YOUR HOPE ECONOMY - IN-GAME CURRENCY
(LAST UPDATED: 5 October 2016)
I'm going to take a page from
Earthdawn,
Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, 2nd Edition and
Torg: Role-Playing the Possibility Wars, here, because these all have rules for "savior point" economies that make much more sense than the rules presently written for TOR. Hope Points are there to help your character succeed in heroic ways, to save their back side while under nasty circumstances, to be the heroes they're supposed to become.
Earthdawn has a system closest to what we are going to use for our game; where you were able to regain a certain number of Karma points each in-game morning by performing a Karma Ritual and spending a number of Legend Points (what we refer to as Experience Points), and then being able to spend Karma on Talents, if allowed, to enhance your die rolls by certain amounts. Our new Hope system also allows you to regain points, though there will be no in-game morning ritual and/or expenditure of XP to regain them, though the expenditure principles are the same.
With
Warhammer, Fortune Points are based on your character's Fate Points, determined by a random dice roll during character generation, usually between 0 and 3 points you could use for simple saves, and those points would renew every morning in-game. Fate Points were there to expend to save your character's butt if a situation was dire enough that your character could die, or if failure of a particular roll could lose the entire adventure, kill an important NPC, etc. Fortune Points were a much weaker version of Fate, in that they could be used to improve dice rolls, mitigate damage, etc. If you expended a Fate Point, however, normally to save vs. death, it was gone and your daily Fortune would be reduced to equal the new Fate Point(s). For our new Hope system, again these do not renew each morning as with Fortune Points, nor are they expended permanently, but rather fall somewhere in-between Fate and Fortune in that they do renew, but only at organically-relevant moments, and they are used to save your character's back side, within the tenets of The One Ring.
In
Torg, your Possibility energy was used for everything, to save your character's butt, but also as Experience Points and, if you ran out of them, you would have to wait until you were able to earn more by the GameMaster before you could attempt to save against anything, again. This Possibility energy was a cross between Fate and Fortune points and, while Hope cannot be used to affect absolutely everything in the game, it does affect the more important aspects of our TOR game.
As with those games, ours will work as an economy, but Hope is not Experience Points, nor does it come from a pool where all other improvements come from, nor will it renew each morning. Rather, in keeping with the ideals of Tolkien's Middle-earth, where individual's can be inspired in many ways, your Hope can be restored during any Phase in our game, literally at any appropriate time. However, this section is about how you spend your Hope Points...
The first thing to discuss is caution in expenditures, as the ability to restore even one Hope Point can be a long and/or difficult affair, and though I will always try to be fair, they may turn out to be rare, so you might find yourself becoming Miserable if you spend too many too quickly. That being expressed thoroughly enough, here are examples of the ways in which you may spend your Hope...
- Spend one Hope to invoke an Attribute bonus for a skill just rolled. If the skill is not favored, meaning it is NOT underlined, you may only add your Base Attribute value to the Skill; remember, Weapon Skills fall under Body, always. If the skill IS favored, you will of course add your favored Attribute value to the Skill. (NOTE: This is one of the options you may combine with two other options to help improve a single dice roll in a round; you are allowed to combine up to three of these options to succeed, but you should have a story reason, and the approval of your fellow players, before-hand. In a virtual environment, if more than half of the table objects to this combination, you will gain a Temporary Shadow point.);
- Spend one Hope to purchase another Success Die (1D6) for a roll, whether it's a Common or Weapon Skill, Wisdom or Virtue, or even for rolling an Armor save vs. a Piercing Blow, to keep from taking a Wound. This may be declared prior to, or after, the dice roll is made; if declared before, even if you roll way over the Target, the Hope Point is gone, but the benefit will most likely be tangible. (NOTE: This is one of the options you may combine with two other options to help improve a single dice roll in a round; you are allowed to combine up to three of these options to succeed, but you should have a story reason, and the approval of your fellow players, before-hand. In a virtual environment, if more than half of the table objects to this combination, you will gain a Temporary Shadow point.);
- Spend one Hope to gain a High-Feat roll (rolling the Feat Die twice and taking the highest of the two rolls);
- Spend one Hope to purchase a one round addition to your Parry score to keep from being hit, equal to your character's Base Wits score;
- Spend one Hope to purchase a roll of Valor to reduce the Endurance loss you've taken due to damage in combat, as follows: a basic success (Target Number 14) restores one Endurance, each
restores one additional Endurance and, if you roll 
plus six points over the TN, the counts as another higher success, as if you had rolled a . You may only regain up to one-half of points of damage done to your Endurance in this way, rounded down;
- Spend one Hope to trigger the effect(s) of a Cultural Virtue or Reward you possess;
- Spend one Hope to save your Fellowship Focus, or as a means to help the entire Company;
- Donate one Hope to another Player-hero so they may add it to their performance of a single action. Depending on the circumstances, the donation of this point of Hope to another may see it returned immediately to you for a valorous or wise pursuit by the player you donated it to, or the addition of a Temporary Shadow Point for aiding them in performing something considered to be outside of heroic action. (NOTE: This is one of the options you may combine with two other options to help improve a single dice roll in a round; you are allowed to combine up to three of these options to succeed, but you should have a story reason, and the approval of your fellow players, before-hand. In a virtual environment, if more than half of the table objects to this combination, you will gain a Temporary Shadow point.);
- Spend one Hope to purchase an additional point of Tolerance in an Encounter;
- As The One Ring is designed to be a story-telling game, and thus free-flowing, the above-listed items are examples of how Hope points may be used. If you have a means, via story-telling reason, of expending a point of Hope, and you and I agree to it, then you can do it. However, if one-half or more of the rest of the Company disagrees, you will gain a Temporary Shadow Point.
result on an Inspiration test may cause the character to gain a temporary point of Shadow, instead.