A to Z 10 Year Update: T is for Talislanta

This post has been updated since it was originally published on April 23, 2012.

A to Z 2012: Gaming in the 1980s

 Talislanta

I saw this ad in Dragon magazine countless times during the 1980's.  You know, back when Dragon magazine was good by having articles that were truly useful and were not completely focused on just A/D&D; there were actually articles about non-TSR games included at times also.  The point being that the ad caught my attention and made me wonder what this Talislanta game was all about.  My gaming group was all about fantasy games at this stage and would pick up any new fantasy  games we ran across to try out.  We had played enough of the available games that it was time for something new and something different for the group.

I remember that none of us were old enough to drive yet when I bought Talislanta.  I was over at my buddy Jamie's house and there was a game store about a mile down the road.  We were dedicated and would walk to that store every time we were at his mom's house; at least, until I was driving.  We were browsing the games on the shelves and then we noticed the Talisanta Handbook and Campaign Guide with the tattooed Thrall Warrior standing in a combat ready pose on the cover. 

Our custom at that time was to split the cost of any new games we purchased to just try out.  If both of us liked it, then we would get another copy.  If one of use liked it and the other did not, the other person would buy out the other half or just go half again on the next purchase.  If both of us did not like it, then we were only out half the price of the game.  With the modern prices of these types of games it might not be a bad idea to get some like-minded people and arrange a purchase arrangement like that again. 

I could go on and on about the coolness of Talislanta but I think anybody reading this could be better informed by going to the Wikipedia entry and then going to the Talislanta Library to check out the official Talislanta products that Stephan Michael Sechi has made available for download.  It's a true shame that there are no new Talislanta products to grace the store shelves but the creator has ensured that Talislanta will  never "die" by making the game available in this manner. 

Since the original post there is a new version of Talislanta available now using several different rulesets.  The promotional video from the kickstarter gives a basic overview of Talislanta: The Savage Land.  DriveThruRPG has several versions of the original rules system available plus 5E/ d20 version and a D6 version as well.

[Sunday Spotlight] Talislanta: Savage Lands

It is an exciting time to be a Talislanta fan!  The game has been out of print for a few years now but the entire library is available in the Downloads section of the Talislanta site.  Suddenly, there is talk of a new Talislanta book coming out!  The new book is tentatively titled Talislanta: Savage Lands and will cover a "dark chaotic age that followed the Great Disaster (all knowledge of spell casting lost, no cities or nations, just warring tribes)”.  Sounds fun!!!   

G is for Game Systems

G is for Game System(s)

There are several game systems that I have debated about using for the campaign world of Toldara.  I discussed some of the original design in the 3E system and the evolution to a Pathfinder based campaign on my About Me Me page.  I discussed the decision to change my Toldara game to the B/X system in my earlier post, Back to the Basics. At other times, I have thought about using other game systems but ultimately decided against doing so.  Maybe one or more of these will happen in the future?

GURPS 3E or Hero 5E

I am fascinated by the amount of detail in both of these systems.  These are two of the games in my collection that I have never gotten to play.  It seems that none of the people I have ever gamed with are interested in that level of detail. 

Palladium Fantasy
I played just as much Palladium Fantasy as I played AD&D back in high school.  I made up some classes for the old first edition rules back then also.  Unfortunately, all I have is the second edition of this game and I have no practical experience playing or designing items for use with this version.  There seem to be enough differences that I would not feel comfortable converting my campaign over to these rules.  Of course, it might be easier to convert the player information over with the inclusion of all of the available OCCs, RCCs, and races.  For instance, the Wolfen could be re-skinned to be the Karnin as one quick example.  Hmmm…. 

Talislanta

I discovered Talislanta with the second edition.  We played quite a few games back in high school.  Future editions added quite a bit of detail.  If I was going to convert to the Talislanta system I would probably use the second edition due to my experience.  At the time of starting the campaign I was concerned with the out of print status of Talislanta so I skipped it; yes, I am aware that a large amount of formerly printed Talislanta products are available for download in free pdf form at the Talislanta Library.  I was the only person with a printed Talislanta rulebook but all of us had a B/X rulebook so Talislanta was eliminated.   

USR

This game system is even more rules-light than the B/X rules and someone else has already started doing a Moldvay Era conversion.  A Toldara campaign using this system is highly likely to happen at some point.

The Top 7

I stumbled across the top 7 role-playing games meme that was going through the gaming blogosphere recently.  I have read the following posts about their respective top seven games:

 

Gnome Stew

Rather Gamey

Harvester

Tower of Zenopus

The Other Side

 

This type of stuff always interests me because it gives an inside look at what other people in the hobby were doing at the same time.  The summer of 1980 was when it all started for me.  I received the Holmes Basic Set and the three AD&D hardbacks from my uncle David.  I have played a ton of games since then but I am not going to do a separate list for games I played and games I ran.  Both lists would basically be the same but the games would occupy a different spot in both lists. 

