Hmm... I get that this might have been the designer's intent, but I am not convinced that the rules support this reading. Compare it to the wording of the Quest cards in this scenario: Unconscious characters cannot quest, attack, defend, collect resources, trigger abilities, be poisoned, or ready[…]. The "cannot quest" part is the same as on Forest Stream. We DO have an official ruling for the case where a defending character gets unconscious through the effect of a Shadow card (the attack is considered undefended): Link Some folks in that thread come to the conclusion that questing characters should also get removed from the quest when they become unconscious. Personally, I can't think of a reason why it should work differently for questing and defending characters. Forest Stream uses exactly the same wording as the Quest cards in this scenario, so I have to assume that this nasty combo indeed withdraws all your characters from the quest. So yeah, I think I've answered my own question, although I'd still like to hear what others have to say on this topic. (On an unrelated note: What's up with the search function on this site? It used to work rather well, but now it only shows me results from within the past 2 months. "Date created" is set to "any".)

I've tried looking for an answer, but the search function somehow seems to be broken for me. The only relevant thing I could find through google was an old thread from 2014 where someone had the same question but didn't get a definitive answer. Forest Stream is the active location. It reads: While Forest Stream is the active location, poisoned characters cannot quest. After committing some non-poisoned characters to the quest, Lazy Lob is revealed as an encounter card. It reads: When revealed: Each character committed to the quest gets 1 poison. Am I correct in assuming that all my characters are immediately removed from the quest? Is there any official statement on what "cannot quest" actually means in this context?

There is a key concept in Magic the Gathering that translates extremely well to Lord of the Rings. In Mike Flores' seminal article 'Who's the Beatdown?' he talks about the importance of role assessment. The gist is that you must play differently when you are ahead in a game vs. when you are behind. A huge part of this is risk management: When you are ahead (in terms of resources, board state, etc.) you really want to cement your favored position. You should therefore try to play conservatively, taking fewer risks, and preparing for cards that could potentially wreck you (i.e, 'playing around' them). In other words, play with the worst case scenario in mind. If you are behind on the other hand, you need to take more (calculated) risks. This can mean taking attacks undefended, or opening yourself up to devastating treachery effects, as long as this lets you make more efficient use of your cards and potentially sets you up to be in a better position in future turns. To give an example: Recently, I had a 2-handed game of Into Ithilien where I had already developed my board and got attacked by a 5 Strength enemy. I could have chump blocked with an Envoy of Pelargir, or blocked with my Gildor Inglorion ally. I thought that blocking with the Envoy would be the better option, since Gildor was a more valuable ally and could die if the enemy flipped a Shadow card that increased its Strength. I quickly realized what a horrible mistake I had made when the Shadow card turned out to be Blocking Wargs. It killed my 1-toughness ally before damage was dealt, thus causing the attack to go undefended. Coupled with a 5-Strength attacker, this meant a dead Hero. My board was well developed at this point, and I could have afforded to lose Gildor, but not a Hero. Playing around Blocking Wargs would have 100% been the correct decision here, but I missed it because I was not mentally prepared for the worst case. That said, blocking with the Envoy could have been the correct decision if my position in the game had looked differently. For example, if I had very few allies and/or really needed Gildor alive in order to set up future Vilya turns. In that case, I should have just played as if Blocking Wargs didn't exist and blocked with the Envoy. I think that a lot of strategic decisions in this game boil down to identifying what encounter cards you can afford to play around. Over time, you will develop a feeling for when it is correct to take more risks, and when to play conservatively. Learning the encounter decks also definitely helps with that.