I am pleased to present the second part of the special 20 Questions (and Answers!) article in which Talisman Guru, John Goodenough, agreed to answer questions put to him by members of the FFG forums so that we might get a small insight as to what makes the man tick!

So without further ado, we shall start with a question about another game that John has put his magical touch to, Runebound:

Q 11: In Runebound, it is hard to keep my kids attention on the game because the individual turns seem to take too long. We are incorporating the Inheritance rule from Talisman, because my wife always dies and loses everything, and I'm trying to incorporate the battle mechanic from Warcraft to speed up the turns. I understand that it may take several turns to kill an enemy with 1 battle per turn instead of several.

A: While battles in Runebound can last several rounds they also offer more strategic decisions than Talisman. Runebound gives you a choice of when to attack, when to defend, and when to use your Allies.

Longer downtime is a common side effect for more detailed and strategic gaming experiences. The trick is to either make the downtime interesting for other players to watch or even better yet, have the other players participate directly. One of the main reasons why Runebound Class Decks were published was to increase this type of player interaction during your opponents’ turns. While Talisman does not have this type of strategic depth, it does offer a tremendously rich variety of encounters. You never know what you are going to run into when you draw an Adventure card, which creates a stronger feeling of adventure, danger and excitement.

Q 12: What suggestions would you have on people who want to design and make full games to market? What would be some first steps? How would you be able to become part of an organisation such as FFG in game making, rather than being competition? How did you get involved?

A: One of the most important aspects of game design is understanding what appeals and what does not appeal to your target market. Aspiring designers should first understand what type of gamers will be attracted to their game, then focus on the game mechanics and theme that appeals to that target market. Understanding your target market can be the difference between making a good game and making a good game that sells. This may sound rather obvious but it’s amazing how many great games are published and quickly forgotten because they simply did not click with their target market.

Try to play as many different types of games with as many different gaming groups as possible. Playing your favourite game with the same group of friends over and over again may be really fun, but it also limits your experiences. Join different gaming groups, hang out at your local game store, and attend conventions to broaden your horizons. These experiences will help you better understand the different gamer types and ultimately help you gain better understanding of the different target markets.

Games are essentially a medium for people to interact with each other. Pay attention to what aspects help players immerse themselves in the game and promote interaction with each other.

As far as breaking into the industry is concerned, I don’t think there is a straight path you can follow that leads to a full-time position. The road that finally lead me to a designer position has been a long and winding one. The first opportunity I had to work with FFG was as a Flight Crew member running game demos at conventions. There is no better way to connect with the fan base and keep a finger on the pulse of the gaming industry than meeting people face to face.

During this time I was working at a store that sold games but it wasn’t really a true game store. After a few conventions FFG had a position open up in the shipping department and I jumped at the chance to actually work for a game company. This was back when FFG still assembled games in the warehouse and if you have an old copy of Drakon 2nd Edition, chances are I packed the components in the box!

Darrel Hardy and Christian Petersen would occasionally wander back in the warehouse and talk about the coolest projects they were working on. I also had a chance to playtest the latest games which would lead to many interesting discussions about game design. I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and share some of the experiences the game designers were going through such as late night playtests, last minute editing, and fixing printing problems. Getting a behind-the-scenes look at how a game company is run made a great learning experience and would come in very handy when I finally landed a design position. The most powerful experience was launching a game that everyone had very high hopes for, only to watch it fall short of expectations. All of these moments really opened my eyes to the realistic and less glamorous side of the industry and shattered many of my misconceptions.

I eventually left the warehouse gig in order to pursue freelance art projects. FFG kept me busy illustrating Call of Cthulhu, Game of Thrones, and many other board and card games.

As much fun as I had creating art, I was also passionate about game design and playtested most of the games I illustrated. Right about the time I started to seriously contemplate working on the other side of the drawing board FFG had a game developer position open up. I applied for the job and have been designing and developing games for FFG ever since. There were some surreal moments along the way, like developing Drakon 3rd Edition when a few years ago I assembled the previous edition back in the warehouse. Looking back now, many of the lessons that I learned working in the warehouse made the transition of moving into the developer position much easier. By the time I sat in the developer’s seat I was already aware of most of the harsh realities of job, so I at least knew what I was getting myself into!

I guess the moral of the story is no wherever you start in the gaming industry, even if it is not actually designing games, you can learn many valuable lessons along the way.

Q 13: Has FFG thought about designing alternate versions of Talisman that would allow for different gaming cliques to enjoy the game without toting around a board or minis?

A: I would not be surprised if the Talisman logo appeared on more games.

Q 14: Each of the characters seems to revolve around the archetypal historical version of a profession or race (Prophetess, Elf, Dwarf, Warrior, etc). Does FFG plan or have thought about a race/class system? So you have an Elf Warrior or a Dwarf Wizard?

A: I would like to develop a character expansion but it would probably not fall into a rigid race/class system. The system would more likely be very flexible and allow players to select which special abilities and bonuses their characters start the game with.

