One of the great things about Talisman is that you don’t have to always play things “by-the-book”- it is easy to home-brew our house rule certain elements of the game without altering its balance or changing its rule structure.
A common house rule I like to play with- especially if there are a few expansions in play is an alternate way of handling character selection. In the base rules you draw a character and that’s it for the game- draw something overly-powerful and your race to the Crown of Command is perhaps a bit easier- draw a dud character and it’s off to the Dungeon to get killed as quickly as possible and draw another character.
So here is how we do it…
Based on the number of expansion in play each player randomly draws five characters and does not revel them to the other players at the table. For a few minutes, secretly, each player decides who they want to play from their draw- this ensures that there is a good chance of pulling at least one character that fits their desired and preferred play style. There is also an element of pre-game tactics and skullduggery as the players guess based on their stock of character what has been denied the other players.
Once everybody has picked their starting character, the non-choices go back into the main deck and are shuffled, and then one by one each player reveals who they picked as we deal out starting strength, craft, life, etc.
Then, though the course of the game as a player dies character draw reverts back to the first method- pick a random character from the deck and begin your quest for the Crown of Command.