The Hobbit Virtue "Small Folk" says something about outside of combat I gain the small trait, see the traits chapter for details. I'm very interested to know what that could mean, and if I have the small trait otherwise?
So it does. I missed that.
Well, it works just like any other trait - I explained those
in this post. You don't have the "small" trait unless you take that Virtue (or some other option that specifically says "you have the small trait").
The Traits chapter does have descriptions of all the traits you can choose at character creation, but not "small". For most of them, the descriptions aren't very specific, though:
Trusty - You are reliable and faithful, and your word is a valid pledge.
Tall - You tower above most of your folk.
Smoking - You have mastered the art of smoking the herb called pipe-weed or leaf, using a pipe of clay or wood. Practitioners of the art say it gives patience and clarity of mind, and helps them greatly to relax, concentrate and converse peacefully with others.
The meaning of "small" is pretty self-evident.
So with the "small" trait, you can gain an automatic success to common skill checks when being small would be an advantage. (But you might want to roll anyway in order to try for an extraordinary success - that's one or more 6's on the d6's.) Or for some situations you can get a roll when nobody else does. ("The creature wriggles away through a tiny crack in the rocks. No way you could fit in there." "But I'm small!" "Ok, roll to see if you fit in there...") Also, if you make a common skill roll and being small is related, you have a higher chance of getting an advancement point for it (it's complicated to be more precise than that, so I figure I'll explain that when it comes up in-game.)
also, please forgive me if you've already explained, but how often do "episodes" start? Are they like encounters, or rounds, or turns, or...
An "episode" is a scene where we detail everything we're doing, as opposed to "narrative time" when we summarize.
For example: We track down a mysterious vagabond the inn in Bree, interrogate him to find out that he was supposed to meet with servants of the Dark Lord at Weathertop, and then the city watch bursts in thinking we're harassing an innocent citizen and we have a chase scene to flee town. After escaping, the GM says, "The journey to Weathertop takes 5 days. Make a couple of rolls to see if you encountered any hardships. Ok, you gain a bit of Fatigue. When you arrive, you spot a fire glimmering at its base..." That's one episode in Bree (which is split into a couple of encounters - interacting with the vagabond, escaping the authorities), followed by a narrative journey, and then when we reach Weathertop we're starting a second episode.
If we'd played through every step of the journey ("Outside town the trail forks in two. Do you want to go left or right? There's something behind that bush - what are you going to do? Yes, we're going to do the entire way to Weathertop in this much detail!") then the journey would be an episode of its own.
It's assumed that you re-equip yourself with the right clothing before any journey, so right now you only need summer clothing.
