I recently played Talisman, revised 4th Edition, and it brought up some memories of a game that I played around 2010. The game belonged to the father of a friend of mine and was not new (if I had to make a guess I would say the game was from the 80s, but that might not be very accurate). The game that I remember played very similar to Talisman. It was a fantasy themed RPG where each player played a different character, you could collect items to improve your character, there was an element of PvP and character death did not mean player death.
Yet, I there are some elements that are different between my memory and Talisman (at least the revised 4th Edition). First, Talisman plays in different regions, whereas the game that I remember was a dungeon with connected rooms. Second, in the game that I remember there was a distinct end-boss (if I recall correctly, it was a dragon) that you had to fight (or evade) to win the game. I remember killing the character of a friend but not taking up the item that would allow me to evade the end-boss only to loose my fight against it.
I have checked several alternatives to Talisman, but none seem to match my memory:
- Relic is not in a fantasy setting
- Prophecy does not match my memories at all
- the board of Runebound looks much more complex than I remember
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Fantasy Adventure Board Game also operates on a lower level than rooms or regions
- Dungeon! has a board that looks like it could fit my memory, but it does not feature the end-boss that needs defeating
