Encounters - who speaks first?

[Woodclaw]

Just tossing in a suggestion for making the Encounters a bit tougher and more interesting: rather than establishing a single Tollerance threshold, maybe we could define two thresholds (not sure how) so that, if the players botch the first ones the listener became Unnerved, which impose the same penality as Weary on all the speakers.

Example:

The fellowship is at Beorn's house they're trying to persuade him to lend them a coupe of ponies to continue their journey. The LM establish that Beorn has a Tollerance of 2/4, meaning that after two botched rolls he will become Unnerved and after four his patience would be over. Due to poor rolls, the fellowship manages to botch two rolls, since Beorn is now Unnerved any 1-3 result on the skill dice to convince him will count as 0.

[Michebugio]

I see very nice ideas coming up in this topic. Thanks everybody!

I'll take time to think about your suggestions, and maybe on how to mix them.

[Indur Dawndeath]

You can also have a list of topics and skills that will auto fail, regardless of how nice the players roll.
You already see this in many of the published adventures.
Fx. Erik son of Erland, refuses to accept AWE as introduction. Only COURTESY.
So any attempts at AWE will auto fail and remove 1 Tolerance. Perhaps a failed AWE could remove 2 Tolerance in this case.
You could also select a few topics that will auto fail. Erik will not tolerate any suggestions about vacating Celduin... And so on...

In a similar way, the LM could decide that any Song tests will auto fail at King Thranduil's Court, because to him anything other than Elvish singing sounds like Sheep braying in the fields...

Also check our Rich's LM Additional rules for nice effects of EoS during interactions. I think that these work nicely forcing the player to use a skill he might not be strong at.

Players could become Daunted in the company of a beautiful women. Roll Valour to resist.
Players could become Temporary Weary as a result of a failure with EoS, if they are entertaining with a Song or other lengthy endeavor.

Also remember to use Negative Traits, to force the player to roll 2 FD and take the worst.

That was my 5 cents
Cheers

[Majestic]

Also check our Rich's LM Additional rules for nice effects of EoS during interactions. I think that these work nicely forcing the player to use a skill he might not be strong at.

Players could become Daunted in the company of a beautiful women. Roll Valour to resist.
Players could become Temporary Weary as a result of a failure with EoS, if they are entertaining with a Song or other lengthy endeavor.

This reminds me of another factor that we already have in the game now: the new Eye Awareness/Eye of Mordor mechanic.

Before you might have seen tons of players throwing out Common Skill rolls, all hunting for Advancement Points (as Michebugio complained about). But now - at least 2951 and onward - LMs have the ability to use every Eye of Sauron roll to ratchet up the tension and signify the growing dread of the Enemy,fueling the Eye Awareness and leading towards a Revelation Episode!

[Jussi Marttila]

I usually tell the players what's customary, if they're at least to some degree familiar with the culture they're dealing with.

[Majestic]

I usually tell the players what's customary, if they're at least to some degree familiar with the culture they're dealing with.

I have too, but then most of their dealings have been with folks they're somewhat familiar with. I could see forcing an Insight roll to ascertain the best approach, if it was with somebody from a culture they weren't familiar with.