From my journal:
octaNe Styles are not necessarily keyed to character ability. I mean, I already KNEW this (it's mentioned in the rules) but I never looked at it from the player's POV. What this means is that a player can play/roll dice in a scene where his or her character isn't even present in order to get narration rights. The player can stil gain plot points too...because the Style of the player's contribution will matter.
Unrelated but cool Mad Max news here:
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=14006