No Hope is a good thing?

[Dunheved]

I was looking at the effect of losing your leader in battle and re-read the Battle of Pelennor Fields. (This is just really stirring stuff.) I got distracted from my original purpose- which was: what effect is there on Orcs when their biggest leader gets taken out (I'll try another post for THAT one).

Instead I noticed 'No Hope' situations in the chapter.

Dernhelm's (i.e. Eowyn's) face is described as 'one that goes seeking death, having no hope'; later Eomer is surrounded and cut off from Minas Tirith, he sees the black ships coming up the Anduin, ' and hope died in his heart..' even though he spends a few seconds composing a four line poem ending '.. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking; Now for Wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!..' (more stirring stuff!)

Of course Eotheod's family may be genetically predisposed towards depression: but that's just not very Tolkien is it?

So, the idea is that in the Horselords of Rohan supplement some cultural strength should incorporate a resilience when people are low in Hope.

Going further, Tolkien uses the word 'fey' to represent black moods of determination that allow people to go on against insurmountable odds. (Think Hurin fighting alone against Morgoth's Armies.) In fact this tends to be a feature of most Mannish cultures - the easterlings and haradrim also carried on at the end of Pelennor Fields.

Perhaps there ought to be a positive version of a Bout of Madness allowing a player to continue when surrounded. A new Action = "Worthy of a Great Song" - so a player declares 'Noble Death' and goes down fighting.
This sacrifice gives one roll of the dice (Valour or Wisdom Test) that has to be an Epic/Automatic Great success for the player character to survive and to escape. [So that's a G-rune on the d12 PLUS at least two Tengwars on the Success Dice.] If not then the PC dies, and gets a free Birthright blessing to pass on to a family successor. Of course the sacrifice allows the rest of the Fellowship to get past an insurmountable problem (which Grey Wizard comes to mind? or even Boromir's actions at his death).

So two separate but related ideas here for anyone to improve.

[Falenthal]

I like the spirit of your proposal. Very Tolkien.
I don't know about the mechanics, because there are a myriad ways to rule the same thing and most of them can work well.

[Glorelendil]

You may be on to something, but what I'm thinking is that maybe it belongs as either the Cultural Blessing, or perhaps a Virtue, for the Rohan culture when it comes out? Maybe something that triggers when Hope falls below a threshold? (Half of max hope? Relative to Shadow? A fixed number? Roll a success die and if it's more than your Hope score you get something?)

[Dunheved]

I'm thinking is that maybe it belongs as either the Cultural Blessing, or perhaps a Virtue, for the Rohan culture when it comes out? Maybe something that triggers when Hope falls below a threshold? Roll a success die and if it's more than your Hope score you get something?)

Connecting this to Rohan was my first thought for this.
I like your suggestion of it being a Virtue (say, Resilience). After all, through the ages the Eotheod/Rohirrim continually survived by taking their future in their own hands and finding ways round problems or restrictions.

My second point (a Noble Death) is what happens when you try to extend an idea. Sometimes it works and sometimes it's just a bit too much! I wouldn't want to construct 'rules' for this beyond any outline I've suggested already. Maybe somebody would like to try it as a house rule.

[farinal]

I am not sure yet but reading about the first post really sounds very good and I also think this is onto something.

[zedturtle]

I'd propose either a cultural virtue, or more preferably, a cultural blessing. Something to the effect of:

• Fey
  To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking; Now for Wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
  
  The Rohirrim have faced certain doom many times in their history. To face certain death, or abject failure, and to see the deed done all the way to the bitter end is entwined within the culture. Any time a Rohirric hero is without Hope (i.e. has a Hope score of zero) he does not count as Weary or as spent. A fey hero may still be Miserable, if the character's Shadow rating is higher than zero.

It has the nice benefit of being most useful to newly minted heroes (as they have no Shadow to contend with) but is not quite as powerful as having 'unlimited' Hope (by allowing them to invoke Attribute bonuses even when spent, which was my first stab at this). Of course, more experienced heroes will have to walk a knife's edge to gain the benefits of being fey without having continual bouts of madness.

[Rich H]

Zed, I thought a character was only Spent when they had zero Hope not Wearied as well?

Spent is defined as such:

If 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.

So, such an ability would just avoid this?

How many times have we had characters get to zero Hope in our games?

... Just wondering how often this is going to come up. A pity for such a cool idea.

[zedturtle]

Zed, I thought a character was only Spent when they had zero Hope not Wearied as well?

Spent is defined as such:

If 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.

So, such an ability would just avoid this?

How many times have we had characters get to zero Hope in our games?

... Just wondering how often this is going to come up. A pity for such a cool idea.

The idea being that characters who are in dire straits will often been Wearied and low on Hope. This would make a Fey character actually try to spend up all their Hope (in order to no longer be Weary), sort of like a Beorning really wants to be Wounded after he's Weary so that he can become Furious.

[Glorelendil]

How about triggering when the Fellowship Pool is empty?

[zedturtle]

How about triggering when the Fellowship Pool is empty?

It's a possibility, sure. Just doesn't seem to fit as well. The way I envision it is to make the culture's Hope score fairly low (about par with Dwarves) and make it desirable for them to try to burn up Hope, in order to become Fey. When Fey, they can't be made to be Weary, so they have to be double-Wounded or made to be Exhausted in order to drop out of combat.

The player would actively refuse Hope from the Fellowship Pool, at least if the character's Shadow Rating was zero! It's just another way to play with the mechanics...