Binding and Layout
The first thing I noticed about the game (once I got it in the mail) was the visual impact of the book. First off, the whole cover is done in a deep blue-scale that draws the eye to it. The cover image of the Thrall warrior struggling with the Exomorph perfectly captures the exotic feel of Talislanta.
The binding is equally impressive. At five hundred pages it is easily the largest core book I have seen for any RPG, but the stitched hardback reassures me that it will not fall apart or start to look like a phonebook. It actually looks a little like a text-book; a friend of mine was wondering why I was carrying a text with me since I was out of school for the summer. It opens easily to any page, a trait that is most useful when trying to photocopy character sheets.
The book is attractively laid out. It uses just a few fonts, very tastefully, and is easy on the eyes. The pages are surrounded by an abstract border that is nice-looking but not distracting. The art is not reproduced perfectly, but not bad either. Unless I had seen some of the art in the older books I might not have even noticed. The art is of good quality throughout the book, particularly the older work by Ron Spencer and PD Breeding-Black, most of which has been re-used somewhere in the book. The newer art is good, though, keeping the original feel but with each of the several artists exhibiting a very personal style.
There are typos, but certainly not any more than most other RPG core books, even ones from larger companies. Percentage-wise there are a lot less.
The chapters are well laid-out, and so far I have not looked in the index for something I could not find. The information, unlike the previous editions of the game, is well-formatted.
The System
Talislanta uses a simple d20 system. A roll is made, adjusted for skill level and difficulty and compared to an action table to determine level of success.
Combat is simple but flexible. An attacker declares an action. His opponents combat ability is subtracted from his combat ability and rolled on the action table. Weapon damages are set numbers rather than random; however, depending on how well the attacker did, it can be halved or doubled. Gives a nice range. The book also gives some good advice on how to run stunts and more elaborate combat tactics, but leaves the specifis up to the GM. This is my preferred way but for those who like a more set in stone rules system you may want to convert to something else (such as D&D; it is an easy conversion) or borrow rules from something else.
Magic has undergone many changes. It is now divided up into different types of magic such as Witchcraft, Natural Magic, Wizardry, etc.. For each type of magic the character chooses certain modes; these are the effect of the magic. For instance, someone with Wizardry might take the mode Attack for Wizardry and therefore could use magic to directly damage other creatures and items. The system can be used both for set spells, in which spells are created and characters use their modes to cast them, or a free-form system in which characters can improvise spells using their spell-creation rules. It is a bit like Ars Magica but certainly less complex. It appeals to me because it is simple and versatile, much like the system as a whole.
Character Creation and Advancement
In past incarnations the game was a level-based system in which all of a character's abilities would go up with levels. It worked but was a little clunky. The current edition has gone to a skill-based system with mechanics similar to the original but in which individual skills are improved rather than the character's abilities as a whole. It uses the skill-costs-more-as-it-gets-higher system.
Character creation is very fast; the players look through the archetypes in the back of the book, slightly customize and fill in background information. The new edition has the added step of magic-using characters selecting their modes. The longest step is simple deciding on an archetype. The book is careful to state that a GM can create, cut or alter archetypes as he sees fit or to allow players the kind of character they want.
The Worldbook
This is the selling point of Talislanta. It has a rich world, taking up over half of the 500 page book. It is an exotic place inspired (I think in a literal sense) by The Dying Earth by Jack Vance. The world is populated by dozens of sentient life-forms, none of which are exactly "human."
It is laid out by region in the book, with each one fleshed out farily well. Much is left to the mind of the GM, who is encouraged to use the world as inspiration for his own ideas. He is expected to fill in a lot of the day-to-day details of the different peoples.
Some of the most amusing bits in the book are in little sidebars inserted at various places in the worldbook. They tell a little story or anecdote that helps you to get a feel for the regions and peoples and to understand the feel of the world.
One note about the worldbook: much of the information in it is adapted from older sources for the game and it tends to have redundancies every once and a while. Not too annoying, but I did notice it.
Conclusions
For Talislanta fans, this is the best edition of the book that has been published. For people who are just starting to discover Talislanta, this book is a complete and effective introduction to the world. It is durable, attractive and engagingly written.
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