I don't recall we ever had a thread on this one. So, let's sing its praises and patronizingly educate the young persons who've never heard of it.
I played it last night, sadly only a one shot, and loved it. It was like stepping into a Jack Vance story. Better than the Dying Earth RPG, in a way, because banter and witty repartee isn't a game mechanic, so you can let loose more spontaneously.
My PC was a 3-feet tall Gnomekin Crystalomancer country bumpkin, his associate a hawt Zandir Swordsmage twice his height. They were sort of romping through the Magic Fairground at Cymril, looking for this Kazmirian moneylender, and pulling all sorts of gaffes on route. No one got killed, but a good time was had by all.
No Elves? Yeah right. More importantly, no humans. At least not in the 7 Kingdoms. That raises the exoticism level right away.
Your thoughts / experiences?
THRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!!!!!!
Talislanta is probably one of the best settings ever. My favorite element is, of course, the Thralls.
For those who don't know, the Thralls are a race of magically created slave warriors. Each is completely identical to the other physically, and they're all genderless, mostly featureless, albino humanoids. At some point they developed an independent streak, busted free, and formed their own society. In part as a rejection of their slave origin, and in part to distinguish themselves from each other they cover their entire bodies with intricate brightly colored tattoos. The tattoos tell a story of the warrior's deeds. Because all Thralls are warriors. They may do something else, but they are all warriors. It's their nature. Kind of the original Warforged.
It's too bad that most D&D players aren't interested in taking the time to get to know Talislanta. I have the 2nd Ed. book, and all the world guides. I think it might be the perfect setting for a Burroughs style Sword And Planet story with the player characters being Earthmen brought to Talislanta.
And there were humans. In the Western Kingdoms. They aren't called humans, but they look just like 'em. I'd tell you their exact name, but I don't want to go find the books. I always preferred the Eastern Kingdoms area.
Yeah, Tal rocks. Got the 4e big blue book and that's all you ever need for a lifetime of gaming.
Pity i can never get anyone to play it. :(
I have a soft spot for the Mondre Khan. Monsters in every sense of the word - savage to look at, savage in habit, but desperately trying to keep the beast locked within. They just want to look after their clan and be left alone. Ahh, bless.
Also, airships & desertships. Good trading info. Djaffir masks, those thick but insanely strong marsh dwellers who don't do today what they can do next year, the plant guys and the guys with 2 brains. 2 brains, i said!
Year, i like it.
This is totally shameless...but I have some Talislanta books on my shelf I want to get rid of. If you're interested in saving some coin, beating the eBay battle, have apaypal account, and live in the USA (I'll ship it to you for free!) send me a PM!
TALISLANTA LOT $45
-Talaslanta 4th ed rulebook
-The Sent of the Beast Adventure
-The Weight of Water adventure
I freakin' love that game/setting. Getting people to play it was always a bitch though. I kept the number of races small every time, but they still got confused by who was what and what they looked like. Most games you could describe a race with a statement like, "Imagine the Celts on Horses" or "Ever read Conan? Think Cimmerian" and people suddenly got the race (on the surface anyway), but Talislanta was always hard for people. I never understood why, but maybe that was because I read those books cover to cover to this day; I have the white 2nd edition core book.
My two favorite races of all time: The Jaka and Djaffir. I freakin' love 'em.
And yea, I almost fainted when I heard about the d20 version. Better to pass out and hit my head on something than face that news.
-=Grim=-
Quote from: Jackalope;220802I think it might be the perfect setting for a Burroughs style Sword And Planet story with the player characters being Earthmen brought to Talislanta.
Indeed!
Quote from: Jackalope;220802And there were humans. In the Western Kingdoms. They aren't called humans, but they look just like 'em. I'd tell you their exact name, but I don't want to go find the books. I always preferred the Eastern Kingdoms area.
Yeah, technically, anyone descended from the ancient Phaedrans are "men"; this includes the Cymrillians, the Aamanians, the Zandir, and a bunch of others. Exact membership may vary slightly between editions, and one should also note that some very human-looking types (like the Xambrians, I believe) aren't, in fact, "men". Also, even the "men" have exotic qualities such as (for Cymrillians) green skin. Nobody on Tal is "normal", which is good, it has a "decentering" effect that gets you out of projecting your sense of normality and normal morality onto the world.
