Sun 25 Jul 2021, 20:45
Hope as pre or post die roll phenomenon reflects a debate in game design for many games with die roll mitigation mechanics. Someone mentioned hero points from the Bond RPG, which is, I think, where I first encountered a mechanic of this sort, something I always incorporated in the home brew games I ran in various systems after that, as I saw the utility of making the heroes, well, heroic.
Before TOR, the most recent games I've played with such a mechanic were Fate Core and Cortex Prime. These embody the spend-after and spend-before sides respectively. My own taste inclines to the spend-before as a GM, because it was easier for me and my players to narrate how one might rig the game beforehand, than how one justified changing the result afterwards. I've enjoyed this conversation, because it's asking me to examine my assumptions, and what I come to is that it's a matter of genre.
For me, the spend-after is absolutely appropriate for pulp adventures with larger than life heroes who always seem to have a way out. The dramatic tension (to return to the topic of the OP) is, "How is the hero going to get out of this one?" You expect a certain quality of over-the-top-ness and it doesn't break the immersion, because you've already signed up for BAtman's utility belt, or Sherlock Holmes' knowledge of obscure Indian religious practices, or the like.
For me, Middle EArth is not that sort of world. The greatness of an Aragorn is not do to something he pulls out of his bag of tricks, it's a quality of person, the embodiment of kingly nature according to the conventions of the world. Frodo and Sam's heroism is of an altogether different sort, though it is also derived from their quality, as Sam would call it; Frodo's humility and willingness to give everything, and SAm's unshakable loyalty.
I think tying this to the spend-before mechanic works in the dramatic universe of TOR. I also think that's an entirely subjective judgment, and I respect those who've come to the oposite conclusion.
I'll end with a question. I gather that the way hope worked in 1E is that, if you'd failed a roll, you could spend a point of hope to add the relevant attribute to your roll, if it would convert failure to success. IF I've got that right, that would seem to make hope more useful in a situation where the character already has a high attribute score; a hobbit's strength would likely be useful for hope less often than that of a dwarf. I think I see hope (estel) as not rewarding the powerful because of their power, which that mechanic would seem to have done. While 2E's mechanic does leave the possibility that a hope spend will be for naught, it also seems to make the arrival of "hope unlooked-for" something that is more prevalent.