Beornings not very much "Tolkien-wise"

[Sprigg]

A new player rolled a dwarf the other day and was concerned about the low hope. We house ruled it two points higher, but it got me thinking: is the number low to keep them from abusing the redoubtable cultural blessing with high shadow constantly?

[Woodclaw]

A new player rolled a dwarf the other day and was concerned about the low hope. We house ruled it two points higher, but it got me thinking: is the number low to keep them from abusing the redoubtable cultural blessing with high shadow constantly?

My guess is similar.
From a strictly mechanical POV Dwarves are the only race that can benefit from Shadow. Now I know that's a slippery slope, but the point stand. Having a dwarf with super-high Hope score will make gaining Shadow perhaps a tad too convenient.
Plus, there's a background element that partially justifies this position. Dwarves are a rather grim people who suffered greatly at the hands of orcs, dragons and other servants of the Shadow. Even the merriest among them tend to slip in a rather grim attitude, certainly more than Elves does.

[Michebugio]

I see Hope as a measure of the character's will to resist his fate: this is quite appropriate also from a meta-game point of view, since it allows you to get better results than simply rolling the dice (= "fate"). Also, experienced characters tend to have a lesser amount of "useful" Hope to spend, since they also accumulated Shadow and can't afford to become Miserable (luckily, they compensate with better rolls): their fate is almost done, while younger adventurers are eager to take their places.

So "Tolkien-wise", Elves should have the least amount of Hope, since as the First-Born their fate is strongly tied to that of Middle-Earth. Tolkien himself, coming from an orthodox catholic culture, intended them to be like humans untainted by the original sin: almost perfect, but somewhat less free-willed. Elves are also more emotionally fragile, as they can die of grief.
Dwarves are the Second-Born and they are similarly fate-tied. Think about Dwarves and Elves as the gods' favourites, thus blessed with higher reason, arts, crafts and even greater physical capabilities. They "blend" with Middle-Earth places like symbiotes (Elves with forests, Dwarves with stone, simply speaking), but they are also less able to influence it.

The Humans are the real masters of their destiny. The Third-born (after a very long time) are not tied to Middle-Earth as the First or Second-Born; also, their lives are considerably shorter, so they have much less time to leave a mark in the world. So that's why they should have higher Hope.
And then we come to the Hobbits, that are (very likely, in LOTR mythology) an offshoot of Humans, so the youngest race and the true "wild-cards" of the Third Age. It comes naturally then that they have, rightfully, the highest Hope.

I think you should keep that in mind before making any home-change in races and cultures. Personally, I would use Elves with even lesser Hope, but that would raise Resistance to Dwarf-level scores to keep game balance, which may seem odd - not that much actually, since Elves in Tolkien mythology ARE more resistant than Humans to fatigue and physical exertion (maybe we are still tied to the idea of D&D-style fragile elves ; ).
On the other side I would also align all human cultures to the Woodsmen stats (except Beornings, maybe), with high Hope and lesser Resistance (slightly lesser actually, since they still benefit from high Heart values).

My two cents