The idea of a sword and planet setup is interesting. Somebody posted an archetype for a lost astronaut in Tal terms in a thread here a while back.
EDIT: membership in "men" is even more complicated than I wrote above--I suppose you could say anyone who's descended from the Archaens (people who lived in floating cloud cities before the Great Disaster) are "men", but there seem to be exceptions. But most people on Talislanta don't really seem to be concerned about "genetic" relationships between "races"--cultural and political distinctions are more important.
I've loved Tal from 1st edition. The Big Blue Boook is amazing. I always see Vance and Dunsany when I think about how to run it.
Talislanta is one of the best settings ever, and the Big Blue Book rocks out so completely.
I'm a huge fan--did you catch the thread we had for a bit on "Earthmen crashing on Tal archetypes?"
Anyway. It's a wonderful game. One of my favorites.
I've only skimmed the big blue 4e book in stores and read the Talislanta sampler that used to be on the Morrigan site and/or official Talislanta site--both sites now moribund, BTW, but in the Omni vs. True20 thread that came up recently, I posted a link to the sampler via web.archive.org.
Anyway, without looking too closely at 4e (or 5e) I tend to prefer the earlier editions. Why?
1. Simpler chargen and advancement--more class based though with the opportunity to spend XP on an individual skill if you really want to. I think this should help maintain each archetype's identity.
2. HP-per-level. Ordinarily I don't care for this, but in Tal I like the idea of getting an extra 2 HP per level. Since a 1st-level character usually has a dozen or more HP, this isn't a huge power boost but I think it is likely to encourage a more freewheeling and less defensive approach by the players.
3. Individual spells as distinct skills. For one thing this encourages the idea of hunting for arcane or obscure spells. Also, the Modes/Orders approach of 4e, where players can improvisationally define spells (even though the in-game explanation is that characters know far too many spells to enumerate via mechanics) strikes me as rather fake and vanilla. I might warm to it after playing--though, note, SMS and other insiders ultimately decided it was un-Talislantan and moved toward more traditional discrete spells. Basically I dislike the idea that attacking with a bolt of fire and attacking by telekinetically hurling rocks are mechanically nigh-indistinguishable due to the balancing approach of the Modes.
Also, a somewhat minor quibble, but I find that as the game proceeded from 2e to 3e, some metaplot-y elements were added such as the Sub-Men Rising, the Kang's coup over the Quan, and some implications of imminent war in the Aaman/Zandu area. 4e apparently embraced these developments, while I believe 5e has dialed the clock back to the same uniform starting date as 2e. I think this was a good move--not that Talislanta should be static, but the world developments should be a product of each individual campaign.
Quote from: Silverlion;220925I'm a huge fan--did you catch the thread we had for a bit on "Earthmen crashing on Tal archetypes?"
Ah, just found the link: http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=190592&postcount=7
Seems to be statted in 4e, but usable with little modification in any edition.
What I like about the Big Blue Book: great archetypes write-ups and selection. Rules and setting all in one place.
What I dislike about the Big Blue Book: rules and setting all in one place.
The setting's just too big. So, even in a tome of this size every major region gets a short writeup plus five monsters. That gazetteer approach worked for Greyhawk, but Talislanta to me is about location, location, location, detail, detail, detail. I'd rather have the rules plus a 200pp. Seven Kingdoms section.
Curiously, the regional books from the Encyclopedia series don't look all that info-packed either.
I never looked at the magic system in 4E, but assuming El's description is correct I'm not into it either. Ditto not the 3E metaplot drama. That sounds so, well, epic.
BTW, I got the 3E book today, not a moment too late--some old geezer at Half Price was about to dump it on his cart of (I guess) terminally unsellable books.
No, the Cyclopedia books aren't much more detailed than what you get in an overview book. (Bear in mind that only about half of each Cyclopedia book is geography, and much of that is overview and history rather than keyed locations.) OTOH among the geographic info are maps and guides to four major cities so at least you don't have to make those up whole cloth. And really, I think what we have is pretty adequate for anything short of a Wilderlands-style hexcrawl--the less-detailed spaces are for the group to fill in.
I feel a slightly greater lack in that there's never AFAICT been a go at creating encounter tables.
