will forward the 20 most interesting onto John for inclusion in the article on Talisman Island!
 
There are a few ground rules which will have to be kept to, namely -
 
All questions must be asked via this thread. The only exception to this will be if people wish to remain anonymous (for whatever reason) and want to email the question directly to me and I will post it in this thread. Please do not try to email John directly as anyone doing so will not have that question answered.
 
If you wish to email me then please do so at this address - 
 
There will be no names used in the article, but the thread will be linked back to if people want to see how the mind of a Talisman fan REALLY works!
 
Before you pose your question it would be an idea to have read through all of the articles so far on the Talisman minisite  and the interview on Talisman Island to see if it hasn't already been covered. It wouldn't hurt to have a look through the rulebook either. 
 
Questions can be about Talisman, game design in general or virtually anything. A good example would be about fate - How fate works has been covered in a couple of articles, but you could perhaps ask about how fate values are calculated for characters.... just an idea. Try to make your question as interesting as possible - questions about John's favourite colour are not likely to be asked, but if we only get 19 questions posted then I might just have to use it!
 
Questions must be asked by the end of Sunday 13th of January. I know we are dealing with a lot of time zones here, so I will take the timestamp from the forum post. Anything posted later will not be considered, so if you are emailing a question to me, make sure I have it in plenty of time so that I can post it to the thread.

Great interview!

I noticed the Bull enemy from your Lost Files when I thumbed through the Reaper cards. "Raging Bull" has a nice ring to it.

John remarked on how the plastic insert was designed to accomodate future expansions. The Reaper seems to fit in fine, but the slots for Adventure cards are already nearly full. Does this mean new expansions will have far fewer Adventure cards than The Reaper?

How did you get involved with Talisman? Which version did you start out playing? How would you compare the new edition to the other versions?

Will fate become more powerful in expansions? What will the light and dark sides of the fate token be used for?

Are old expansions like Timescape and Dragons going to be reprinted? And what expansion is your favourite?

Oh, and what is your favourite colour?

how big will the go with promo or giveaways like gencon?

will threr exclusive figures or only card like the promo cards?

and  how manny  figure are planed at the end 50-100? or  is the main job done and only a few heroes comes with the expansions.

that leads to will the a hero expansion?

thx

Talisman has a deeply devoted fan base, many of whom add to the game with their own creations. As the one most intimately familiar with the revised 4th edition's internal design, what advice could you give them? Are there special considerations some might not have considered in maintaining game balance and playability?

1. how did you take over talisman from games workshop

2. what other talisman games are you working on and is the online talisman coming out again

3. when are you doing another promo card

4. what is the next expansion and when is it coming out...the expansion after the reaper

5. are you going to use any of gary chalk artwork ever

Will future expansions add an additional board?

When playing what is the card that you hate to draw? Love to get? Just plain think is hilarious when it comes out of the deck?

A great interview with an insight into the mind fo the new "guru" of Talisman design.

My question is in relation to the possibility of home-made expansions or card sets.

1. The BI version of Talisman had various card sets created and posted to TalismanIsland for download and printing. I found that I had difficulty in getting the correct card stock and size for printing to compare with the original cards.

Will FFG or Talisman Island be releasing details of the actual detail of the the card stock, pixel size of cards and fonts etc. so that any home made material that is produced will be as close as possible to the actual revised edition cards produced by FFG ?

TalismanIsland had various additional character, adventure and spell cards available by download,  that featured the card back design and then the fronts of the cards in the download. I always found it difficult to print these in a way that reflected the actual cards in the game without manipulation.

In my opinion, if it were easier once the card sets had been downloaded, that once the correct card stock was known and files were just ready to print fronts and backs, these would run alongside the great "official" expansions released by FFG and add to the experience of playing Talisman.

questions continued from previous post

6. your favorite expansion

7. your favorite character

8. your favorite card

9. your favorite game that is not talisman

I play games with my wife and 2 kids, ages 13 and 7, and our favorite games are Talisman, Runebound, and Warcraft: the board game, in that order. Although this is a Talisman forum, my question is in regards to Runebound.

In Runebound, it is hard to keep my kids attention on the game because the individual turn seem to take to long. We are incorporating the Inheritance rule from Talisman, because my wife always dies and loses everything, and I'm trying to incorporate the battle mechanic from Warcraft to speed up the turns. I understand that it may take several turns to kill an enemy with 1 battle per turn instead of several.

Any suggestions?

In fact, FFG’s third Talisman expansion alone will feature more “Toadarific” encounters than all of the 2nd Edition expansions combined!

What can we expect in the future for Talisman?

The Reaper expansion is the first expansion and should be available. The expansion after that introduces new characters, cards, and even more surprises. We will be running a special teaser promotion here at Talisman Island so stay tuned for more info.

I was wondering if we can get more information regarding at least the next two expansion, he mentioned the 3rd is a Toad based theme?

1. The name of the expensions?
2. Due release dates?
3. Main idea around expension? 
4. Broad's included? 

He also mentioned about placing cards in the inner region. I'm idea I like too.

1. Will FFG be making an alternate ending cards or such for the ending instead of the commend spell?
2. Inner Region cards: Will FFG be making cards for all the squares in the region, if not, which ones are you thinking of  making them for?

• Why change the rules wording for combat?
• What were the reasons behind changing the Raider and Siren card?
• Are people who missed the Reaper promo going to be able to get the cards some other way?
• How successful has the new edition been compared to black industry?