Hopeless Cheer

[Scrollreader]

I don't know that you need a mechanical trigger to get this feel. My players are often in the spirit of this 'hopeless cheer' you describe, though I am not sure it is hopeless. They all have plenty of hope, but they choose to maintain their cheer by NOT spending Hope.
They choose to endure failure, and the consequences thereof, and not take the 'easy' Victory, but one that saps their spirit. They fail travel rolls, and persuasion and intuition checks, they fall from towers they climb, they take damage, miss foes in combat, and insert foot in mouth before people they need to impress (or want to). And they remain cheerful, good-hearted folk. But for every epic success (I am Aragorn, Son of Arathorn) in the books, there are also failed rolls. Pippen dropping a rock in Moria, Bilbo's capture by trolls (Lots and None At All), or Gimli totally failing a courtesy check (vs Eomer when they first meet on the plains of Rohan).

As a consequence of their willingness to accept failure, except when it would be life threatening or endanger the group, my fellowship has managed six sessions, as of an hour ago, and no one is down more than 1 hope from their maximums. And while one of them has only passed three fatigue checks in his entire career, and another has mistakenly threatened a pony, and a third has entangled themselves in a romantic relationship with an Easterling entirely unintentionally (due to three failed insight checks in a row), and while they may be wearied at times, or unintentionally humorous, they feel like the heroes of the Hobbit.

They are good folk, and their Hope (game term) is high, because they do not use it. So even with a Cursed Famous Armor, and a Driven Dwarf, no one is any real danger of being miserable. This, in my opinion, captures the feel of those who must "do without hope". Not that they have no Hope, but that they value it, and expend it for the good of the Fellowship, or in direst need, and otherwise, they make do without.

[jamesrbrown]

I don't know that you need a mechanical trigger to get this feel.

Your testimony about how your group displays courage and cheer is awesome! I like that very much. That is the kind of roleplaying I feel deserves a supplemental Experience point, because it is in the spirit of Tolkien. Not all players are like yours, though. I find that my players need teaching and encouragement about such things.

Starting heroes have lower skill levels and often fail their rolls. I find that most players would rather succeed and are not afraid to spend Hope, especially in combat. In fact, the companions in the adventure I ran tonight were burning through Hope very quickly to succeed at Fatigue tests, combat rolls, and a variety of skill tests. Maybe they would have chosen not to spend Hope during particular parts of the story if they could have earned an additional Experience point for it. This would have resulted in a ton of failed rolls, but also greater maturity. I think I will test this idea during the next session.

[Scrollreader]

It is certainly possible. Are your players trying to 'win' the game? Do they understand the consequences of being spent and/or Miserable? How long do they (and you) expect the game to run?

An Xp reward for failure (give everyone the Men of the Lake Cultural Blessing) is one route. There are also some house rules that give AP for trait linked failure that might also interest you around here somewhere. And of course, you can also darkly hint at 'I'm looking forward to your bout of Madness' and then chuckle, if you think your players will respond to that, or else just have a frank discussion with them, and find out why they're being so profligate with Hope.