The Realm of Souls Beta

[Fomalhaut]

Even when the life leaves your hero the adventure isn’t over…

The land beyond the Veil has given birth to a powerful ruler. The King of the Dead commands the forces of the afterlife to cross the Veil to invade the land of the living. Death is no longer the end for the player, only the start of a new adventure. The Realm of Souls expansion brings forth a brand new, digital exclusive mechanic that will allow the heroes of Talisman to traverse the lands of the dead and continue their battles for the Crown.

Welcome all to the Realm of Souls.

This is the first Nomad design content that is exclusive to the digital edition of Talisman. Please take your time to familiarise yourself with the rules - they can be found pinned to the Talisman #general page on our Discord channel[discord.gg].

The core mechanic of this expansion is the life after death mechanic. Whilst the expansion is active, when a player dies they are given a Ghost character card and must, as a Ghost, obtain at least 1 life before they are allowed to return to their body (which you do by landing on your grave stone).

Whilst you are a Ghost, you enter the Realm of Souls and you draw from a separate deck and your character is treated separately from the 'top world' as explained in the rule book.

Please try to explore all of the weird and wonderful combinations that Talisman can offer as I'm sure there are many philosophical questions we have not considered when it comes to how Ghosts on a different plane of existence should or should not be impacted by the Talisman world.

If things are unclear or come across as not considered then please feel free to ask questions and make suggestions - all feedback is welcome.

[Xavierthegiant888]

Originally posted by Tyr:

Originally posted by SuperPav:

For some reason I can't see the usual Beta on my new computer but I can see it on my old machine. There are only macfix, original harbinger beta build and legacy build available.

Beta access is for some reason stored locally and isn't tied to your steam account so you'll have to add it again on your new machine, give one of us a shout if you need a hand doing this.

[Xavierthegiant888]

Thanks Tyr

[Pooladin]

Is it possible to allow us to select what characters the AI will be in a multiplayer game? (Let's you set up themed games). This is only possible in single player, but for some reason has never been implemented in multiplayer.

[Artaterxes]

The expansion has great potential as it addresses one of Talisman's big issues (dying and losing everything). I just want to give my opinions on the mechanics of it. Right now, if you die, you become a Ghost (0 life), and one more life loss will kill you. In a way, this could be more frustrating than the regular rules because you still lose everything, except you lengthen the game further by the turns lost while a Ghost.

If you could make the Ghost feel more like a "second chance" rather than a death delay, I think it would be a great way to solve Talisman's death issue. Here's some ways I came up with that could help a Ghost get "back into the game" while still making progress. Just throwing out ideas here:

- Ghosts start with life equal to the life value of the character.
- Ghosts always fight in psychic combat that uses life instead of Craft, whether
-- vs creatures (so you can make all the Spirit Realm enemies craft)
-- vs non-Ghost characters (so non-Ghosts who challenge Ghosts must use life also)
-- vs other Ghosts.
So in the "spirit world," Strength or Craft isn't really used; it's always life. It gives the Ghost sort of a unique flavor (always fighting psychic combat using life). But mechanically it helps to balance Strength characters who become Ghosts while still allowing them to always fight in psychic combat. Also, by forcing non-Ghosts to use life vs. life against Ghosts, it prevents high-stat characters from killing ghosts (since life vs. life is usually more even) helping Ghosts get back into the game.

More ideas, along the lines of life in the spirit world...
- As a Ghost, trade trophies like normal (e.g. 7 points) except gain a life instead of Strength or Craft.
- Once per turn, a Ghost can lose 1 life to gain 1 Strength or Craft, or vice versa.
- To resurrect, a Ghost loses a life at the grave marker.
- If a ghost gets to 0 lives, he is killed.
Again this gives more flavor to the Ghosts using life. By gaining life for Spirit Realm trophies, the Ghost gets stronger in the spirit world. By turning life in for stats, the Ghost gets weaker in the spirit world but accumulates Strength or Craft as an investment for when he returns to the corporeal world. Plus it allows Strength or Craft to be gained even though you're always fighting in psychic combat.

Just some ideas.

[☼Desendos☼]

Originally posted by Artaterxes:

More ideas, along the lines of life in the spirit world...
- As a Ghost, trade trophies like normal (e.g. 7 points) except gain a life instead of Strength or Craft.

This is a house rule already!

