Do the cards matter?

[Ufnal]

Do the cards used for a reading actually influence what choices you have in a reading and/or whether those choices are right/wrong?

[Белый Кот]

They do. It works something like this: the reading actually has 4-6 options, and most of your cards will show 2-3 or these. There is a special card, that shows every option, and some rare elements give you more options then basic ones.

And no matter what all your readings are right. Fortuna are that good as a fortune teller.

[Nachttierhaus]

I had to check steam for this.. I wish it was more clearly established in the beginning of the game, since I started having doubts at some point.

[taggedjc]

There are 24 different readings, each combination of one of the five basic meanings (Quest, Community, Desire, Protection, and Battle) with one of the elements (Air, Water, Earth, Fire) plus four readings for double-elements (double Air, double Water, double Earth, and double Fire). For example, Quest + Water gives the reading "Introspection". Note that some of the listed meanings are multiple words, so Quest + Fire gives "Deception, The Unknown" but that's still one meaning.

Each reading you do has a number of possible results for a given slot, usually up to eight (though when making the cosmic poem, all 24 different readings gives a different line) and thus usually multiple readings lead to the same result. So if reading "Introspection" would give result B and reading "Deception, The Unknown" also gives result B, then you'd only have result B to choose from if you have no other meanings on your card.

As such, if you just load up your cards with as many meanings as possible it gives you the flexibility to choose more possible outcomes. It also makes sense to choose meanings that would typically be opposing to each other, since if you choose lots of meanings all associated with the same thing then it's very possible that the outcomes of each of those meanings all lead to the same option when doing a reading, limiting what you can choose after assigning the card.

As for which choices are "right" or "wrong", there aren't really any right or wrong choices. A few decisions do sway how the story plays out, but this doesn't really mean there's a "wrong" choice since there isn't really a way to "win" the game so to speak - it's a story, so even a "bad" ending is perfectly valid. There's a way to get a more difficult, more unique kind of ending, but the decisions leading up to this are more related to other choices rather than readings.