So The One Ring has this OOC metamechanic called Hope.  The concept itself, having a Hope score opposed by a Shadow score and if Shadow dominates Hope the character loses heart, etc... All well and good, all very flavorful, lore appropriate, etc...

The problem is twofold:

1. You use the Hope to power special abilities.  
Think of some cool quasi-magical Middle-Earth stuff, like a Hobbit hiding as if they weren't even there, Elves getting a Piercing Shot ignoring armor (Eye shot through the helmet or something) right when they need it.  Or just think of a Strong guy throwing his strength into something to get an impressive result.  This is all powered by Hope.  When Hope gets too low, bad stuff happens.

Here's the thing...it makes no sense.  If I'm an Elf of the Mirkwood and I spend 2 Hope in a battle in which we kill an Uruk Captain, thus ending a great threat to the Halls of the Elven King, shouldn't I have MORE Hope at the end of that battle, not less?  I'm reminded of Gumshoe where using your skills leaves you unable to do anything.  The only way to win is not to play.

2. That whole OOC thing...
How do you get Hope back?  Well one of the things you can do is save your Fellowship Focus (think Middle-Earth BFF pair, like Gimlas or Samdo).  What happens when you save people who don't have narrative importance to your personal backstory? Nada of course.
The other way you get Hope back is by drawing it from the Fellowship Pool.  Of course, this being a completely OOC store of metapoints your character has absolutely no knowledge of, how do they draw from it?  All the players vote to see if you can have it.  Of course you can take it, but you get Shadow as well (yeah it's OOC, but that part is fucking brilliant and very "taking from others to enrich yourself is the path to ruin" in a very Tolkienish way).

So we have some TOR players here (and they probably like it just the way it is), has anyone heard of House Rules or alternate systems that make Hope less of an OOC metapoint economy.  Personally as OOC metapoint economies go, I prefer the Modiphius "By Choosing to be Awesome I Hereby Give the GM Permission to be Dangerous" rather than the Cubicle 7 "By Choosing to be Awesome I am Dooming Myself to Anguish and Despair No Matter How Much Good I End Up Doing".

I don't see the issue, both in Gumshoe and TOR the point mechanic are used to power extraordinary results. Normal combat and tactics are still accessible. Now you cite Gumshoe which I am somewhat familiar with. The basic point of Gumshoe skill is that for a given level the character is that competent and will automatically succeed. The only limitation is that the player needs to describe what his character.

Gumshoe revolves around investigation and a good gumshoe adventure will have the players find all the clues merely by correctly deducing what going on. No rolls required. However since Gumshoe campaigns have setting with other stuff going on, you can do a spend in hope to find EXTRA information. For example you do an adventuring involving a banshee and the party doesn't do any spends but does correctly follow all the clues. The result is that the banshee is taken care but you don't find out much more than how to defeat. But if you use your ability to spend then you can find out more about banshee and possibly get additional information that shed light on what going on with the campaign as a whole.

With TOR, Hope and Shadow are an abstraction of what the character are feeling and what they believe in. This inner strength/will/determination allow the character to push themselves to do some extraordinary result. Otherwise you will just have to deal with the situation with your abilities as ordinary person.

I agree that in some cases the general idea of the point pool mechanic and economy doesn't make sense. For example  5e's superiority dice and the various martial maneuvers of the battlemaster class. However in the case of TOR it does make sense because one of the tropes of the LOTR is that even in victory many characters suffer a cost in terms of their inner being. So the fact that despite victory you can't do these really amazing bow shots until you recuperate your hope less makes sense for a Middle Earth Campaign.

Of course is a legitimate criticism to say that such and such an ability doesn't make sense to fall under the Hope/Shadow mechanic. But overall I say the idea is sound for a Middle Earth Campaign.

I'd differ with you as to what expending Hope means.  It doesn't mean you're more hopeless, it means you've relied on your belief that Good can triumph over Evil and that there are beautiful things worth fighting in the world.  You're pulling your memory of the Shire or your elf-maid love's eyes.  There may come a point where you can't remember what your elf-maid's eyes look like, because you've fought the darkness for too long and all you see around you is war and death, but that doesn't mean you've been getting progressively more hopeless.

The trait that reflects you become "more hopeless" is your Shadow trait.  

As for how it works, the key to making it work in game is that it's an economy, in both Gumshoe and TOR.  You can easily regenerate one Hope each session without buying Virtues or relying on other rules, so you can safely spend one Hope each session without worrying about it.  Any more than that, and you need to rely on your Fellowship Focus or eventually looking at buying a Virtue to refresh your pool and increase it.  (The same goes with Gumshoe -- Gumshoe pools are meant to refresh regularly, after a rest, in a place of safety, due to a monologue, etc.)  If the Hope rules seem too stingy or aren't heroic enough for you, I'd say change the economy, so characters refresh Hope when sitting around smoking Pipeweed or thinking about home or singing songs or something else Tolkieny.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;912122I'd differ with you as to what expending Hope means.  It doesn't mean you're more hopeless, it means you've relied on your belief that Good can triumph over Evil and that there are beautiful things worth fighting in the world.  You're pulling your memory of the Shire or your elf-maid love's eyes.  There may come a point where you can't remember what your elf-maid's eyes look like, because you've fought the darkness for too long and all you see around you is war and death, but that doesn't mean you've been getting progressively more hopeless.

