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Michele
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Tue 20 Jul 2021, 00:44

So, wait a sec, I show how the virtue sucks even if you assume Miserable/Weary/Wounded 100% of the time, and you respond by saying, "What if the session doesn't have any combat?"

Ok, fine, so average this out over the whole adventure, not just one session. Or lets just say you NEVER have combat, to keep things simple. Now most of your rolls will be Skills, not combat, so you'll get to use your Distinctive Features more often, further devaluing Brave in a Pinch.

Next?

Most of my rolls will be Skills? What about VALOUR and WISDOM rolls (and PROTECTION rolls, even if you're removing combat from the equation)? Oh yeah, those are not important rolls... :?

And again, you just assume that every Hobbit character should take Sure at the Mark, even if they didn't choose Bows as their main Weapon Proficiency.

So no, I'm sorry but you didn't show how the Virtue sucks, not in the least. And please let's get back on topic.
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.
 
gyrovague
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Tue 20 Jul 2021, 00:59

I don't get hope impact being small, if before spending hope you had a 20% chance of success and after you have a 40% chance success you doubled you chance of success, that is huge. If you are inspired you could increase you chance of success 4 times!
And if you had 0% chance of success and now it's 1.3%, you've got INFINITE improvement! For one point of Hope!

That's why I measure it as the incremental increase, not a ratio.
It is impossible to have a 0% chance on TOR, still, 1,3% chance is huge over 0%. Like, if you received a doctor visit and he said you have 100% chance of living through a disease and a 98,7% chance, you would definitely feel the difference :-), luckily we don't have to worry about this kind of odds in game.
I was illustrating the point that dividing the improved percentage by the unimproved percentage doesn't give a meaningful number. If it did, then increasing a 2% chance to 6% (300%!) would be better than improving a 50% chance to 100% ("only" 200%).
 
gyrovague
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Tue 20 Jul 2021, 01:14

Most of my rolls will be Skills? What about VALOUR and WISDOM rolls (and PROTECTION rolls, even if you're removing combat from the equation)? Oh yeah, those are not important rolls... :?

The snarky emoji almost persuaded me.

Maybe in your games Valour and Wisdom rolls are as common as Skill rolls, but that hasn't been my experience. And, even if that's true, Hobbits already get Inspiration on Wisdom rolls. And no Protection rolls (or closer to zero) if not combat.

So, yeah, if you are never in combat AND you make an inordinate number of Wisdom or Valour rolls, you can still get Inspired (as a Hobbit) quite often.

And again, you just assume that every Hobbit character should take Sure at the Mark, even if they didn't choose Bows as their main Weapon Proficiency.

I was comparing the value of two virtues. A melee-focused Hobbit is just a bad idea with these rules, but if one insists then they probably want to take Small Folk, if just for the +Parry (-2 on all attack rolls against you is pretty solid...especially since you've got low Wits if you're a Hobbit with decent Strength). But, really, I'd just take the generic (non-cultural) Mastery or Prowess before most Hobbit virtues.

If forced to choose between Brave in a Pinch or Three Is Company, though, I'd go for the former. We've already determined the statistical value of a single Hope point per adventure, and Fellowship Focus is a particularly bad use of Hope points.

So no, I'm sorry but you didn't show how the Virtue sucks, not in the least.

/shrug

And please let's get back on topic.

The value...or lack thereof...of virtues that grant Inspired is very much on topic, as they are part of the entire Hope ecosystem.
 
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aramis
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 05:49

