Vanilla drips forever (Talisman)

Two games of Talisman were played in Oulu, one with four players and one with five players.

Game 1:
Characters were Wizard, Troll, Elementalist and Vampire Hunter.

Only a few pointers I remember from the game:

- Wizard was unlucky enough to perish on his pursuit of Crown of Command. New character was the Dervish.
- Elementalist seemed like he might win, but waited a little too long.
- Troll got stuck early in the middle space of Highlands. And he got stuck there for long. And of course he drew Craft 1 monster there, and lost to it many times in a row.
- Vampire Hunter was the first to reach Crown of Command, but then Troll got there too and smashed the hunter to bits.


Game 2:

Characters were Thief, Elementalist (again!), Amazon, Chivalric Knight and Gladiator.

Elementalist had some poor luck in the beginning and decided to avenge the Amazon. He died in the attempt, and new character was the Swashbuckler.

I have always been saying that maybe, maybe Thief is at least a little better character if there are at least five players. Well, truth be told, he was. Game didn't go horribly badly from him and he stole some good items, but he didn't really gain any Strenght or Craft points. Still he wasn't a very good character, but at least playing him didn't feel like a waste of time. Yes, I played him.

By a clever use of Toadify and winning Lord of Darkness by 8, Amazon flew to the Crown of Command early in the game. Other players had had very little progress, so it looked like a fast win for Amazon. Gladiator tried to challenge Amazon on the Crown of Command, but Amazon was dice +2 against him. Thief, too, died to influence of Crown of Command, but then there were the Swashbuckler and Chivalric Knight.

What seemed to be a fast win for Amazon turned out to be a game dragging on for all eternity. Swashbuckler and Chivalric Knight were exceptionally lucky in getting to the Chapel to heal themselves full. They could actually play this game, though there was a character on the Crown! Also after a nice start Amazon starte rolling 4+ very, very badly.

Random spell took all Amazon's gained Strenght away, so either other character might win the game if they only got to the Crown somehow. That never happened, not within the 2 hours the three characters were playing all by themselves. Finally Chivalric Knight's and Swashbuckler's luck ended - Knight was the first to go down, and the very next turn Swashbuckler bit the dust.

That was pretty anticlimatic and prolonged ending. We didn't use alternative ending because I thought with five players the game would take forever to play. I didn't really see it coming that the game took eternity to play nonetheless.