First off, I'd like to say that the your idea of Aspects is quite possibly the most intriguing single rules innovation I've ever come across. I'm eager to try out a FATE-based rule system as soon as my table finishes its current campaign.

However, I have a few ideas for tweaking the system when I use it. Having just come across FATE and not having had a chance to run it yet, I was wondering what the game designers and/or anybody experienced with the system might think of them (and how well they'd work in actual play).

First off, I didn't find the ideas given on refreshing spent aspects particularly satisfying. I was expecting the aspects to be in some way self-refreshing - in other words that the method by which they refresh would be as meaningfully linked to the aspect itself as the method in which they are spent - and I still think I would like to introduce some tweaks to this effect.

The solution that comes to mind is to allow the player to choose between the standard fate point reward or refreshing a level of an aspect as a result of an 'involuntary invocation'. This seems to me to make a lot of intuitive sense in terms of how its game effects would 'feel'. When a Merciful character restrains himself from finishing off a fallen enemy despite his need for revenge, when a Greedy character takes a risk by playing dirty in a business deal or when a Compassionate character spends some valuable time helping a stranger in trouble, it is my feeling that these actions should reaffirm the character's ties to that Aspect of who they are (and thus refresh the aspect). A knight who was been true to his honour and his duties should demonstrate his knightly abilities with greater prowess than a knight who has been shirking these same duties - that is, if I have interpreted at narrativistic style this system is shooting for correctly. Aspects being refreshed for reasons directly linked to that Aspect's meaning for the character sounds way better to me than their being refreshed on a more arbitrary schedule.

I do realize that there are a couple potential issues with this. Firstly, it could cause a refresh rate that is considerably faster than the standard, particularly in those aspects which most commonly come to the fore. However, I see this as a good thing - I like the idea of aspects being a fairly important part of the character's successes and failures rather than being a more occasional influence. This faster refresh rate for the character's most central and interesting Aspects would be one of the bonuses of this tweak, from my perspective. I realize that using this as the sole refresh system would make those aspects with rare involuntary invocations next to useless, so a slow 'arbitrary' refresh rate in the background to augment it would probably be necessary.

This knife would potentially cut both ways as well - in certain situations, refusing an involuntary invocation could cause an aspect to be checked in place of the more traditional fate point expenditure. A checked aspect would likely be more apropriate for situations where the character chooses to go against his nature in some way (ie/ the Compassionate character sees a stranger in trouble but ignores it as he knows he'll get in trouble if he falls any more behind in his work, thus alienating himself from the compassionate aspect of his personality). Conversely, the fate point expenditure would be more appropriate for when the player chooses to alter the story to avoid the involuntary invocation (ie/ the player of the Compassionate character declares "I don't need another complication right now, I'm going to blow the fate points and declare that there isn't a stranger in need of help.")

Personally, I think that this tweak will help aspects reach their full potentil in my game, in terms of allowing what is most central to a character concept to influence the story in an intuitively meaningful way (how a character reinforces or alienates himself from an aspect of his identity affects its weight in influencing the story). However, I am interested in the perspectives of those with hands-on experience with FATE / aspects / similar systems. There are a few other tweaks I have in mind, but for the time being I'll only bring up one for the sake of discussion clarity.

I think you're on a solid track there, Robo, but I would suggest that part of the complication there is that some aspects may not be viably self-refreshing. Your approach pretty much mandates that the only viable aspects are ones which can be both voluntarily invoked, and involuntarily compelled. In practice, a number of aspects may be "solely or primarily negative" or "solely or primarily positive". If the refresh only comes from the involuntary bit, then the strongly positive-bias aspects won't ever refresh, and the strongly negative-bias aspects won't ever need to refresh because they'll seldom be invoked.

Works great for the kind of aspects I like to do -- with strong double edges -- but that ain't all of 'em.

Indeed, that was one of my concerns as well - to which I had at least a partial solution. I guess I brushed over the subject too quickly in my post to get my meaning across.

RoboHobo wrote: I realize that using this as the sole refresh system would make those aspects with rare involuntary invocations next to useless, so a slow 'arbitrary' refresh rate in the background to augment it would probably be necessary.

I've been over this before, but what bugs me about involuntary invocations is that, with the people I play with, it never comes up in play. Players always play to their weaknesses already. If their character has a greedy aspect, they don't pass up opportunities to let that get them into trouble. So, basically, the system as written punishes them for something that we all enjoy, by not allowing for the involuntary invocations to ever be used.

My current solution is simply to rearange things theoretically and say that the player gets the reward whenever he plays thus. That is, instead of me doing Involuntary invocation, the player can simply choose to display the downside of the aspect in some way, and get an FP for it.

Using your system in combination with mine, then the rate of FP replacement (or Aspect checking), is based on how well the player plays their character. This gives incentive to the player to find those double-edged parts of the character's aspects - or it allows them to proceed all on their positive-only aspects if that's what they prefer.

It also means that I, as GM, don't have to be watching out for places to announce involuntary invocations during play.

Mike

That's a very good point, Mike. My player group is the same way - especially with the more fun and dramatic psychological/social flaws. I agree with the principle of declaring that an "involuntary" invocation has occurred and rewarding fate points/refresh for it even if the player has roleplayed the flaw without needing GM direction.

However, there is one definite caveat I want to put forward on that issue. It's probably something you've thought of as well (it's probably what you mean in using the term "downside") but I may as well make it expressly clear, as it is an important point.

This reward should only be given if the manifestation of the flaw actually either causes the character trouble, or else causes them to miss out on an opportuny they would have otherwise had. A Curious character who acts on their curiosity in a way that potential gives them a benefit (ie/ information) but which offers no real potential for trouble should not get a reward. The exact same curious roleplaying would, however, garner a reward if the character's curious actions got them into trouble they would have otherwise avoided. No cost, no reward.

While it would be entirely possible to use a system that rewarded for character-reinforcing roleplaying whether it was problematic to the character or not, such rewards would destroy one of the coolest things about FATE - the relative 'balance' of aspects across the negative-positive spectrum. Without the "no cost, no reward" clause to not-quite-involuntary invocations you could create aspects which consistently generated rewards at no cost to the character whatsoever, rendering negative-bias aspects obselete.

Once again, this is probably what you were thinking, but I wanted to be clear on the point.

I not sure that I agree. Yes, if the players really are stuck in the paradigm of having positive only advocacy for their characters, then this might be a problem. But the whole point of my problem is that I find the players already willing to play the negative sides. Again, sans this behavior, there's no problem with the original system, as I would have opportunities to play up negative sides using involuntary invocations.

So, given that the players are already doing the negative playing, without any reward, why should I be worried that they will stop playing that way if I do give them a reward for doing so? Even if I do also reward the positive behavior.

Now, it can be argued that playing to a positive aspect is it's own reward - you get mechanical bonuses if/when you invoke the aspects. So why reward it again? That argument I might buy. Put another way, we're putting in the reward for the negative use as compensation for the fact that there's no other reward for doing so.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: So, given that the players are already doing the negative playing, without any reward, why should I be worried that they will stop playing that way if I do give them a reward for doing so? Even if I do also reward the positive behavior.

Mike Holmes wrote: Put another way, we're putting in the reward for the negative use as compensation for the fact that there's no other reward for doing so.

I think we're largely talking about the same ideas, just using somewhat different language.

Mike

I've split this topic off from the original thread; it has meat, and it's meat I don't want lost in a larger container.

Mike Holmes wrote: I think we're largely talking about the same ideas, just using somewhat different language.