Our Pathfinder GM had to work from home on Saturday night, but he was free enough to sit at the table with his laptop and do his thing. Instead of forcing him to run the game and try to pay attention to his network while work was being done on it, we opted to take a break from role playing and play a board game or two. We started (and ended) the night with a really long game of Talisman, Second Edition. I hadn’t played the game more than twice since high school, and I remembered the games going really quick. What I mean by really quick is that we are used to Arkham Horror, which takes a full night to run through the game. Talisman always took an hour or so to setup, play and breakdown back into the box. For some reason, the game on Saturday night took a really long time.

I’m still trying to puzzle out why the game took so damn long. We didn’t dally or waste time. There were no length breaks taken. I really don’t know what happened. Yes, we had two people at the table that had never played, and the other three of us around the table had played before, but not for some time. However, Talisman is such a simple game that it only takes a few minutes to get the flow of things. I was hoping to get in at least two, if not three, games that night, but it wasn’t in the cards.

Congrats to Nat for a game well played and for the solid win. Only two of us made it to the Inner Realm (Bill being the other one) and he didn’t make it very far before getting lost in the Mines and ending back up in the Tavern. I tried the Portal of Power several times and failed every single time. Ugh. Of course, my attempts were rushed in a desperate attempt to try and get to Nat before she finished us all off with the Crown of Command. I didn’t quite have the Strength or Craft to manage the Inner Realm, but I was going to try and get lucky. Of course… I didn’t and she won with ease.

I hope to get back into a steady Pathfinder game next week. Don’t get me wrong. I love board games, but I would much prefer some good old role playing to board/card/dice games any day of the week.