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I'm not sure we are doing this right, so I thought I would consult the experts! We have been playing that hope replenishes completely during the end of year fellowship phase. That way everyone begins the new year fully charged and ready for the next adventures/hardships to come. Is this correct, or am I being too generous? It seems to be working for us

You are in fact VERY WAY SUPER overgenerous. They get their fellowship pool refreshed. Once. Nothing more. Infinitely refreshing hope leads to superheroic player characters.

There are several ways to regain Hope, but they are slow. You do not regain all your Hope at the end of an adventure or session.

You can take Fellowship Points from the Fellowship Pool. You need to have the support of the majority of the players for this action, or you also take a Shadow Point for each Fellowship Point you take.

If your Fellowship Focus wasn't Wounded or otherwise harmed during the session, you regain a point of Hope at the end of the session.

The Loremaster might allow you to undertake an activity that lets you raise your Hope, although there are no such undertakings in the official releases that I'm aware of. As a Loremaster I'd resist this, as an undertaking is often done away from the company and Hope is most influenced by Fellowship, though I might allow it if the entire company agreed to spend their fellowship phase together to each regain one or two points of Hope.

I don't completely replenish everyone's hope each session, I do let them do it during an end of year fellowship phase. If they replenish hope each session in the pool, why would they not regain all their hope during months of downtime together doing fellowship stuff?

Because hope isn't meant to refresh that quickly. During a fellowship phase, they get their fellowship pool of hope back, to be distributed amongst them. That is IT. Not one point more. Doing otherwise unbalances the game.

killianred wrote:I don't completely replenish everyone's hope each session, I do let them do it during an end of year fellowship phase. If they replenish hope each session in the pool, why would they not regain all their hope during months of downtime together doing fellowship stuff?

The reason is in the Corruption mechanic.
This game tries to keep to Tolkien's vision and tales.
In the Lord of The Rings many brave, selfless heroes woved to destroy the One Ring... yet, after many hardships some of them succumbed to his power.
Boromir first, a valiant warrior worn down by too many desperate battles to defend his homeland. Then Frodo, consumed by fear and anguish. Even Bilbo was severely scarred by the Ring, while Gandalf and Galadriel refused to bear this burden, fearing his power.

All of this is impossible if the heroes can replenish their Hope automatically.

killianred wrote:If they replenish hope each session in the pool, why would they not regain all their hope during months of downtime together doing fellowship stuff?

Because, like others have said, Hope is meant to be a valuable and precious resource that doesn't replenish quickly. It's a system and narrative conceit that it refreshes at different rates within the game which is deliberate in order to best simulate the themes of Tolkien's work.

The Fellowship points refresh each session, not just at the Fellowship Phase.

"A company’s Fellowship pool is completely refreshed at the beginning of each new gaming session." Page 33 LM

We know Beckett, thanks, we're discussing Personal Pools and allowing a full refresh on those during the Fellowship Phase.

Full Credit to Frodo, though. It took the WHOLE ENTIRE JOURNEY to wear him down to the point he gave in.

Even if he did fail at the last, the Valar saw fit to give him full credit too and invited him over to their place.