alberonn Posted April 29, 2010 Report Share Posted April 29, 2010 I was wondering out loud about how difficult it would be to do a Talislanta to Hero conversion on the Yahoo Talislanta list. I love Talislanta, but I also enjoy Champions as well. It was suggested that someone on the Hero list may be intrigued enough to take on such a project. The Talislanta website (http://www.talislanta.com) has all of the Tal books as downloadable legal free PDFs so source material would not be hard to find. I do not know if anyone would take this up and I'm not a supreme Hero system guru. But I do admit it would be pretty cool to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kahuna's bro Posted May 21, 2010 Report Share Posted May 21, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? talistana HERO? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted May 22, 2010 Report Share Posted May 22, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? Talislanta. A very strange fantasy setting, sometimes accompanied by a rules set. There was a DAW paperback by the creator, the eminently eccentric M. A. R. Barker,* currently unavailable on Amazon, although I suspect odds are good that you can find it at a big used bookstore. I'm not sure that you'd want to bother, though. Weird and interesting is good; weird and mediocre, not so much. *I should clarify that that isn't inside gossip, just reading between the lines of the Wikipedia article. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted May 22, 2010 Report Share Posted May 22, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? Talislanta. A very strange fantasy setting' date=' sometimes accompanied by a rules set. There was a DAW paperback by the creator, the eminently eccentric M. A. R. Barker,* currently unavailable on Amazon, although I suspect odds are good that you can find it at a big used bookstore. I'm afraid you have your eccentric fantasy worlds a bit confused. Prof. M.A.R. Barker created another unique game setting, Tékumel (one of the earliest such settings) as an exercise in world-creation. Talislanta is the product of the fertile imagination of Stephen Michael Sechi. I'm not sure that you'd want to bother' date=' though. Weird and interesting is good; weird and mediocre, not so much.[/quote'] I daresay the thousands of fans of Talislanta (not to mention Tékumel) would disagree with you. As for converting the setting to Hero, most of the templates for characters provided in most editions of the Talislanta game have fairly straightforward and easily described abilities which wouldn't be too hard to translate to Hero terms, although some would require interpretation of their in-game effects (like Sindaran dual-encephelons). If it were up to me I'd probably start with character templates and race/creature write-ups from published Hero books which are closest to their Tal equivalents, and modify them as needed. Which edition you based your conversion on would directly affect how Talislantan magic is written up, though. Earlier versions of the game treated spells individually, so they could be statted and bought that way for each spellcasting character. But by Fourth Edition Tal magic became much more freeform and improvisational, which would likely necessitate a Variable Power Pool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted May 24, 2010 Report Share Posted May 24, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? Talislanta | Still No Elves - Official Site http://talislanta.com/ Talislanta - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talislanta Talislanta to Hero http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2951 http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4274 Cheers QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted June 1, 2010 Report Share Posted June 1, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? I'll give it some thought...I remember liking Talislanta but that was 25 years ago... Lucius Alexander House of the Palindromedary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Agenda Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? I was very fond of Talislanta, once upon a time, and unusually for me, never converted any of it to Hero. I decided to let this one alone. However, the racial package deals needed could be fun. No elves, but just about every-damn-body has pointed ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Posted June 3, 2010 Report Share Posted June 3, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? I played a bit of it concidering It was the first RPG I purchased (right before Elf Quest), as my parents wouldn't let me get D&D due to it's bad reputation.... I believe that was back in 85-86.... Maybe as late as 87. It was fun to play, I usually took a Thrall when I was able to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlHazred Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? I've statted up a few races in Hero 6E terms -- the Jaka and the Sindarans. Check out this blog post for the link to the file; in the file, I refer to the Sindarans as "Neurians" since I don't have a country named Sindar. As has been said before, the races should be no real problem; the main thing is to differentiate between Racial and Cultural Package Deals, IMO. Many of the "races" in the Tal book are actually ethnic differentiations of the same race, mostly Humans. Of course, the effects of magic (both planned and wild) have mucked about with the races quite a bit. Talislanta tries for a Vancian feel, and I think overall it succeeds very well. It's a little more tightly structured than a typical Vance milieu, but the game play is smooth and fun. I contributed to both of the links Lord Liaden provided that point back to the Hero Boards; in the second one, I figured out the best way to model Tal 4E's magic system, which was the most complex piece of the puzzle. EDIT - It occurred to me that I missed a few other Tal races in the writeups I posted. Including the above, we have: Talislanta: Sub-Men (I have these as the "Low Men" in my writeup, but that was just filing off the serial numbers) Talislanta: Jaka Talislanta: Sindarans (I have them as the "Neurians") Talislanta/Midnight Realm: Black Savants (I have them as the "Shadow-Seers") Midnight Realm: Ebonites (I have them as the "Spectres") Midnight Realm: Tarterans (I have them as the "Devilborn") Somewhere, I have the writeup I did for the Muses, Druas, and Aeriad. Must locate those! EDIT 2 - Aha! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlHazred Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? Keep in mind, these files are all 5E. The PDF I posted a link to in my blog has the above-mentioned six races in 6E format. These guys haven't yet been recast in 6E, but I plan to do it Real Soon Now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlHazred Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? Yes indeed, Real Soon Now during my next bout of Copious Free Time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlHazred Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? Copious Free Time, that is, that is not already earmarked for work on The Next Big Campaign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlHazred Posted June 21, 2010 Report Share Posted June 21, 2010 Re: Talislantan Hero? I've started a thread on the Fantasy Hero board for Talislanta to 6E conversions. I'll be doing new writeups in 6E since that's what I run, but they're easy enough to convert back to 5E -- just let me know if you'd like a particular one done! Talislanta Hero [6E]: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/80689-Talislanta-Hero-6E?p=2038298 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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