Runebound gave me the opportunity to explore a character system in the form of the Class Decks but I would love another opportunity to design a streamlined system that allowed players to customise their characters. Currently the design focus is expanding the world of Talisman but characters may get a closer look in the future.

Q 15: How do you go about selecting the art for the cards in the game? What is the process that you have to go through before a final piece is chosen? What sources do you look to for artwork? Are they internal or external/freelance artists?

A: The first step is to write an art description for each card in the game. Sometimes I have very specific details that communicate how the card works in the game, but most of the time I simply provide a general outline and let the artists invent the details. Since we hire many freelance artists this creates an eclectic vision of Talisman and adds to the variety of the game.

The art director then takes the list of art descriptions and assigns them to talented freelance artists. All of the freelancers are out-of-house, we do not have any in-house illustrators. The next step is for the artist to send us a sketch of the illustration. Once the sketch is approved the artist can proceed with the final painting. All of the finished art is reviewed in-house and by Games Workshop before it is finally approved.

Q 16: How did you get involved with Talisman? Which version did you start out playing? How would you compare the new edition to the other versions?

A: My good friend Richard Tatge has the largest game collection I have ever seen, including Talisman First Edition and a complete set of expansions. One fateful night Richard brought up a dusty box that looked like it was a hundred years old. The cards were well worn with years of play which added even a greater sense of history and reverence to the game. The only rules explanation that was given before we started playing was something along the lines of “you roll a die for your move and then draw a card.” This allowed us to just dive right into the game and we were soon slaying fearsome Dragons with Runeswords and Holy Lances.

When I took the game developer position at FFG several years later, I was still a fanatical Talisman fan and always hoped that we would someday be able to publish the game. I must have nagged Christian Petersen enough times that when he finally picked up the license I was a shoo-in to take over the Talisman product line. Even though Black Industries did a fantastic job with 4th Edition, there were certain aspects of the game that I wanted to refine even further. My development of the Revised 4th Edition stemmed from over a decade of playing Talisman and creating countless variants and home-brewed cards. Bob Harris made a classic game that has stood the test of time, so my ultimate goal was to enhance the playing experience rather than dramatically change it. Perhaps the biggest change compared to previous versions was increasing the characters’ life-span. It was fairly common in 2nd Edition games for players to cycle through a few characters during a single session. This was mainly due to streaks of bad luck during movement and attacks. The new fate tokens can usually save characters in a pinch long enough to find a healer and recover their strength.

Q 17: How big will they go with promo or giveaways like Gen Con? Will there be exclusive figures or only card like the promo cards?

A: Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

Q 18: Does FFG plan to make an expansion, something like "Epic Level Expansion Set", which will contain harder enemies and other cards, so they will be difficult for mighty heroes (Strength/Craft something like 15)?

A: Some expansions will feature end-game content that will challenge even the mightiest of heroes and make the Inner Region look like a walk in the park.

I also put some thought into a campaign system in which characters progress over several gaming sessions. It didn’t take long to figure out that Talisman is much better suited for single session games because it has too many reset buttons and destructive effects for extended play. Being turned into a slimy little Toad is hilarious when the game only lasts a couple hours. However, few gamers would be laughing if they were Toaded after their character was built up over four days of gaming.

Q 19: As there is such a keen fan-base that loves to design their own cards, would you supply plain stock for people to print their own resources with?

A: The Revised 4th Edition Upgrade Pack can be used as a fairly effective design kit. All of the prototypes I make for playtesting use components from cannibalised Upgrade Packs. I print the cards on 8.5”x11” sticker sheets, cut them down to size, and then stick them on the front side of the game cards. As long as the stickers do not overlap edges of the cards the deck can be shuffled well even when regular cards from the base game are mixed in.

Q 20: Is there anything from 2nd and 3rd ed that we will definitely not see again?

A: Cards that are directly tied to other Games Workshop properties such as Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K will not likely see print. This includes references to Skaven, Chaos Dwarves, and Dark Elves. However, some concessions might be possible with a simple name change. For example, Talisman cannot feature Dark Elves but the new Dungeon expansion introduced a subterranean race with the "Black Elf" card.

Other cards may be altered slightly in order to be politically correct. One example is the original "Slaver" card from the Second Edition Dungeon expansion. Its title was renamed to "Dungeon Keeper" but I kept the original card's special ability in order to maintain its theme and flavor. While some cards' appearance may receive a facelift, their original special abilities will be left unchanged.

..and finally, an extra special BONUS question:

Q 21: Oh, and what is your favourite colour?

A: Any shade of green.

I'd like to thank John on behalf of everyone that took the time to ask a question for this feature. I hope that I chose some interesting questions, though I know there are some very interesting answers here - Who'd have thought it would be green?

Perhaps at some future point we might be able to convince John to come up with something to leave us foaming at the mouth for more Talisman news!

You can check out the earlier part of the Q & A feature, you can do so by clicking here.