The trait that reflects you become "more hopeless" is your Shadow trait.  

As for how it works, the key to making it work in game is that it's an economy, in both Gumshoe and TOR.  You can easily regenerate one Hope each session without buying Virtues or relying on other rules, so you can safely spend one Hope each session without worrying about it.  Any more than that, and you need to rely on your Fellowship Focus or eventually looking at buying a Virtue to refresh your pool and increase it.  (The same goes with Gumshoe -- Gumshoe pools are meant to refresh regularly, after a rest, in a place of safety, due to a monologue, etc.)  If the Hope rules seem too stingy or aren't heroic enough for you, I'd say change the economy, so characters refresh Hope when sitting around smoking Pipeweed or thinking about home or singing songs or something else Tolkieny.

That's what I was asking, if anyone knew of examples of House Rules the community has already come up with.

As far as becoming hopeless, well when your Hope equals your Shadow, you are "Miserable" as a character state.  If Hope goes to zero, you are literally Hopeless, and have no heart or spirit to engage in conflict.  You run away, you disengage, etc.  

So, if I kill 10 Orcs, I'm good to go.  If I kill 10 Orcs awesomely and quickly by blowing Hope Points, I can turn myself into a basket case.

Yeah, I know that's not supposed to be what it's doing, I'm well aware of what narratively is supposed to be going on, how I'm supposed to be adding to the story, etc...

But for those who want roleplay just their character, not their character and Tolkien looking over its shoulder, I was wondering if by now there less OOC systems people had come up with.

While I haven't played these systems, what I would suggest is giving the spending of hope a chance for failure. You are drawing upon your deepest reserves, completely exerting yourself, and even then, at the peak of your performance, you fail. This would strike deep into anyone. To balance this, I would maybe reduce the hope supply. I would keep the fellowship mechanic, but rather than regaining hope, it can be used to mitigate shadow loss from failure. Your best friend is going to be the one most likely to pull you back from the brink and help you regain your belief in yourself. The drawing from the communal pool mechanic is interesting, I'd actually keep it. Maybe have hope points drawn from the communal pool have a reduced chance of failure, or even stronger bonuses, but if it fails, everyone gains shadow? The entire group is rallying behind you, but in your darkest hour you aren't able to pull it off.

This would change the mechanic to one based on the belief people have in the group around them and their ability to succeed together versus one based on the individual belief in fighting for the goodness of the world. It might fit better scenes like Sam carrying Frodo up the mountain, or Gimli and Legolas going on kill competitions. Also, Boromir's death would have more of an impact here, as rather than it being about Boromir's own shadow, the focus would be on how seeing a man they look up to fail impacts the rest of them.

Essentially, the mechanics do not work as they are supposed to work, and making the refilling quicker or easier by smoking pipe or singing just goes further away from its purpose.

No, it sound better that one ALWAYS increases Shadow to make those attacks or feats, but if one defeat a big boss or so, one also decreases Shadow and/or increase Hope.
I suggest Hope might be used perhaps for healing, preparation or defensive feats, if any of that kind exist.

I have no knowledge of the system than what's been mentioned in this thread thus far, as you may have guessed.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912136That's what I was asking, if anyone knew of examples of House Rules the community has already come up with.

As far as becoming hopeless, well when your Hope equals your Shadow, you are "Miserable" as a character state.  If Hope goes to zero, you are literally Hopeless, and have no heart or spirit to engage in conflict.  You run away, you disengage, etc.  

So, if I kill 10 Orcs, I'm good to go.  If I kill 10 Orcs awesomely and quickly by blowing Hope Points, I can turn myself into a basket case.

Yeah, I know that's not supposed to be what it's doing, I'm well aware of what narratively is supposed to be going on, how I'm supposed to be adding to the story, etc...

But for those who want roleplay just their character, not their character and Tolkien looking over its shoulder, I was wondering if by now there less OOC systems people had come up with.

The most popular choice made in various threads is to just alter the Hope point reward economy.  Again, I'd argue that if you run out of Hope, you're not hopeless, you're just out of a resource called Hope, and it can be refilled again, but if running out of it bothers you, reward the players with it more frequently, either by allowing more opportunities to refresh or making refreshes automatic at every session/game day/season/whatever floats your boat.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;912200Again, I'd argue that if you run out of Hope, you're not hopeless, you're just out of a resource called Hope, and it can be refilled again, but if running out of it bothers you, reward the players with it more frequently, either by allowing more opportunities to refresh or making refreshes automatic at every session/game day/season/whatever floats your boat.

I get what you're saying.  We'll just have to agree to disagree on whether being out of Hope means literally Webster's definition of hopeless, but the text does support this view.

Quote from: The One Ring, page 128If a character finds his Hope score reduced to 0 points, he  is  spiritually  spent.  A  hopeless  hero  cannot  bear  to continue  a  struggle  of  any  sort,  and  will  flee  from  any source of danger or stress, by escaping from the field of battle, for example, or storming out on a debate.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912246I get what you're saying.  We'll just have to agree to disagree on whether being out of Hope means literally Webster's definition of hopeless, but the text does support this view.

I can hardly argue with the actual text of the game.  I'll admit I'm wrong here.

To be fair, smoking my pipe does increase my sense of hope that good can triumph over evil.