Possibly the new region books for 4e/5e and/or Hotan's History of the World may provide more detail...and Hotan's would hopefully at least be more systematically organized...but I can't say.
I as I said am rather more fond of 4E (mostly because its one book and has everything I need.)
As for magic, I like it but I'm a huge fan of custom spells for each character. I can still come up with reasons in the game for sending PC's after lost lore even with the "on the fly" magic system.
However, for most people, I do agree, Talislanta is JUST too huge. It takes a lot of work to get into. One advantage of the big book format is that if I GM I can pick a region and specify what material I want to fill the players in on--what they'd know about the world, what archetypes they'd have access. While sure a smaller more focused Tal game might make it more appealing to some--it loses a lot in breaking apart the wonders of the world too much.
Holy crap, there's a 5th edition? Man, I am SO out of the loop.
-=Grim=-
Quote from: GrimJesta;221289Holy crap, there's a 5th edition? Man, I am SO out of the loop.
-=Grim=-
Unfortunately, not many others seem to know about 5th ed either. Seems like most of those who did considered it unnecessary and it pretty much bombed. Hasn't been good for Morrigan Press.
But I'll be fine, I've still got all my 1st ed stuff. Don't think I have ever played it, but it sure is pretty.
I'm a long time fan of Tal. I have every edition,every book published,and some not published.If you guys would like to learn more about this colorful,dark ,place
visit or join the new Talislanta yahoo group.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=42879/*http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Talislanta
...or see this old promotional video for Talislanta.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RUYejtvMwM
or talfans with very nice new map of Talislanta
http://talfans.com/
Thanks, that video could be useful for introducing players to the milieu without having them read a whole bunch...provided of course you can get them to sit still for six minutes.
I don't know much about Talislanta, I've never played it. All I know is the buzz surrounding it. My problem is the presentation; it's always seemed a rather austere and unexciting product. Thus the world isn't being protrayed as something that appeals to me. Whereas Exalted has all sorts of whiz bang pizzazz and looks interesting. Talislanta just looks 20 years out of date: a big old dry book full of exposition about a hugely detailed and alien setting.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;226756I don't know much about Talislanta, I've never played it. All I know is the buzz surrounding it. My problem is the presentation; it's always seemed a rather austere and unexciting product. Thus the world isn't being protrayed as something that appeals to me. Whereas Exalted has all sorts of whiz bang pizzazz and looks interesting. Talislanta just looks 20 years out of date: a big old dry book full of exposition about a hugely detailed and alien setting.
The artwork has been one of the major draws of Talislanta since first edition. The game definitely has a distinct look a feel.
(http://www.hurloon.net/talislanta/images/ct7k.jpg)
(http://www.hurloon.net/talislanta/images/ctel.jpg)
(http://www.morriganrpg.com/gfx/Talthumb.jpg)
Or by presentation, do you mean aspects besides the artwork?
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;226756I don't know much about Talislanta, I've never played it. All I know is the buzz surrounding it. My problem is the presentation; it's always seemed a rather austere and unexciting product. Thus the world isn't being protrayed as something that appeals to me. Whereas Exalted has all sorts of whiz bang pizzazz and looks interesting. Talislanta just looks 20 years out of date: a big old dry book full of exposition about a hugely detailed and alien setting.
You don't know much about Talislanta,that says it all,and you never played it. The buzz,if your're referring to reviews,most I've ever seen have been good.The presentation i can see,it's one of the most over looked games.Exalted,or any other fantasy game/setting,doesn't have the detail history,cultural elements that Tal has. The artwork i feel is better that most game companies and I'm not talking about cover art.As for being out of date,most RPG's look out of date these days,unless you're playing something by WOTC. BTW which published Talislanta,and dropped it right before they started their magic the gathering card game.Fact is they dropped role-playing games all together.That is until they got their grubby hands on money maker Dungeons & Dragons.Another fact is that the d20 system written by Jonathan Tweet,(pick up d&d 3rd edition) also worked of the 3rd edition of Talislanta. The d20 system was developed from the system that Talislanta uses,Tal is play with a single 20 side die.Talislanta 20 years out of date,or ahead of it's time.
I do not say it's a bad game; I say that it has never been marketed or advertised properly. I don't know much about it and I have yet to find anywhere that tells me about it in an engaging way. That video certainly doesn't (and the VO is dreadful).