 

1. AD&D: My buddies and I actually started off with Holmes and followed the references to the AD&D books I also owned.  We really liked the additional rules and restrictions offered up by AD&D.  It was pretty common for us to use D&D stuff with AD&D; it did not matter because it was all Dungeons & Dragons as far as we were concerned.  No one game got more play time from our group than this one.  I never moved up to 2E but I did game a little with 3E.



 

2. Palladium Role-Playing Game: Out of all of the stuff that has come and gone in my collection this is the one item that I wish I still had more than anything else.  This is the one game that made us all stop playing any form of D&D to play it instead.  It almost seemed like an upgrade to AD&D with the similarities in the rules systems; that made it easy to use stuff between the two systems also.I have the second edition around here somewhere but it just has not grabbed my attention like the original.     

 

 

 

 3. D&D: It all started with the Holmes Basic set but over the years AD&D got much more play out of our group.  We were under the mistaken impression that using AD&D meant we were playing a more "sophisticated" game.  I know, the folly of youth and all that jazz.  If I was starting a new campaign today I would probably just go with Moldvay or Holmes and some of the fan expansion material. 



 4. Talislanta: I stumbled across the second edition of the Talislanta Handbook and Campaign Guide on a random trip to the local game store.  We were instantly intrigued by the out of the ordinary races and campaign setting.  I always liked using one of the Gnomekin character options.  As cool as some of the more recent editions have been, I still feel like the slimmer manuals from that time were better at capturing your imagination.

5. Villains & Vigilantes: This was the first and in many ways still the best supers game I ever played.  V&V seemed to emphasize fun more than anything else.  This was the first game that had us actively building connections and relationships between various character and stories in the campaign. My old V&V folders are somewhere in storage with a ton of character write ups.  I would like to find them someday and post some to my blog. 

6. Marvel Super Heroes: I played quite a bit of the old Marvel Super Heroes game from TSR but I was not a big fan of the basic game.  It was cool because it was Marvel but I always felt like it was a little "too basic" in presentation.  When the Advanced Set was released, I became a big fan of the rules.  In fact, we used them for doing things other than supers.  There was a short GI JOE campaign that added a list of MOS options to the character creation process.  We had stats for a ton of the official characters also.  We also did a Transformers campaign. 

7. Nightlife: I do not remember much about this game other than we played several sessions.  I know it was one of those "monsters in the modern world" games but that is about it.  I believe it was released several years before White Wolf began the World of Darkness.  It remains the only horror type game that I have ever played but I would definitely like to try Call of Cthulhu.

There you have it - the top 7 games I have participated in as a player or game master.  I may be late in posting it but I made it.  

 



T is for Talislanta

***********Just for the sake of clarity - the theme for my A to Z postings is gaming in the 1980's with my friends.*************

Talislanta

I saw this ad in Dragon magazine countless times during the 1980's.  You know, back when Dragon magazine was good by having articles that were truly useful and were not completely focused on just A/D&D; there were actually articles about non-TSR games included at times also.  The point being that the ad caught my attention and made me wonder what this Talislanta game was all about.  My gaming group was all about fantasy games at this stage and would pick up any new fantasy  games we ran across to try out.  We had played enough of the available games that it was time for something new and something different for the group.

I remember that none of us were old enough to drive yet when I bought Talislanta.  I was over at my buddy Jamie's house and there was a game store about a mile down the road.  We were dedicated and would walk to that store every time we were at his mom's house; at least, until I was driving.  We were browsing the games on the shelves and then we noticed the Talisanta Handbook and Campaign Guide with the tattooed Thrall Warrior standing in a combat ready pose on the cover. 

Our custom at that time was to split the cost of any new games we purchased to just try out.  If both of us liked it, then we would get another copy.  If one of use liked it and the other did not, the other person would buy out the other half or just go half again on the next purchase.  If both of us did not like it, then we were only out half the price of the game.  With the modern prices of these types of games it might not be a bad idea to get some like-minded people and arrange a purchase arrangement like that again. 

I could go on and on about the coolness of Talislanta but I think anybody reading this could be better informed by going to the Wikipedia entry and then going to the Talislanta Library to check out the official Talislanta products that Stephan Michael Sechi has made available for download.  It's a true shame that there are no new Talislanta products to grace the store shelves but the creator has ensured that Talislanta will  never "die" by making the game available in this manner. 

Spotlight on Talislanta

I came to the RPG/OSR blog scene later than many others so this has probably been covered before but I thought I would just give a shout out to one of the games that you should play if you have not already done so.

The image above is from the second edition of the Talislanta Handbook and Campaign Guide.  I bought this slim volume one summer day because I was looking for something different in fantasy gaming.  I have been a fan of the game and world ever since. Talislanta occupies a spot on my short list of games I would want with me if I was stranded on an island.  Rather than bore you with any details or recollections - I am sure there has plenty of them about this game - I will just point out the most important web resource for Talislanta.

