I'm wondering how people have interpreted Encounters (AB p163, LMB p51), as from a read through they seem a bit vague.

Introduction: one or more PCs make ability rolls
Interaction: Pcs who made Introductions may interact

Presumably these are one roll per relevant character only as per the normal rules for skill resolution, or can they make more roll? Hm, no it must be more than one roll, else there would be no point in appointing a spokesman, since then they would only get one Introduction roll and one Interaction roll.

Tolerance - if the PCs fail more than this many rolls, they can roll no more, but it doesn't necessarily end the encounter and doesn't necessarily mean it ended badly.

Prejudice (LMB p53) says prejudice agains a culture represented in the group causes Tolerance to suffer a -1 modifier. Marsh Bell (LMB p125) says Gloin is prejudiced against Elves which reduces Tolerance by 1 if there are any Elves in the company. (LMB p131) says Galion is prejudiced and Tolerance gets -1 per Dwarf or Hobbit. Is is -1 total or -1 per relevant PC in the group? It seems inconsistent within the Marsh Bell.

In the encounters with Gloin and Galion, it seems that the encounter rolls don't really affect the outcome much per se, they purely affect the amount of information that you gain from the encountered person. (Well I suppose if you went to see Gloin with a bunch of Elves and proceeded to fail all rolls he won't give you the job, but still).

I've got the same problem with the social conflict mechanics. They seem overly "gamey" to me and I've largely glossed over / ignored them in my games.
I have the PC's make one or more introduction rolls which sets the general tone for the encounter. After that we just roleplay the encounter out in the traditional manner. The social skills (Awe, Courtesy, etc.) are used as and when required by the flow of the encounter. I don't use tolerance at all.

Same. The tolerance rules feel way too much like 4e skill challenge system which is pretty much the first thing 4e GMs (myself included) got rid of. I've yet to find a decent social encounter system that doesn't impose arbitrary limits or interrupt the flow of encounters with rolling.
The FATE system comes the closest IMHO. Houses of the Blooded seemed to have a decent system, but I haven't actually played it.

EDIT: I noticed something else. The social skills are not set up for everyone to be able to participate in social encounters by RAW. Dwarves and Woodsmen have neither Awe nor Courtesy above 0 and unless they invest significant points they can't make introductions. Kind of a bummer, since that acts as a probability gate to doing anything else in a social encounter.

I think the OP's issue is not that they are not gamey, but that the gamey elements are lacking.

I found that the Encounter rules did not quite feel completely baked as written either and created this patch which has worked well: http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...topic=2152&st=0

For those that don't want a gamey feel to social interaction, the best plan is to ignore the existing Tolerance rules as suggested.

Yes pretty much right. I don't mind winging stuff in a handwavey manner, nor do I mind using social interaction rules. But if you've got some rules I'd like them to be useful and worth having!

Thanks for the link, I will try the patch.

I use the system but keep it quite free-form. I tell the PCs the tolerance of the encounter, and I let them guage which skills to use and choose who makes introductions as per the rules.

This stage gives nice meaningful decisions to encounters. Should the brash dwarf be allowed to join in and risk wasting points of tolerance?

After this we just roleplay it, rolling when necessary (and decreasing tolerance if they fail).

However, if unintroduced PCs want to chip in later, NPCs will often turn to the group and demand to know who this lackey is who interrupts them (ie. they have to make an immediate introduction, or they can be introduced by another PC with a +2 difficulty).

One point about the tolerance system I like is it tends to make encounters more focussed and go quicker, keeping the pace of adventures moving.

vs