[Salone]

11. Talisman (Revised 4th Edition)

A bit of a mix of D&D and Monopoly, it has all the fun and anguish of adventuring with none of the character setup or roleplay. You draw one of many characters with varying abilities that will help you throughout the game. Each turn you roll the dice and move to a different area of the board. There is no restricted movement, so you are allowed to move back and forth throughout various areas of the land. On most tiles you will draw an adventure card(s), which has you encounter everything from rats to dragons to blizzards and pestilence to Mephistopheles himself. Or, you know, a hag.

You obtain followers, magical objects, items, gold. Killing enemies allows you to boost your strength and magical prowess, allowing you to be more formidable in combat. You may attack other players, mess them up with spells, or just be downright nasty and make it your mission to kill everyone you land on.

There is a goal, however: Get to the center of the board. Use the Crown of Command. And murder everyone else. If a player dies in normal play, they are reborn as a different character. This lets players jump back in the game after being murdered or stepped on after being turned in to a toad (Being a toad is a thing).

However, once you get to the Crown of Command, you start killing everyone. And if someone dies by your hand at the Crown, they don't come back. The endgame turns in to a race to see who can make it to the Crown. It is tough. Traps and awful things await. You could die, or you could wind up being thrown back to the very beginning of the map. Great treasure or colossal failure awaits you!

Oh, and there's a crap ton of expansions. Some are simply card and character based, others are quite literal board expansions. Using multiples is fun and makes for a humongous board and adventure.