I've always interpreted it as "Tolerance is the number of screw-ups you're allowed. If you screw up *again* after using up all your Tolerance, the Encounter ends."Stormcrow wrote:Your quotation is correct, but I think it leads to a contradiction. In the previous paragraph, Tolerance is described as being "the maximum number of rolls that the companions may collectively fail before their behaviour puts an end to their chances of getting further assistance or cooperation." This means if Tolerance is 1 the encounter ends when you have failed once. By your quotation, if Tolerance is 1 the encounter ends when you have failed twice.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Tolerance can never be lower than 1. By your quotation, that would mean it always takes at least two failures to end an encounter. Why cut off Tolerance at 1? If your quotation is correct, why not let it go to 0, where the encounter would end after one failure?
I wonder if the word exceed, both here and in Tales from Wilderland, is being misused.
So, if the Tolerance for an encounter is 1, that means your host is prepared to overlook a single poorly chosen word, but after that, he's just waiting for an excuse to throw you out.