Fellowship points vs. Personal Hope usage

[Rich H]

The characters have 3 valour + 3 wisdom average, so they are not complete newbies.

That's very different to the impression I got from the initial post. Are your PCs' weapons skills and common skills also sufficiently developed?

Our gameplay is pretty narrative, I ask for rolls only in situations where the outcome really has an impact. Some standard actions are also solved via traits only.

That's fine. The game balances the acquisition of APs in this regard quite well.

We just had two sessions with no combat, but various encounters (the folk-moot at Rhosgobel). At the end of each session, the players still had 1-2 points left in the fellowship pool. We had some extraordinary rolls, and also situations where the characters were fine with a fail. In the latter cases, I reminded them of the chance to get more information/impact by using hope, but if they don't want to, it's fine.

My players nearly always spend Hope to acquire successes in skill tests - they like to get as much information as possible.

I have the impression that only combat really draws a more significant amount of hope. Maybe I should also make the encounters more dramatic ... And as you suggested: Developing special challenges that can only be solved by using hope also seem to be a good idea.

It does depend on the gaming group. Like I said above, my players do spend Hope on non-combat tests because they enjoy the further information that is often gleaned from successfully passing a skill check. Combat is always going to be an obvious area to spend Hope though as it's almost always very clear what is at stake, often the lives of the PCs, so the choice between success and failure is a stark one. I don't run a lot of combat in my adventures though so the drain on Hope, so to speak, in this regard isn't as constant as it may be in other more action-oriented campaigns; assuming LMs do run such campaigns - I'm not sure as I've not seen much evidence of them.

[Stormcrow]

It's also perfectly acceptable for players to be conservative and never use up more Hope than is in the fellowship pool. There's no reason the characters HAVE to be threatened with corruption and madness. In Middle-earth, living virtuously has its rewards.

[Angelalex242]

Yep. Personally, I'm fairly conservative with hope, and I won't spend it unless it's mission critical or the results of failure is truly horrible.

[Falenthal]

At the end of each session, the players still had 1-2 points left in the fellowship pool. We had some extraordinary rolls, and also situations where the characters were fine with a fail. In the latter cases, I reminded them of the chance to get more information/impact by using hope, but if they don't want to, it's fine.

My players nearly always spend Hope to acquire successes in skill tests - they like to get as much information as possible.

My experience matches Streicher's one, more than Rich's. My players are also fine with failure once in a while, and 1 or 2 FP are most of the time left at the end of a session (I don't use the "refresh FP at the end of each session" rule, rather a "refresh FP when narratively significant" rule, but nonetheless).

In fact, I didn't allow them to use FP during the Folk-moot because I knew lots of points would be free at the end of it and it would unbalance greatly the slow decrease in Hope. I reasoned that: 1) It was kind of an interlude, more than an adventure, 2) they were going to intervine in the debates as individuals, not as a group, and therefore the FP didn't make sense there.
I use a similar reasoning when participating in the Dragontide/Meeting of Five Armies tournaments and such, where we're having a fun and relaxing session, but not a real "adventure" with their lives endangered and where they have to act as a group.

[Falenthal]

I'd also like to add that, in my experience, Hope expenditure and Shadow gain are not linear during a series of adventures. There are adventures where the heroes spend just a few Hope points and gain no Shadow, even if there was some Corruption test: a few great rolls here and there, clever use of some Traits, coping with failure in some tests,...

But then, there comes sometime one adventure where the opposite is true: they have to enter Dol Guldur and roll twice per day for Corruption, and gain 3 or 4 Shadow points all of a sudden, and also need to spend all their FP hope and some then some personal one too to succeed at the Travel rolls needed to get there.

So, it's difficult to say something along the lines of: every adventure, each hero should end up with one or two less personal Hope points, and gain 1 Shadow point every two adventures.
In my experience, they may lose no Hope for 3 adventures, and lose 4 points in a single adventure. The same happens with Shadow point gain.

And I like this kind of experience, where dangerous adventures really feel different from "normal" ones.

[Rich H]

My players nearly always spend Hope to acquire successes in skill tests - they like to get as much information as possible.

My experience matches Streicher's one, more than Rich's. My players are also fine with failure once in a while, and 1 or 2 FP are most of the time left at the end of a session

I should perhaps clarify that the Hope usage is really when more successes are available not on just on things like fatigue tests and the like. Although there is an interesting dynamic when the players roll one or two t's but still don't meet the target number with their total - and when that means an AP is on offer, the Hope gets spent. They love racking up those APs.

