"...directly protect or favour..."

[Glorelendil]

By does "directly contribute" really mean "indirectly"?

[Deadmanwalking]

I'd be inclined to make it definitionally intention-based. If the reason you are doing X is that it'll help your Fellowship Focus, free Hope rebate for you. If it's not, no rebate.

Now, obviously, the LM will be the ultimate arbiter so you don't have people trying to justify everything as being to help their Focus, but that's true anyway, and intention seems the right place to draw the line thematically.

[Glorelendil]

I'd be inclined to make it definitionally intention-based. If the reason you are doing X is that it'll help your Fellowship Focus, free Hope rebate for you. If it's not, no rebate.

Now, obviously, the LM will be the ultimate arbiter so you don't have people trying to justify everything as being to help their Focus, but that's true anyway, and intention seems the right place to draw the line thematically.

And I *think* that in general the sort of players who are attracted to (and retained by) TOR can be trusted to be honest about intentionality. I'd be wary of taking that approach with your typical D&D Adventurer's League table of drop-in players.