1) Any character choosing to encounter another character on the Cursed Glade or either of the Desert spaces must also adhere to the extra instructions on the space, obviously ignoring the draw card part of the instructions. In other words, they cannot use Objects or Spells in the Cursed Glade or they must lose 1 life in the Desert before encountering the other character there.

2) Any character choosing to encounter another character on the Chapel or Graveyard must also adhere to the instructions of the space, if they are of the opposing alignment. In other words they lose 1 life in the Chapel if they are evil or they lose 1 life in the Graveyard if they are good.

These spaces require the minimal amount of action of the character landing there. There is no direct involvement with a creature in the space, no rolling of the die, and no choice being made by the character landing there.

I totally agree with this.

The rule you suggest is "if you encounter a Character instead of the Space, ignore any draw card instructions, creatures, choices and dice rolls granted by the space", which is correct for most spaces."ignore any creature" might close the book on Black Knight, Village folks and City shops.

There's still the Chasm. Here the general rule doesn't work well, as "ignore any dice rolls" prevents the attacking player from the negative effects of the space. He fights on the Chasm, a far more dangerous activity than just walking over it, and nothing happens. I'd rather change the rule to "ignore any pray instructions". If you have to deal with the space also when you encounter a Character on it, you roll for the results after the combat has taken place.

Perhaps Forest and Crags should be treated the same way. This could be interesting why it gives a new role to these 3 spaces, which are the most neglected of the board. Characters on those spaces are less interesting for others to attack, making Crags, Forest and Chasm like safe havens (provided you don't have suffered bad consequences landing there). It also gives importance to the Guide Followers, mostly used as Vampire fodder.

Still I don't know how to avoid the Tavern roll...perhaps allow to roll anyway?

The idea was brought up some time ago, but not for every space, merely for those that should have a global effect.

As in, if an Evil character walks "into" the Chapel, and decides to encounter a character already there, they are somehow unaffected by the overall "goodliness" of the space and why you would be unaffected by the "cursedness" of the Glade just because you are attacking someone else.

That had never sat too easy with me, but to maintain the overall simplicity of the game it was decided to leave the encounter as per the flow chart/rules.

Expanding it to all non-draw spaces would I think be a bit much, but as always, Talisman lives on through house rulings!

I think this is a great little addition as a house rule and one that will feature in Talisman X, whenever I get a chance to pen the pages for that! Perhaps I should "sit down" soon with a few people and talk them through...

This is the way we've always played since the first release of 2nd edition, even before we paid attention to the either/or rules of encountering other characters. And to be honest it only gets complicated when the flowchart IS used in this case. Its simple... any automatic space "effects" beyond choice or a roll always take affect first. That's it... that's all you need to consider.

The real problem was the FFG change to corner (or other) spaces with personae being mandatory in picking something to do (someone to visit) after any automatic effects (Chapel and Graveyard). That's what made things complicated. So now, do you have to do that first... or do you encounter the other character first since it's still a matter of "choice" etc.? If you have nothing to do at the Village or City, and are left with having to visit the Mystic or Enchantress... is that what you do first or second? Or does the presence of another Character to encounter "magically" get you out of any obligatory visits?

Needless to say, we chucked that mandatory visit thing immediately... the first time we played! Then again, we also have house rules that require all squares to be encountered fully BEFORE going after (seeking) any other Character you've heard about (seen their figurine or standee) in that locale (space). In other words... if you want to whack someone, you'll have to work for it... and face the "place" in which you've chased your target down.

JCHendee said:

That's how we play, however, we also play that you can encounter another character AND then encounter the space (we're blood thirsty like that). The simple act of an Evil character landing in the Chapel/Good character landing in the Graveyard is enough for a character to lose 1 Life.

Also, if there's a card down in a space, you don't encounter the space (e.g. someone gets toaded in the City, drops there stuff, you go and pick it up, you can't then encounter the space).