Overview

What is Talion?

Talion is a diceless, card-based tabletop role playing game. Players choose a character class with its own specialized Hero Deck. As they increase in level, characters improve their repertoire of abilities and talents by upgrading their existing cards and acquiring new ones. Pick it up for a single quick-play adventure, or wrap it into a long-term campaign. Its versatility allows it to be used as a ‘plug-and-play’ combat system to replace that of another game system as well.

There are two main attributes of tabletop RPGs as they exist today that we set out to change when we designed Talion, but we ended up with something that we believe is a more sweeping and far-reaching change than we originally anticipated.

Slashing Through Preparation Time
The first is the amount of prep time (read: character creation) that most RPGs require you to spend before you even begin playing. In the past, we’ve found ourselves with plenty of opportunities to start up a spontaneous role playing session with friends, only to realize that character creation would have taken up most of the time we had left. With Talion, you choose a character, shuffle up, and get right into the action.

Creating Dynamic, Interactive Combat
The second characteristic of many turn-based combat systems is that they attempt to replicate a rapidly changing environment with mechanics that end up feeling very static and repetitive. We have found this to be a common thread in many games and a very real issue that was preventing us from playing out combat on the tabletop to its true potential. Some might not call the combat systems in most games a ‘problem,’ per se. In fact, there are many elegantly designed systems out there that are great at what they do. But it wasn’t just elegance we were after. It was interaction.

By interaction, I’m not talking about “I hit you, then you hit me.” There are lots of games that claim to have ‘dynamic’ combat systems and end up being just a series of rigid back-and-forth exchanges. So what does dynamic mean, really? When combat occurs during one of my gaming sessions, I like to envision the events taking place there the same way I see battles happen in the movies. As gamers, we want our combat gameplay experience to be exciting, and we want the battlefield to be constantly shifting and changing, just like the epic fight scenes we see on the big screen.

What actually ends up happening most of the time though, is that we spend the vast majority of our time doing nothing, waiting for our turn to arrive – in ‘initiative order,’ or what have you. We aren’t encouraged to be involved or engaged in what happens between our turns, simply because it doesn’t matter! If we can’t interact with our environment, what would cause us to pay active attention to it at any time except while it’s our turn? The only thing we can do in a typical turn-based combat system is roll some dice, and then if we’re lucky enough that those dice come up in our favor, something happens – maybe we deal some damage or cast a spell. Then – and here’s where the real fun begins – our character has to stand around and get beat on by all the baddies we didn’t kill with our one or two glorious attacks or spells during our turn. Rinse and repeat. Pure excitement, right? Actually, that doesn’t really translate into an experience that’s anywhere close to what I think most of us want.

Strategy, Chaos, and Tactical Decision-Making
So Talion is designed so that you can act at any time throughout the course of combat, as long as you have the resources to do so. You always have the option of acting during your turn, of course. But no longer are you bound by the sequential ordering of actions determined by a preset value or dice roll. In fact, you don’t even have to do anything at all during your own turn if you don’t want to! The priority to act passes between sides (in most cases, between the players and the Game Master) after each action, so you can jump in and strike at any moment. If a Minotaur raises its weapon threateningly, a goblin takes a tentative step toward you, or a troll bellows in your general direction, you have the opportunity to react. You can take a swing at an enemy as it runs by; cast a defensive shield to interrupt the bolt of energy coursing through the air towards you; whirl to face an opponent attacking you from behind; or step aside at the last second to avoid an enemy’s sneak attack.

The Core Appeal
This is where we believe Talion’s biggest strength lies: it isn’t about crossing your fingers and hoping for good fortune; it’s about managing your resources efficiently. This simple shift in our thought process behind the game’s design resulted in a fundamental shift from a more luck-based game to a more skill-based one. The basics are easy to learn, but you won’t sit down to play for the first time and know the best ways to use your resources in any given situation. Your skill level will grow along with that of your character as you become a more seasoned combatant.

Cards Over Dice (or Skill Over Luck)
One may note that using a deck of cards is similar to rolling dice in that both create what’s called ‘variance.’ It’s true that there is a certain amount of luck involved in drawing a particular card at a particular time. But cards create variance in a much different way than dice do. A card represents a specific resource that you have available. When you use the card, you know it’s going to produce an exact effect according to what it says. You also know, to some degree, what the other cards in your deck do (the ones you haven’t drawn yet), and you know what the other cards in your hand do also. So you are able to operate within the context of that added information. You’re able to say to yourself, “okay, if I use this ability now, I still have this other thing as a backup in case something goes wrong.” You can think ahead. You can plan for the worst-case scenario. You can perform strategic analysis in an entirely different way, and you have the ability to consider your options and adopt the play style that suits you best, instead of leaving your effectiveness up to fate and gravity.

Another way that cards improve gameplay experience over dice is that they completely counteract the min-maxing that tends to become habitual among power gamers. In games where we rely on dice  to win the day, we are often inclined to sustain heavy penalties in areas that don’t really matter to our particular character class, in order to pump as many points as we can into a few key abilities and skew the more important die rolls in our favor. Then we use that tiny selection of abilities ad nauseum, because they’re the only thing our character is good at. When you use cards, you’re drawing from a much wider variety of skills and abilities unique to your character. You’re using those cards in a way that lends itself to the situation at hand in a more balanced way. The powers and abilities in Talion are like dance moves: you may know lots of them, but while you’re in the heat of the moment you might only be able to recall a few at a time, so you use the one that seems to fit the situation, and then alter your plan based on what’s happening in each moment.

What’s Next?
Interested in learning more about Talion? Well, the game hasn’t been released yet – but we’re planning a Kickstarter campaign for it right now! Check the News section for the latest updates on our progress with the game.