Here goes!
Runebound is a beautiful game. One of the first things you will notice {as with most board games} is the board. It looks like a map complete with hills, mountains, forests, rivers, roads, swamps and towns. Movement on the board is handled with special dice with symbols for each type of terrain. You roll 4 or 5 dice depending on your health and/or exahstion and pick a symbol for each die to move into that terrain. You do not have to use all of the dice rolled and you do not have to move at all if you do not want to.
Also along the perimeter of the board are spaces for adventure, event, undeafeated challange and market cards.
Talisman also has a beautiful board but it's designed more like a Monopoly board with each square on the board representing a forest, hill, city, tavern, plains, fields etc. It is devided into three sections. The outer, middle and inner sections respectively with a river deviding the outer and middle region. Movement is a bit simpler, you roll a 6 sided die and choose a direction to travel {clockwise or counterclockwise}. You have to move your full roll and unlike Runebound, you HAVE to move.
There are no spaces on the board to place your card decks. I usually place the adventure deck in the center of the board {which covers the Crown of Command space and will eventually have to be moved} and purchase and spell cards to the side of the board. It's not a big deal but I prefer a place on the board for some reason.
The art work on Runebound's cards is, again, beautiful. The detail on the monsters, enemies, followers etc. is outstanding. Fantasy Flight certainly has some great artists on their payroll.
Talisman also has some great art work but it's a bit more cartoony which lends for a more tongue in cheek feel. Some of the followers are not only annoying but downright hilarious. If I had to draw a comparison, I'd say Runebound is "Lord of the Rings" and Talisman is
"The Hobbit".
Both games are basically race games. The players are racing to be the first to power up enough to face the end challenge.
At the start of the game Runebounds board is filled with adventure counters of 4 different colors. Green, yellow, blue, and red, this is also the order of difficulty in the challenges you will encounter. So at the beginning of the game you will try to land on the green adventure counters and you will draw from the green adventure deck for that encounter. As you progress in strength, abilities and weaponry you will try to take on the next color until you feel you are ready to take on the red encounters.
You win the game by either defeating High Lord Margath or by collecting 3 Dragon Runes, all located in the red challenge deck.
There are 8 town spaces on the map and 8 corresponding spaces on the board for a market deck in each town. At the beginning of the game every town gets 1 random card {except the town you start in} to start it's market deck. Thereafter every time you visit a town you will flip over the top item card from a central deck and place this in the market deck of the town you are visiting.
You will usually recieve healing after a battle by visiting a town and spending gold which you have accumalated through your battles. This is also the basic way for accumalating weapons, armor and allies all which have a cost associated with them.
The only things which you will see on the Runebound board is an adventure counter or an undeafeated challenge counter.
At the start of a Talisman game the board is empty but this quickly changes as you play. Most turns you will draw a card from the adventure deck and encounter it. Unlike Runebound, the Talisman adventure deck is full of monsters, enemies, weapons, armor, places, followers {allies} and random events. Many times the places stay on the board to encounter over and over, the same with many strangers who will stay and aid you in your quest. If you encounter an enemy and do not defeat it it stays on the board until someone does. If you draw an item that you don't want or discard an unwanted item it stays on the board until someone picks it up. The same with most followers. In this way the Talisman board is more "alive" with activity. I also like that most of the really good weapons can be had just by drawing them {if your alignment is right}. You don't have to buy them or run back to town. Of course they still have the basic items for sale in the village.
Also there is just more to do when you visit a location in Talisman. In the village you can visit the blacksmith, mystic or the healer. In the city you can visit the enchantress, alchemist or the doctor. You can pray at the temple or get drunk at the tavern. You can visit the Chapel where the good are healed for free and the evil lose a life.
Unlike Runebound you do not get a choice in the difficulty of your encounter so you could encounter a level 7 dragon at the start of your game and a level 1 boar when you are a killing machine. It is all totally random.
The goal in Talisman is to power up your character until you feel you are ready to take on the challenges in the inner region. Oh Yeah! You will also need to collect a Talisman in order to advance to the last space on the board. The "Crown of Command" space which basically lets you cast killing spells at all of the other characters. Once reached each turn you will take a life from the other players until they are dead or until they also reach the "Crown of Command" space and take it from you in battle.
The battles in Runebound are a bit clunky. You have a round in which you will fight a ranged, melee, and magic {spirit} battle respectively. Each round you decide if you will fight or defend in one of those phases. You can only attack in one phase, in the other 2 you will be defending. You will continue a battle until either your opponent is defeated or you are knocked out. {For more details on battling see Fantasy Flights website}. If you win you collect the reward printed on the card. If you lose return to the nearest town fully healed, discard all of your gold and your highest priced item or ally of your choice. Of course as with all games of this type weapons and armor will increase your stats for fighting and defending so make sure to add all of your modifiers before battling. The battles in Runebound are done with two 10 sided dice.
The battles in Talisman are much quicker and simpler. They are all done with a single 6 sided die. Simply add your modifiers and add them to your dice roll while the player to your right rolls for the monster or enemy, high roll wins. If the attacker was another player character, the winner takes a life {you start with 4} and either a gold, follower or item of his choice.
That's pretty much it both games are a run around the board doing battles and buying or accumulating items until your strong enough to take on the "Boss". Of course Runebound is the only one with a "Boss" unless you have expansions for Talisman.
Now thoughts on the games.
Runebound is pretty much a muti-player solo board game. There is little or no player interaction. As such, multiple players just tend to slow your solo adventuring down. I feel it is best played as a solo game using "Skeletors" solo rules which just uses the threat track from the midnight expansion with a difficulty level selector.
Runebound has a slew of expansions which should keep the game if not fresh at least not stale. I really like what they have done with the big box expansions. They each come with a new board which lays over top of the original board giving you a whole new land to explore and experience.
I also like that each character has a special ability or 2. But where Runebound really fails is in the player interaction. There just isn't any to speak of. Also Runebound has no spell cards so you don't really get a sense of casting spells during the "magic" phase of the battles.
Talisman 2nd edition also has a bunch of expansions. Unfortunately the new boards set up side of the old board. It gives you new places to explore but it also makes for a much longer game. Some of the expansions seriously unbalanced the game but it's easily fixed with house rules.
Where Talisman really shines is with over 60 characters {if you have all of the expansions} with special abilities that not only affected your character but others as well. For instance, I just played 2 nights ago and I was the scout. I had a power that allowed me to hide any upturned "place" adventure card. I could flip it face down and now only I know the way there. Someone drew the pool of strength card which allows any player that lands there to gain a strength until the pool is used up. I was able to hide it and become the only player to take advantage of it.
I also like the fact that there is a spell deck for spells which help me feel like I'm using magic when I play them. There are a bunch of spells that can really mess other players up. Immobolization, aquisition, fireballs, finger of death etc. The same can be said for the adventure deck, there are items in there that are designed to be headaches for other players, Rod Of Ruin anyone?
Battles are simply a matter of taste. I like Runebounds system for solo-ing but much prefer Talismans quick and not so lethal when I have multiple players.
To sum up, niether game is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Both are long but light-hearted affairs. Very little strategy involved with either but I like random games of this type.
Runebound is the better choice if you prefer solo adventuring and Talisman is, IMHO the better multi-player game.
Last edited on 2008-08-07 19:44:22 CST (Total Number of Edits: 5)
Posted Fri Aug 8, 2008 12:04 am