The math actually supports these observations. Adding 2 dice to a roll means adding an average of 7 points to the result: that's the maximum Attribute bonus you could get in 1ed, and on top of that you increase your chance of scoring tengwars.
Wrong.
You left out the impact of favored attributes in 1E. (+3/+2/+1)
High Elves can also hit 8 wits; rangers 8 body. This gives up to an 11 on a favoured skill - the high side of average for 3d, while 7+3 is 10 for the low side, and the high for a favored skill amongst the younger cultures, all of whom had one background with a 7, several having two backgrounds with the same 7.
Going from a dice pool of 3d6 to a dice pool of 5d6 means going from a 62% chance of success against TN 15, to a 95% chance of success. It means that your chance of actually wasting that point is just 5%.
What about rolls that would have succeeded anyway? Well, unless you roll a Gandalf rune on the Feat die, you'll never know that.
Wrong again.
If all of the dice result in a fail after the spend, you know you wasted that hope.
If adding 1d from raw hope, and any combination leaving out 1d would still succeed, and none of them were sixes, you can be certain the hope was wasted
if adding 2d from inspired hope, and any combination leaving out 2d would have succeeded, and none were 6's, again, you can be certain the hope was wasted.
I had ALL of those conditions happen multiple times last session... 8d6 (3d from skill, 1 from tool, 2 from inspired hope, 2 from being the fellowship focus of one helping),a nd the roll was all 3's, 4's and 5's, plus a 9 on the fate die, against a TN 16, any 4 of the success dice (the non-hope-fueled dice)would beat the 16 easily. both hope were, in the end, literally of no value.
And a roll with level 1 favoured skill,+2 for conditions, with an inspired hope, turning up a (1,Sauron)+1,1,2,2,3 against a TN15... All five dice was a failure...
In fact, any failed roll with hope is a clear case of "wasted hope"...
The point is not that now Hope may fail, because it could fail also in 1ed (if your Attribute bonus was too low). What seems to cause the most dismay (especially among old players, since new players don't seem concerned at all) is actually that it can now be wasted, but as long as the internal economy of the game supports this (which I currently have some doubts about), I truly don’t see where the problem lies.
It's the new players complaining most of my group... "... thoroughly pissed..." that the roll would have failed with any of the dice dropped while inspired

In 1e, a point of hope was seldom wasted; the TN's were often known, and the decision was made only after knowing the original had failed.
And, for exactly that reason, I would only play characters with some kind of Magical success option, and thus never take any options that grant Inspired, which has absolutely no function in the game if you spend all your Hope on Magical successes. Which means, as a corollary, that if you have Magical successes your distinctive features also serve no (mechanical) purpose.

This is a concern I share, but I guess that as Davi wisely said, the drawback of a Magical success may lie in the Eye Awareness rules. I mean, you may use a rifle to kill a mosquito, but a swatter probably causes less collateral damage, right? :D
Also, a Magical success doesn't let you roll additional dice, which may instead be more useful when aiming at scoring more tengwars as possible, rather than simply succeeding.
Depending upon the GM's view of the task at hand, and the way the player narrates the action, a magical success may even add to the Eye Awareness score.

From my point of view, personally, I dislike meta before the roll spends in any game; I vastly prefer "after the roll" spends, both as GM and player.
And I like the ability to look at a bad roll, and narrate, "You realize your effort is beyond hope of success. What now?"

I've played a lot of games allowing open ending via metacurrency spend; it's a great mechanic for the internal element leading to turning failure to success.

Before is "I will push hard"
After is, "I find my second wind"

As a comparison, in the old TSR Advanced Marvel Super Heroes had a "Commit to spend before roll, spend after" for Karma. A typical PC starts with 20-50 karma, and spends are a 1 point for +1 on a d100 roll; commitment to spend was a minimum of 10 spent, even if not needed. I can only think of twice that a player did so in any of my campaigns or 1-shots. When I abolished the commit before, but leaving the minimum 10 spend, most players would use up to the amount they thought they'd make for stopping that villain...
I'll note as well: AMSH was the first game with a metacurrency that I ever ran.
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Michele
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 14:35

Wrong.
You left out the impact of favored attributes in 1E. (+3/+2/+1)
High Elves can also hit 8 wits; rangers 8 body. This gives up to an 11 on a favoured skill - the high side of average for 3d, while 7+3 is 10 for the low side, and the high for a favored skill amongst the younger cultures, all of whom had one background with a 7, several having two backgrounds with the same 7.

There's no mistake, I left them out on purpose. If you want to compare apples with apples, then you should take into account the new Favoured Skills as well. For the sake of simplicity, I only compared the base Hope bonus of the new edition with the base Hope bonus of the old edition, without factoring in external bonuses.

