As I was thinking about Hope recovery, I realized that the definition of a session becomes very important. Afterall, the Fellowship pool is replenished after each session and player-heroes recover 1 Hope point if their Fellowship focus has not been wounded or "otherwise harmed" (whatever that means) after each session.

But, as I dig deeper, I also realize that player-heroes are awarded 1-2 Experience points after each session. They can gain even more supplementary Experience points after the entire Adventuring phase is complete (see p. 17 of the Loremaster's Book).

So, what is a session?

Logically, I think it means the 2-4 hours of gaming we'll have in one night. But, that means every gaming group will recover Hope and award Experience points at wildly differing rates (sometimes we play 6-8 hours!).

I am thinking then, perhaps I will define a session, not so much as 2-4 hours of gaming, but more on the lines of Parts of an adventure, correlating with Company Objectives.

I actually prefer a faster pace for character advancement and this may help with that.

I think you answered your own question

A session is a session of game play. If you have long sessions, then you may want to adjust accordingly by using a 3 to 4 hour denominator.

I concur with young Skywalker here.

Normally a Session is 4 hours (give or take) and Things that refresh every session (like Felowship etc) has to be considered when a Session lasts longer or shorter than this standard.

/wolf

To be honest I can see where you are coming from, I think you just need to keep in mind the length of your session and adjust accordingly. I am not sure it matters too much though, if you go over you can decide to give an extra xp, perhaps refresh the fellowship pool a little early or similar but as to gaming groups recovering hope at different rates or gaining xp I don't think that matters.

So long as your group don't feel as if you are being stingy with xp etc and everyone enjoys themselves. It is not like we are in a race

My current group tend toward about 3 hours a night most of the time and about 4 on a weekend session. As such I suppose we sit in the average but I would normally base my experience on the amount of time played anyway, so if we end up having a mega session and/or do particularly well I will give large amounts of xp than normal as a matter of course.

As to Hope, I am not in the same camp as many people here so I am looking into ways to tweak the hope rules to suit the kind of game I want to run.

I am hoping to start a full game of TOR soon with a new group so I will see how it goes.

E

I remember running an Exalted session one friday night few years ago that lasted 14 freaking hours !!

Even though it was incredibly fun I almost had a mental breakdown since I was the Storyteller...

14 hours... That's nothing!

Once (and only once admittedly) we played from 2pm Saturday until 11am Sunday!

There was a lot of junk food and beer consumed!

Oh to be young again!

Yeah those were the days.

No job, no family, no money, no sense of self-preservation... no clue.

/wolf

I think I would have passed out!

I am still seriously considering defining a session as the completion of Part of an adventure. The players should come up with a Company objective based on the information they gather during Part One and set their goals. When they have completed Part One, I will consider that a session, reset their Fellowship points, award Experience points, and allow 1 point of Hope recovery for those whose Fellowship focus was not wounded or harmed (which I interpret as knocked-out).

For some reason I feel compelled to tie together the completion of objectives with all the resetting, awarding, and recovering. I must be strange.

Careful. That way madness and D&D4e* lies.

*from someone who has a lot of respect for 4e

I know. I know. Must...resist...Corruption. If I can't go all the way to the crack of Mount Doom, will you carry me Skywalker? For so long, D&D has been the one system to rule them all (and in the darkness bind them). But, here comes TOR. Completely new and without a name. No d6, no d20, nameless. And I love it for that.

Although I can't say I ever created anything this good on my own, it reminds me of the homemade roleplaying systems I used to make up as a kid. That was back when the story was the most important thing and not complicated rules.