There was a time in my life when hanging out was synonymous with games. Video games, let alone personal computers were still in their infancy at the time and we had all grown up role-playing, so tabletop games were a natural extension of that interest. It didn’t matter where we ended up hanging out, there was usually some kind of game involved, though the games with all the little chits and cards were only busted out when we weren’t role-playing. There were lots of different classes of games, but a favorite was that of the “beer and pretzel” variety - games that evoked the spirit of role-playing in some way with none of the messy thinking. Games like Wiz-war, Space Hulk, and Talisman were turn-based games were you rolled the die, moved your piece (which was usually a painted model of some kind since you had a ton of them anyway), and worked out your encounters so the next guy could go. Then you were free to grab another beer or go and twiddle with the stereo for a few minutes. Though I can’t say that Talisman ever was a personal favorite, it was good to haul it out of the closet again to recapture that spirit.

For those that haven’t ever played it, think of Talisman as Monopoly with a fantasy theme. There are lots of role-playing elements - each player is a different “character” with different spcial abilities. When you land on a space you may have to “encounter” something and fight it (by rolling a die and adding your character’s ability score and beating the score of your opponent), or otherwise interact by purchasing items or services. As you get more powerful and aquire more items, you decide when to attempt to win the game by moving your piece toward the center of the board, to traverse the especially dangerous squares there and reach the winning square. For all the trappings, it’s still a turn-based board game. You go, they go. There really isn’t much role-playing in it - but once a gamer, always a gamer.

Talisman [wikipedia] was totally new to the girls and they were really excited about it. When I started doing voices and getting into the characters a bit their energy ratcheted up a few notches. My character was the Spy - he’s allowed to see anybody’s spells as soon as they aquire them, so every time somebody drew a new spell card they had to show it to me which gave me an opportunity to snicker a bit and act secretive. I aquired the hag as a follower, and then a poltergeist which slowed me to a crawl till I could rid myself of them at the village. The spy is evil, and the little one wanted her character to be evil like daddy so we let her pick another character - she chose the Necromancer My eldest stuck to her guns to be Good alignment, but couldn’t stay that way! It wasn’t long into the game before she encountered Mephistopheles who promptly turned her evil anyway. Cathy played the swordsman, one of my personal favorites from old times.

I was having a great time, but my youngest is very tiring when she’s excited. The game is a LOT of reading (the cards you draw all have paragraphs to read describing the object or enemy and the board itself has lots of things you need to read as well), so she couldn’t play by herself and she’s only now getting to point where she can sit still and let other people take their turns without grabbing for the dice or whining about it. But we managed to get around the board more than a few times, aquire several objects, almost die in nasty encounters with a dragon, a giant, and a Craft 10 demon before we finally had to wrap things up for bedtime.

So tonight I was transported back almost 18 years to those simpler days when all we had to worry about was whether we had enough money for gas to get to the game *and* buy beer on the way.

[update: well, I guess I still worry about that - it's just not my *only* worry anymore!]