Wrong again.
If all of the dice result in a fail after the spend, you know you wasted that hope.
If adding 1d from raw hope, and any combination leaving out 1d would still succeed, and none of them were sixes, you can be certain the hope was wasted
if adding 2d from inspired hope, and any combination leaving out 2d would have succeeded, and none were 6's, again, you can be certain the hope was wasted.
I had ALL of those conditions happen multiple times last session... 8d6 (3d from skill, 1 from tool, 2 from inspired hope, 2 from being the fellowship focus of one helping),a nd the roll was all 3's, 4's and 5's, plus a 9 on the fate die, against a TN 16, any 4 of the success dice (the non-hope-fueled dice)would beat the 16 easily. both hope were, in the end, literally of no value.
And a roll with level 1 favoured skill,+2 for conditions, with an inspired hope, turning up a (1,Sauron)+1,1,2,2,3 against a TN15... All five dice was a failure...
In fact, any failed roll with hope is a clear case of "wasted hope"...

I know the maths, thank you. What I was trying to say is that if you succeeded, then why do you care if you succeeded by a lot (at least enough to be sure that it wasn't necessary to spend your Hope point)? Since you deemed the roll worthy of spending Hope, then succeeding was important for you, and that should be the end of the story. Do you want to proceed to calculate all the dice combinations every single time you spend Hope so that you can be mathematically certain that, after your spectacular success, you have wasted that Hope point? Fine, go ahead, but in my opinion that's... really not fun, nor meaningful. But again, you can go ahead and analyze each roll while you play, if you really care about that.

Regarding the failed rolls... as I already explained, when rolling 5d against TN 15 failure only happens 5% of the times, so you actually waste your Hope on a failure 5% of the times. I don't get your argument, of course every time you fail after spending Hope you waste it, the point is that it doesn't happen so often as many people fear (at least, not when Inspired). It's like saying that D&D is bugged because every roll of the d20 has a 5% chance of being an automatic failure. A potential for failure, now even with the expenditure of Hope, is engrained in the system, by choice of its authors: you may like it or not, but it works in itself, especially coupled with the new rules for Hope recovery and on how Miserable works now. You simply have to find the right way to narrate it.

It's the new players complaining most of my group... "... thoroughly pissed..." that the roll would have failed with any of the dice dropped while inspired

In 1e, a point of hope was seldom wasted; the TN's were often known, and the decision was made only after knowing the original had failed.

As I said earlier, Hope is now less reliable by a precise design choice, and it has been made to work like this with consistency along with a series of other changes. Your players didn't like it, mine actually liked it more than in the previous edition, so we definitely have a different audience and play style, but neither of us is playing the game in the wrong way, I guess. Also it's funny that you say that the TNs were often know... since in the new edition, they're ALWAYS known, so the players have all the instruments they need in their hands to make their decisions.

From my point of view, personally, I dislike meta before the roll spends in any game; I vastly prefer "after the roll" spends, both as GM and player.
And I like the ability to look at a bad roll, and narrate, "You realize your effort is beyond hope of success. What now?"

You made your point: you don't like it, so fine, homerule it.

I joined this discussion only to try to reassure folks that despite all concerns, in my experience the new system seemed to work just fine (and in Francesco's playtests as well, evidently); now I'm kinda weary of having to keep "defending" it from people that have already decided that they don't like it. It worked at my table as well as in many other players' tables, but it didn't work at yours: maybe you should try another approach at the game? Homerule it? Find a different point of view? Or just use a totally different game system? I don't know, my advice is simply to give the RAW a try for at least 2 or 3 sessions, but above all try to break away from the notion that the old system was perfect and shouldn't have been touched, and to try to accept change. if you don't, well, I think that it will only lead you to dissatisfaction and frustration no matter how well the new system works (unless of course you homerule it to fit your personal needs).
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.
 
