How about a Talislanta thread?

How about a Talislanta thread?

The best exotic fantasy setting nobody knows about.

Talislanta, the game where everyone's afraid of the paladins because they're religious fanatics and you're a four-armed striped animal-man.

All the books for this game are legally free: www.talislanta.com

...

...

...

I'd never heard of this before. I just downloaded all the 5e books. This looks awesome.

Hey, alright! Enjoy, it's a really fun retro-setting from the 80s. There's a facebook group as well that's moderately active.

Also a recent kickstarter that's going to publish a prequel game called Talislanta: The Savage Land, which is now in layout and should be released in early 2018.

>The best exotic fantasy setting nobody knows about.

It's not the one where all the Kenders will get impaled shortly after getting off the boat.

I think there's a domain in Ravenloft where they do that.

Tekumel is the setting where NPCs can have PCs impaled and displayed publically for being annoying cunts.

Being a thieve will get you that treatment regardeless of your personality.

I'm stoked to see how savage lands turns out. Though 4e will always be my edition of choice.

>Tekumel
now there's a word i haven't heard in years.
thats how to keep these threads active, mash together a few lesser-known settings

More lesser known settings!

Skyrealms of Jorune's awkward mechanics will save the day!

Sorry, biggest image I could find of the cover in short time..

Are there any novels set in Talislanta that I can read?

There was an anthology book at least. Name should be on the site.

Quivering Thridd-nodes!

...

I don't even understand what this setting is supposed to be about.

Some anthropology senior's idea of a joke?

Just about.

But I've just started! :D

Who remembers Gatecrasher?

A setting system forever changed by a single word.

Dragons and magic vs Robots and lasers!

Some serious weirdness there, looks like it could be fun.

Poor thriddles. They have a weird design. I hate and love it.

Time for more weird!

Battlelords of the 23rd Century, with alien sword saints with three genders!

Sadly, the third one is sort of like a sad sex sack or something. Pretty much just an unfortunate receiver of the "party mix" and has to deal with the baby carrying.

Not important to the rp, but it's just a random weird factoid!

I had this book, it's like what if David Bowie made an RPG.

It was fun.

I made a jerkass full cyborg demon who had a super laser in his arm.

He accidentally blasted a hole in the spaceship while they were in deep space, so everyone died but him.

I had forgotten the laser had super piercing or some mechanic, so...sorry team.

But anyways, here's Robotech!

Awkward mechanics, but who doesn't love the idea of dog fighting aliens in jet fighter mecha?

It was fun with all the cool supplements!

I asked the board why it failed long ago.

It's the mix of awkward system and its overabundance of weird.

It seems people like fantasy tropes because they feel smarter for knowing what comes next and it's mental comfort food.

But at the same time, you should try to find new things to introduce to expand their horizons or at least have a twist on an old idea.

I really wanted to play a demon or spirit in this one. Never happened. Such a shame.

Gatecrasher didn't have Rifts' art. And the Fudge system is too balanced to really get gonzo.

I remember Shadowfist, the card game based on it. It was the shit.

gonna look into this.
Should I start with 5th edition?

Who here played Talislanta 4e?

I really like the resolution mechanic, and I want to use it for another game (Scion, the WW demigod game, which has some of the most garbage crunch ever put to paper).

However, I don't know how well the number comparison and degrees of success works out in play, especially at high levels/high level vs. low level characters facing off. My theorycrafting says it should go well, but (insert saying about theory and practise). Any experience/advice/tips?

Its quite good actually, I'd recommend seeing how its used in other settings actually.

No, 4th Edition is the best and most popular version. Or go with 2nd if you want more simplicity.

5th had serious editing issues, though it did add a half-assed race+profession combo system that was not present beforehand.

Its also all one book as well which is nice in my opinion.

What's the power range that works for the system? Looking at the menagerie book, but I don't have the system experience to know what is a challenging monster for starting characters, veterans, and the rocks fall tarrasque equivalent.

Scion breaks down rapidly because of how the bonus success system works (exponentially), where you can only fight things of exactly the same Legend as you or end up with a hilariously one-sided fight. I don't want to recreate that same problem in a new system - ideally I want power to rise so that the PCs and monsters can blast through a bunch of basic human schmucks once they get up in power, but we can still have scenes like Arachne besting Athena at weaving, or the heroic Diomedes going on a rampage and wounding several gods (with divine inspiration).

Related note, has someone broken down the math for what makes good 'environmental' penalties, when the PCs aren't directly opposed by another character.

Give me a tl;dr on the setting plx

>Magic vessel from space crashes on planet
>tribe of beastmen learns magic through it and evolves, they are now the Archeans
>build great magical empire over time
>splinter into factions
>wage war and breed slave species
>magical apocalypse, landscape torched, glassed, dried up or infected with aberrant life, flying cities fall
>present time, descendants of slaves, masters and wild peoples try to rebuild nations and rediscover lost magic.
>it's like a rad sat-am action cartoon in styling

Nice until you need to lug it around 10 km for a game. It's a fucking bag-of-anvils.

It's not a math-based, hyper-balanced system, no. So I doubt you'd be able to handle goblin mooks and demigods in the same system.

Generally what a GM does in Talislanta is to just compare a party's average CR (combat rating) and MR (magic rating) with the Ability Level of the monsters. There aren't a lot of special powers or class abilities in this game. It's pretty basic. But the magic Modes (spells) are really powerful, so you have to make sure that mages aren't given an infinite number of spells.

No worse than carrying multiple books really

Picked this up on an impulse. I know its available online, but books have always been preferable to me.

That's my favorite edition!

Y'all check out the facebook page for this game, you hear?

facebook /groups/2211928311/

...