Fear in Nicotine Girls

[Mar_cus]

I'm translating Nicotine Girls to polish (with permission from Paul) and I have some problems with understanding Fear...
Does Fear have anything to do in roll for Dreams? Or in any other mechanic aspects of game (expect from using it in Conflict rolls)? If no than why even bother to lower it by 1 with every sucessfull Hope roll?

[Filip Luszczyk]

Out of the two Motivations only Fear can be used reliably. The first failed Hope-based conflict means that you can't use it again during that session.

As I understand it, the reduction of Fear on a successful Hope roll is automatic. However, notice that you can always increase Fear out of your choice. Also, using your Hope in a conflict is the only way to increase it (therefore improving your chances of achieving a positive epilogue).

It doesn't seem like using your Hope more than once per session is beneficial game-wise. From a purely mechanical standpoint, it might make sense to set starting Hope higher than Fear, but only because there is an unlimited source of Fear. Similarly, it never pays to use lower methods.

Still, in a game like Nicotine Girls what doesn't seem like a good decision game-wise might make a lot of sense in the context of the shared fiction at the table. Such choices tell something about your character and occasionally, you might not want to make some choice due to story reasons. Also, winning conflicts might not always be your highest priority.

Well, have fun explaining the Zen of Indie in Polish