[potterman28wxcv]

@Artaterxes
Your proposition would not alleviate the issue you're stating (that it could be more frustrating since if you die, you still lose everything). You can still be killed as a ghost that way, and if you are killed, then you will have lost even more turns than if you had 0 life.

Besides, if your life equals life value and you always fight in psychic combat using your life stat, then you will start to snowball towards death as soon as you have one less life, a bit like how the Possessed character can snowball to death quite quickly if he is unlucky enough.

As for making it harder to kill a Ghost - it all depends on what the expansion wants to tackle. Does the expansion want to tackle PvB (Player Versus Board) death recovery, or does it want to tackle PvP death recovery as well? If a player wants to actively hunt down another player - should it be made harder for him to ghost-kill the player being hunted?

Since Ghosts cannot be targets of Spells, I guess the current direction tends to be towards making it harder to PvP ghost kill. There are still a lot of ways to kill a Ghost though - Oberon's bow, Shatter the ground, movement ability + encounter, Metamorph.. So maybe the devs want to have a bit of PvP remaining still. But if the focus turns out to be towards facilitating PvP death recovery, and making it harder for other players to kill a Ghost, then your proposed idea of Psychic Combat with Life might be a good idea.

[Artaterxes]

True. Forcing non-Ghosts to use their life is, now that I think about it, probably not good. It was supposed to be a unique property of Ghosts. Another flaw in my suggestions is that the “life boost” upon becoming a Ghost can be converted to S/C, which is bad. But otherwise, converting S/C to life and vice-versa can be a way to prevent the snowball effect.

When I tried out this beta, I just didn’t like becoming a Ghost because I kept dying too fast since I could only lose one life (at first). I think the rest of my rules above are at least worth consideration... provided that you think converting S/C to life and vice versa is a good thing. If that’s a no-go, well then... never mind! :P

[Neil 666]

When you encounter the Medium card there's no option to encounter the newly drawn Spirit card, your only given the option of who gets to put it on top of the Adventure deck on their next turn: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596206546

[Neil 666]

Could the Collar of Destiny please be shown as a Card in Effect: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596214348
Also when the Rising Mists event is in effect, that also isn't shown.

[Neil 666]

Could the Spirit cards and Adventure cards on the space please be shown differently on the tooltips.

[Neil 666]

When your on a Breach terrain card, the button still says "Draw an Adventure Card", it should say "Draw a Spirit Card": https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596246199
Also when you have to draw Harbinger cards (when he's in your region), the button still says "Draw an Adventure Card", it should say "Draw a Harbinger Card".

[Neil 666]

Originally posted by Quartzquiz:

Originally posted by Fulgur14:

They have an icon. You can clearly see that a card has an icon. But can you identify a soulbound card on the first look, without comparing it with another card?

Very true. Maybe a similar icon can be added for the Soulbound cards...

I totally agree that Soulbound cards should have an icon, like the Fireproof cards have got.

Also cards that become Soulbound or Fireproof need some sort of marker on them: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596264569 All the Ghost's objects here are Soulbound as he has the Soul Seal, so could all his objects have a Soulbound marker added to them? (Something like the Bag of Carrying markers).

[Neil 666]

After this battle, as soon as I click Continue to kill the Ghost (not take any objects) and win the game it crashes to the desktop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596272553
Edit: I reloaded this turn and instead of choosing to kill him I took his Soul Seal, then on my turn I attacked him, chose to kill him and the game ended normally.

I also noticed if you click "Ghost" in the log the Adventure card is shown not the Character card: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596274059

[Neil 666]

The Realm of Souls picture is missing the expansion icon on the My Collection screen: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596295752
It's also missing on the Expansion selection screen.

[Neil 666]

I noticed that most of the menus & options screens etc. have all had a bit of an overhaul to make them function better & look better, apart from the Online Games one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596313600
A few sugestions:

1. Could the Region & Ping line be changed so it doesn't keep moving about when the Ping changes.
2. Split the players (2 /3 etc.) and the round numbers up to make 3 columns.
3. Add some headers to these 3 columns: TABLE NAME, PLAYERS & ROUND.
4. Do away with the 's Table at the end of the table name and show the full name, not cut it short.

Thanks

Edit: I also noticed that the Profile screen (and the Goals screen) doesn't show your XP amount, could that please be added?

Edit 2: Could the highlighted game on the Saved Games screen please be a bit more highlighted as it's sometimes hard to see.