Mythicos
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 16:32


I joined this discussion only to try to reassure folks that despite all concerns, in my experience the new system seemed to work just fine (and in Francesco's playtests as well, evidently); now I'm kinda weary of having to keep "defending" it from people that have already decided that they don't like it. It worked at my table as well as in many other players' tables, but it didn't work at yours: maybe you should try another approach at the game? Homerule it? Find a different point of view? Or just use a totally different game system? I don't know, my advice is simply to give the RAW a try for at least 2 or 3 sessions, but above all try to break away from the notion that the old system was perfect and shouldn't have been touched, and to try to accept change. if you don't, well, I think that it will only lead you to dissatisfaction and frustration no matter how well the new system works (unless of course you homerule it to fit your personal needs).


I wholeheartedly agree with this.

I watch YouTube shows about boardgames all the time, and in one such video a guy made a great point. Someone can dislike a particular game mechanic, a design choice or even a whole game; everyone does. But it's not because you do that the designer is bad at his job, or that the game is bad. It's just that you don't agree with it.

There are some people here who are very quick to use words such as "broken" when discussing a game they have barely tried out, it they even have played it.

If these people disagree with the design choices made for the new edition, they absolutely can. Doesn't mean the new edition is broken.
 
gyrovague
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 17:02


There's no mistake, I left them out on purpose. If you want to compare apples with apples, then you should take into account the new Favoured Skills as well. For the sake of simplicity, I only compared the base Hope bonus of the new edition with the base Hope bonus of the old edition, without factoring in external bonuses.
No. In 1e, the Favoured designation raises the average value of a Hope point. If you want to find that value it gets included. In 2e you get a Favoured roll whether or not you spend Hope, so it doesn't contribute to the average value of a Hope point. So it's not apples and apples.

Look, I'm not arguing you shouldn't like Hope 2.0. It's entirely personal preference. Lots of games use analogous mechanics, and lots of people like 'em. But even with highly contrived edge cases ("Always weary/miserable/wounded, never any combat") it's pretty hard to argue, with math, that Hope and Inspired have a big impact on the game, relative to other mechanics and choices. And that's largely because, unlike in 1e, you can't apply it surgically, when it really matters. It's more like you sprinkle it around, and 'hope' that at least some of it makes a difference.

If the move to refreshing the Fellowship pool every session becomes official, that will only further reinforce the 'sprinkle it around' model.

You are 100% free to like that. I don't. Difference of opinion.

but above all try to break away from the notion that the old system was perfect and shouldn't have been touched

I'm sorry, but that's just a blatant distortion. Nobody is saying that. Some of us are saying "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

The rules aren't changing; Hope is going to stay mostly like it is. Some of us are trying to have a conversation about it anyway, because we like that sort of thing. Snarky emoji and unflattering hyperbole aren't really good-faith contributions. (I actually quite enjoy jumping into that mud pit, but I'm trying hard to reduce my historical rate of red text forum warnings. Mixed success so far.)
 
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Michele
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 17:53

But even with highly contrived edge cases ("Always weary/miserable/wounded, never any combat") it's pretty hard to argue, with math, that Hope and Inspired have a big impact on the game, relative to other mechanics and choices. And that's largely because, unlike in 1e, you can't apply it surgically, when it really matters. It's more like you sprinkle it around, and 'hope' that at least some of it makes a difference.

If the move to refreshing the Fellowship pool every session becomes official, that will only further reinforce the 'sprinkle it around' model.

And it is this very idea that the evidence at the table disproves. I have observed that savvy players don't "sprinkle it around", they still try to apply it surgically as much as they can, mainly based on whether or not they succeed in being Inspired. At the same time this makes them focus on their Distinctive Features, incentivizing roleplay. Most of the times, being Inspired or not marks the difference of whether I decide to spend the point or not: in actual play, the case where you spend Hope to gain only 1d is truly a desperate measure, and you do it only if the roll is simply too important to be failed so you need all the help you can get.
Therefore, it is inaccurate to claim that Inspired "only gives an extra die": no, Inspired almost always marks the difference between spending Hope or not.

