In my language version it sound as you can choise if do or not a thing, i could love to know what it say in english and if you are forced to do this encounters or you can just decide to dont it, im talking about ferry from tavern and magic portal ( Im not sure about english names it is all from basic box, ferry happen in tavern if you roll 6 and magic portal teleport you in 6 different places depending from a dice roll), from another topic i saw that talisman quests are optionals and at this moment i cant think to others cards with similar doubts (but im sure there is)

Andraax said:

The ferry from Tavern is "the boatman"; "magic portal" is correct. You can choose to cross the river or not; you can choose to enter the magic portal or not. There are many spaces and cards that you needn't encounter if you don't wish, but it's always clearly written on the cards or spaces, at least in the English version of Talisman.

Talisman quests at the Warlock's Cave have always been optional. You may roll the die or not. If you have the Reaper expansion, there's a small deck of quest cards from where you can freely choose your quest (but I personally draw quests at random).