The Library is the storehouse of free pdf files for most (all?) of the rules and resource volumes released in the life of the Talislanta game.  It is a shame that Talislanta is no longer in print but it is awesome that the  creator has made all of this stuff available for free.  If you have never visited the site or explored the world and rules of Talislanta, follow the link and enjoy.

[Rant] Charts & Tables - UGH!

I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, I hate charts & tables, and - just for emphasis - I HATE CHARTS & TABLES! Now that I have that off of my chest it is probably time to explain myself.  It's a fact that most every rpg I have played has some sort of chart(s) in the rules somewhere. 

I have no problem with games using LOTS of charts and tables or very few at all.  I have no problem with games referencing charts or tables during combat or character creation.  Some of the games I have played with charts include AD&D, DC Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, Palladium Fantasy, & Talislanta.  I have no problem coming up with the details of charts or tables that I create. 

So, what is my problem with charts and tables?  It is the physical act of typing in the information and creating the chart or table itself.  It always seems so tedious and I always have bad luck with editing.  In other words, it always winds up being atleast twice as difficult as it should be for me.

[Rant] My Experience Using D&D Meetup

*Note: this is just my experience with using the local D&D Meetup service one time. I'm sure some others have had similar experiences but I'm also sure that many others have had a good experience using this same service. Put simply, the experience was pretty lame but it was the person encountered that was the source of my disappointment and not the service itself. ****

I used to play a ton of RPG's.  I started with D&D/AD&D back in 1980.  Over the years, I tried many other games from DC Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, Champions, Fantasy Hero, Villains & Vigilantes, Super World, Car Wars, GURPS, RIFTS, Talislanta, Palladium Fantasy, and many other numerous titles.  The old faithful lineup of RPG's that I continuously played through the 1980's until I graduated high school in 1991 consisted of AD&D, RIFTS, Talislanta, Villains & Vigilantes, and Palladium Fantasy.

A month after I graduated from high school I left for the Army.  I didn't play a lot while I was in the military but I did keep up with gaming in general, discovered Magic: The Gathering, and did actually play a few sessions of AD&D.  I left the Army in 2000 and returned home.  Most of my old gaming buddies had either left the hobby or moved out of town.  I had virtually no face to face gaming available.  One bright spot is that I did introduce my cousin, Alex, to 3E and we still hook up to play occasionally. We have also been developing a shared campaign world, Toldara, for several years.

I tried to overcome this absence of face to face role-playing by finding other outlets.  After some internet searches, I ran across some PBP games, message board games, PBEM games, and also heard of MEETUP. I don't know the exact time frame but I registered for the local D&D meetup around the time of 4E's release.  IIRC, the Pathfinder Alpha was out but the completely playtested Pathfinder Core Rulebook was not released yet.

I was on the D&D Meetup site for only a short time before I got contacted.  It sounded pretty good to me because the people were in Tulsa; about 25 miles from my location. We agreed to meeet halfway between our locations at Panera Bread.  We ordered some drinks and discussed our RPG experience and what kind of gaming we enjoyed.  It seemed like a really good match so we decided to meet again and try to gather some more people.

The next meeting took place at their house.  I brought my cousin, Alex, with me as a recruit.  At this point, there were 4 of us - Alex, me, and the two players we met.  The guy - I'll call him "Dick" - was interested in being the DM. He had all sorts of ideas for a campaign world, some adventures, and even some house rules.  Dick mentioned that his girlfriend - I'll call her "Jane" - would be playing her first game with us so it might be slow going at first.  No problem there. Dick also mentioned that he was talking to 2 other players about joining the game.  At the end of that meeting, we had decided on the rules system (3.5E with some early Pathfinder stuff), made characters (Alex, Jane, & me), and decided to meet again in 2 weeks for our first game session.

Two weeks pass and we (Alex & I) show up at Dick & Jane's to play.  The other two players - I'll call them "Will" and "Wendy" - had showed up earlier so they could create characters with the house rules available to them during the process.  I remember that Will and Wendy had printed out some really cool character sheets from some website.  It was nice to see everyone was ready to start playing before the start of the game.  We introduced ourselves, had some idle chit chat, and then got ready to play.

The game session lasted for approximately 4 hours.  The length was just about right. It wasn't too short for the drive involved. It also wasn't too long and drawn out either.  The session was fun with no rules lawyering or any of that silliness.  Everyone appeared to have a great time.  We ended the session and then agreed to have another meeting in two weeks again. 

One week passed and I was looking forward to another game session.  I checked my email and received a message from Dick.  He explained that the group "just wasn't working out for him" and decided to tell Will and Wendy they would not be invited back.  I tried exchanging messages with him and getting a good reason but he wouldn't give one.  Eventually, I got pretty irritated because he didn't give a group of strangers a chance to gel and didn't even give the other 4 of us a chance to continue playing with a new DM or one of us taking over as DM.  I promptly unregistered from the D&D MEETUP group and have yet to take another chance on gaming outside my circle of friends.

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edit - some text got erased when posting - d'oh!