(I don't use the "refresh FP at the end of each session" rule, rather a "refresh FP when narratively significant" rule, but nonetheless).

My first ever house rule that. All those years ago.

In fact, I didn't allow them to use FP during the Folk-moot because I knew lots of points would be free at the end of it and it would unbalance greatly the slow decrease in Hope. I reasoned that: 1) It was kind of an interlude, more than an adventure, 2) they were going to intervine in the debates as individuals, not as a group, and therefore the FP didn't make sense there.

Not allowing the use of the FP is interesting but is something that I don't think I'd do as I don't see why it matters whether the fellowship is acting as a group or individuals, as you can be acting as an individual but take inspiration from a fellowship member which I'd still deem as drawing on the FP. I suppose my problem with it would be that if I was going to restrict it's usage here then there are lots of other places that I would feel like I had to do the same to remain consistent and I'd be wary about painting myself into a corner and restricting the players capabilities. Still, to each their own.

[Rich H]

It's also perfectly acceptable for players to be conservative and never use up more Hope than is in the fellowship pool. There's no reason the characters HAVE to be threatened with corruption and madness. In Middle-earth, living virtuously has its rewards.

I'd also like to add that, in my experience, Hope expenditure and Shadow gain are not linear during a series of adventures. There are adventures where the heroes spend just a few Hope points and gain no Shadow, even if there was some Corruption test: a few great rolls here and there, clever use of some Traits, coping with failure in some tests,...

But then, there comes sometime one adventure where the opposite is true: they have to enter Dol Guldur and roll twice per day for Corruption, and gain 3 or 4 Shadow points all of a sudden, and also need to spend all their FP hope and some then some personal one too to succeed at the Travel rolls needed to get there.

So, it's difficult to say something along the lines of: every adventure, each hero should end up with one or two less personal Hope points, and gain 1 Shadow point every two adventures.
In my experience, they may lose no Hope for 3 adventures, and lose 4 points in a single adventure. The same happens with Shadow point gain.

And I like this kind of experience, where dangerous adventures really feel different from "normal" ones.

Those are good points.

I think there's a bit of a school of thought that Hope has to be in slow decline and get gradually used up over the adventuring years and I'm not sure that necessarily is, or has to be, the case. In fact, up until my last adventure I ran, where the PCs faced a Hound of Sauron and its minions I wasn't seeing much of a decline in Hope of more than one or two points off of each character's total value. However this battle was particularly brutal and they spent quite a lot. Add to this that the Fellowship Phase is an interim one and not significant enough to heal any corruption and they are into the next adventuring phase with quite low Hope scores and an upwardly creeping Shadow score.

[Falenthal]

In fact, I didn't allow them to use FP during the Folk-moot because I knew lots of points would be free at the end of it and it would unbalance greatly the slow decrease in Hope. I reasoned that: 1) It was kind of an interlude, more than an adventure, 2) they were going to intervine in the debates as individuals, not as a group, and therefore the FP didn't make sense there.

Not allowing the use of the FP is interesting but is something that I don't think I'd do as I don't see why it matters whether the fellowship is acting as a group or individuals, as you can be acting as an individual but take inspiration from a fellowship member which I'd still deem as drawing on the FP. I suppose my problem with it would be that if I was going to restrict it's usage here then there are lots of other places that I would feel like I had to do the same to remain consistent and I'd be wary about painting myself into a corner and restricting the players capabilities. Still, to each their own.

Yeah, you're right that this example is not a guide of "how to play the Folk-moot" or similar. In fact, I think that the important part of why I didn't allow the use of FP is the first point: it was more an interlude than an adventure, and therefore Hope was probably not going to be used/needed and, therefore, regaining personal Hope because the FP wasn't even touched seemed unbalanced.
On the other hand, if my players would have been VERY low on Hope and/or high on Shadow points, maybe I would have used this interludes for quite the contrary: you find yourself in a peaceful settlement, surrounded by Free People in a friendly mood, and are therefore allowed to recover some Hope without risking your life. Maybe this interludes can be used by the LM to minimally "correct" or "readjust" the Hope/Shadow of his group if he thinks something is going wrong in the way this mechanics are applied during his campaign. Something along the lines of what the OP asked.
Just an LM resource more to use if needed.

[Wbweather]

In my game, the players tend to be very conservative with their hope points and like to keep a close tally on remaining points in the pool. We generally have a pool of about 6 and usually use that up with maybe a point or 2 of personal hope spent on more dangerous adventures. They are okay with failed rolls on most things, but will spend hope easily if needed when the pool is full. They become more frugal as the fellowship pool dwindles.