Posted by Jesse, gamura bibliophileous.
So, the other week I dropped the hint to our gaming group’s collector that he should get the game Talisman for us to play. Now, dropping a hint to our collector is pretty rough; it usually consists of “I thought game X was fun,” and then he buys the game. Anyway, I was remembering that I enjoyed playing the game once about 8 years ago, and I was getting a little nostalgic when I dropped the hint. In any case, my brilliant plan worked, our collector bought the game, and it arrived before our next game night!
I have talked about how our game play can become the story in a past post. And as much as that is true, I think that maybe our memory (or imagination) makes up a whole lot of that story (it is mostly fiction, right?). I remembered Talisman being a huge daring conquest across battlefields and ending with a huge epic struggle to gain the ultimate control.
Well, turns out the game isn’t really like that.
It is great fun and was a wonderful play, but not really how I remembered. Now granted, my memory wasn’t relying on a ton of prior game play. Like I said, I played it once, 8 years ago. But the two things I distinctly remembered were that there was a ton of infighting amongst the players, and that when the players got to the end, they had to battle something (draw a card or something), and didn’t know what they’d face.
Well, in our game there was no infighting. Now, that could be explained just by the different players in this game play. We could have fought if we chose to . . . though I think the guy who spent more than half the game as a toad might not have liked that. The ending I got was nothing—literally, I battled nothing—maybe they changed that with the new edition? I don’t know where my brain comes up with some stuff . . .
In the end, I think the lesson to take away is this: Be prepared for the “games of old” to surprise you when you play them again. They may not be anything like you remember. They may be worse . . . they may be better! Or, as in this case, they may just be completely different.
Surprises aren’t bad—when you are ready for them.
Have you experience a “game of old” surprising you? Tell us about it in the comments section below!
What you remembered, Jesse, was playing an expansion for Talisman (3rd edition) called Talisman Adventure. In addition to added spells, objects, and characters, it included 5 alternate endings among them the Horrible Black Void (you lose). The other expansions for the 3rd edition were Talisman Dragons, Talisman City, and Talisman Dungeon, and there was one more that I’ve forgotten (and never acquired). The Talisman Dungeon and Talisman City replaced the spots on main board with an entirely new board and play options. It was a lot of fun, and could take hours to play.