Regaining Hope?

[Angelalex242]

I concur. I think it's expected that not only can you replenish hope you didn't spend, but going a couple adventures spending little to no hope actually lets you regenerate it off the fellowship pool.

Think of the fellowship as your personal friends...and shrinks. They restore your hope if nobody's used any lately.

[zedturtle]

I guess it's a matter of interpreting what spent Hope means. I had thought it to mean that you use a Fellowship
Point instead of personal Hope; thus you could not recover Hope spent in a previous session. If it's just a recharge then a Fellowship can slack in one session to recharge expenditures from another session. If that's what's intended, that's cool but it makes Hope less scarce.

[bluejay]

According to the rules on page 133:

Players may recover any number of Hope points up to their maximum Hope score, as long as there are Fellowship points left.

Not sure that really has much room for interpretation and as you say Hope doesn't get that scarce in the long run. My group are all very experienced PCs now with 5/6 in Wisdom, Valour and their main weapon skills along with some magical weapons (after thirty years of game time) and they're all pretty much on maximum Hope at the end of every session.

[Stormcrow]

I had thought it to mean that you use a Fellowship Point instead of personal Hope

Technically speaking, you never spend Fellowship points; you take Fellowship points to recover lost Hope points. However, if you take a Fellowship point immediately before or after you spend a point of Hope, it's effectively the same as spending a point of Fellowship.

[zedturtle]

According to the rules on page 133:

Players may recover any number of Hope points up to their maximum Hope score, as long as there are Fellowship points left.

Not sure that really has much room for interpretation and as you say Hope doesn't get that scarce in the long run. My group are all very experienced PCs now with 5/6 in Wisdom, Valour and their main weapon skills along with some magical weapons (after thirty years of game time) and they're all pretty much on maximum Hope at the end of every session.

Well, I stand (actually sit at the moment) corrected. It does seem to make the Hope economy a bit weaker (aren't very experienced heroes supposed to be low on Hope?) and seems like it could be gamed (since it says 'at any time in the game', you could refresh during a session spent doing primarily Fellowship Phase stuff).

But c'est la vie... it does make me wonder why some players are opposed to spending Hope at all then.

[Deadmanwalking]

Well, I stand (actually sit at the moment) corrected. It does seem to make the Hope economy a bit weaker (aren't very experienced heroes supposed to be low on Hope?) and seems like it could be gamed (since it says 'at any time in the game', you could refresh during a session spent doing primarily Fellowship Phase stuff).

Eh, even with your interpretation, you could still regain 1 Hope a session over what you started with via Fellowship Focus, so the difference is minor in practice, IMO. Hope's intended to fluctuate, and go down a bit over time, especially if you're not careful (or are doing a lot of difficult stuff), but I don't think it's really meant to be a death spiral.

And I'm pretty sure you don't gain any Hope at all for sessions entirely devoted to Fellowship Phase since, frankly, I'm pretty sure the game's assumption is that those don't exist per se. Heck, if you're doing those and counting them as full sessions with the Hope effects that implies, again, Fellowship Focus alone allows gaming the Hope system.

But c'est la vie... it does make me wonder why some players are opposed to spending Hope at all then.

That's sorta what I was wondering...

[bluejay]

I agree about that as well. For instance all of the fuss about Stinging Arrow costing Hope.

[PST]

In my experience the period of play where scores of 2-3 feature rather than 0-1 or 4+ is when most of the hope expenditure happens.

With 0-1 in a skill, even with a hope point you probably won't succeed, so it doesn't get spent.
With 2-3 a below average roll can succeed with a point of hope.
with 4+ even a below average roll will succeed on an average check, so you don't need to blow a point of hope unless you really need to.

Likewise there's a big difference in the steady decline of Hope between having a Fellowship focus and not. My players only just got round to declaring them, some 7 adventures and 5 years after the first met eachother.

[Láthspell]

But c'est la vie... it does make me wonder why some players are opposed to spending Hope at all then.

Well, there is a type of player that objects to spending finite resources in all situations but those of the utmost need. I've know several players like this, I've even considered myself one of those types of players at one time. What changed for me, what the realization that by waiting for the "best" time to use any given resource, I ended up in a situation where I never used resources. As such, I've generally tried to adjust my strategy to spending resources when it seems useful even if it may not be optimum. (This actually led me to get into a minor conflict with a player of the resource-hoarding mindset, when I took an action that drained a resource for seemingly only minor benefit. I was actually vindicated when a round or two later, it turned out my action had meant the difference between life and death for another player's character.)

On a heavier note, it's also possible that the dwindling of a finite resource like Hope reminds players of their own mortality.

[Angelalex242]

Momento Mori. Always a lesson to keep in mind.

Though not necessarily at the gaming table.