Yes, based on the new rules for Hope recovery, you have a pool that you can sort of "spend freely" because will be recovered entirely, but that doesn't mean you'll throw it around like it's nothing. Have you noticed how the Shadow gain is significantly greater than before? Characters will go around with much more Shadow points than in the past, so if Hope is spent in large quantities, these same characters will become Miserable more often. At the same time, Miserable isn't as bad as before, but still may be quite annoying on many occasions (and there are adversaries whose abilities are more fearsome against Miserable characters, see the Barrow-Wight for example).

All of these new moving parts must be taken into account to evaluate the new Hope system as a whole, and I think that many of those who played the first edition are simply still too tied to the idea that Hope is an incredibly precious, extremely finite resource that should be spent only in life or death situations, which was both a plus in some respects, but also a flaw in many others (people used to spend it almost exclusively in combat or for Protection/Valour/Wisdom rolls; also, just think about the impact that this had on all the Virtues based on spending Hope - I'll name just Deadly Archery... yes, I'm a veteran of that discussion as well!).

I'm sorry, but that's just a blatant distortion. Nobody is saying that. Some of us are saying "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Some people actually said that, in this topic and in others (not you, for instance). Not that they should be stoned to death for this, let me be very much clear about that, it just doesn't seem like the most constructive attitude, and ultimately it's their loss.

Sorry about the snarky emojis, by the way, I think got triggered by an unhealthy dose of sarcasm from my interlocutor ;) . Let's call it a day and start from scratch, shall we?
Last edited by Michele on Fri 23 Jul 2021, 18:21, edited 1 time in total.
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.
 
Davi
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 18:11

I think the arguments as a whole have shifted to hipérboles here. I will try to the best of my ability summarize and counter argument with my view:

1) Player feel frustration when failing, after spending hope.

I think what makes the player frustrated is failing, the Hope lost is rather a small comparison with the frustration of actually not succeeding. Additionally any system that makes failing an option will leave the possibility of frustration, on 1e was really frustrating failing a roll while sitting on a huge pile of hope.

2) It is similar to many other board games and RPGs out there.

I agree, but it is a falacious argument, the popularity of a system do not make it a better or worse, I would even counter argument the a rule design that exists on many boardgame and RPGs has been proven to be fun.

3) it makes the game less unique.

I agree, but the argument that TOR as a whole has become generic because of it is a little of a stretchy, shadow is similar to humanity in Vampire, endurance is similiar to HP on D&D. I guess the feel of uniqueness is way to personal to be rational about what makes the game "unique" or not, but my argument here is that making a game unique does not make it better or worse, so the generic argument is not valid to say that change is good or bad, it just is less unique.

4) hope was described as the source of divine intervention from the will of Eru or the Valares and it was estrictly related to to the way the rule worked (turning a failure into a success)

Even though this is a cool way to describe an outcome of a roll, from the rules of 1e this is not how it was described, but the sheer amount of hope spent it is difficult to argument that this was even the most common way to describe hope usage, and I see no reason for the player or the Loremaster still describe the outcome of a roll as a direct divine intervention if it feels right, therefore the thematic would not be ruled out from the game.

I still think that turning failure in success is more easily linked to some intervention and I agree with the argument that interpreting 1e rule as this was more "natural". I just don't think this was the most often way 1e hope usage was interpreted, because the rules did not describe as such and the there were many rolls that used Hope, to interpret that everyone of these uses were divine intervention would make it something trivial, which is not thematic.

Hopefully (pun intended) the way I have written may clear my arguments against the prepositions that were done against 2e Hope on this forum.
Last edited by Davi on Fri 23 Jul 2021, 19:21, edited 1 time in total.
 
Davi
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Re: The Problem With Hope

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 19:14

And here is a list of my arguments for liking 2e Hope rules:

1) You don`t have to know the exactly outcome of each roll then make a decision.

2) it reduces the amount of time spent after a roll which could slow down the flow of narrative. Now once the decision to make an action and to spend or not hope you go from the result directly to the narration, this was specially true on combate, when hope was normally a strategic decision and not much a narrative decision.

3) The rule design is less unique, by making everything in the game that help you succeed working the same way (adding dice), and what hinders the exactly opposite (subtracting dice), the rules become way easier to learn and to remember during game play.

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