People claim it's a fantastic world, so how can I know this?
In a way I agree, GW. I passed on Tal back in the 80's, when I was into "realistic fantasy". Over the last few years I saw people saying good things about it, but I'm pretty skeptical of gamers' enthusiasms. What really sold me was finding a copy of the 2e rules in Half Price Books and realizing that this was a wonderfully imaginative world with quite simple rules. The game isn't built around big dramatic/epic themes (although WotC started to take it in that direction with the 3e modules). It's more picaresque, and IMO it doesn't take itself too seriously--although a given group could probably take it in any direction.
I would say that the appeal of Exalted strikes me as 180 degrees opposite Talisltanta. Both the official hype and the buzz seems to be about getting to play a big passionate hero. That's not Talislanta, which is more about reveling in exoticism. Any heroics or other "big stuff", or really the whole issue of "what to do" with the setting, is up to the GM and players.
You can probably find a copy of the 4e sampler, possiblly through web.archive.org's archive of the Talislanta or Morrigan site.
The 4e sampler is available on various torrent networks if one is inclined to look. It's the only hit for "Talislanta" on the ones I checked.
I agree that Talislanta has never been marketed or advertised properly.This game isn't for everyone...but for people like myself who have been role-playing for 20+ years, you get tired of playing elves and orcs in one of the multi Tolkien Knock-offs out their. Talislanta allows you think outside of the traditional fantasy mind set.
I don't know, I've liked Tal since I first stumbled upon it. The whole "no elves" thing wasn't really a draw. I like Tolkienesque settings if they're done well. (Not many of them are, but there are a couple.) Yet Talislanta has always been its own wonderful thing, a homage to fantasy of a different ilk. Fantasy that is ofttimes strange and surreal, of exoticism, but not entirely for its own sake.
The "No Elves" thing,i think was just meant to say hey,"This isn't you're average fantasy game".Most people identify elves with fantasy.
Yea, "exotic" is definitely the word I'd use. My players loved the Dune Ships...
-=Grim=-
I have been a fan of Talislanta for a long time.
Haven't seen 5th edition, but am quite happy with 4th. I thought Midnight Realms was kinda cool.
I am currently in an on-and-off game with my chatroom group.
I am playing a Marukan Mercenary named Merduk. What can I say, I like underdogs. ;)
Brian
I picked up the 1e Red book in 1987, and have been a fan ever since. The art of P.D. Breeding-Black, and the musing of Tamerin the Wanderer attracted me to the game. The system was refreshing from AD&D, and I was familiar with it since I had already purchased other Bard games supplements and the Arcanum RPG.
I personally like a blend of 2e/3e rules the best. However, the beauty elegance of Tal4 cannot be denied.
It's good to see that others recognized that Talislanta is the original d20 system, and not 3.0 D&D, LOL! I try telling that to people and I get "huh?" responses almost every single time.
5e Talislanta is my least favorite edition for several reasons, which mostly boil down to price and poor editing/proofing. Price is a factor because all previous editions were contained in one book, and now it's separated into three core books, each of which is at least $30. The GM book was so full of errors that it hurt my brain to read through it. If I spend $40-$50 on a book, I expect it to have been edited properly and, at a minimum, spell check was used before being sent to the printer.
So, has anyone added anything to the Talislanta milieu?
I've not run it as often as I like, but I've added bits here and there--none worth mentioning mostly because I aim at "game specific" additions, rather than broad changing things to the whole setting.
I wish I could do anything with Tal that wouldn't be a monumental waste of time. Not many people where I live have heard of it.
Not many people any where have heard of it. I know people that have been role-playing for over 20 years that's never heard of Talislanta. I can alway find someone to play.I have friends that run dungeons & dragons.When it becomes my turn too run a game,"what do you guys want to play".Dungeons or Tal,it's always Tal! Talislanta isn't a pick up and play game.I've spent time reading and learning about.I'd rather spend time learning about a really cool fantasy world,than reading 3 core books of boring game rules!
Quote from: shalvayez;228923I wish I could do anything with Tal that wouldn't be a monumental waste of time. Not many people where I live have heard of it.
Run a game online in chat.
I'd be happy to be an Earthman With A Sword.
or a PbP on this forum. I would so be there!
Online with voice chat. I would be there too.