On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Dave Hill wrote:

> But that use of Aspects really doesn't seem to be
> supported by most of the rules text. Aspects do rerolls,
> not skill rolls -- except for that brief mention of "rare"
> occurances.
>
> I'm interested in any thoughts folks have on the subject.

The main thought I've had about it, honestly, is that we
have that mechanic there for two ulterior motives:

* Folks shouldn't have to scrap their character and
rewrite it when they discover they left out a skill
they shouldn't have. Falling back to the aspect's
rating in such a case gives you a method for insulating
those circumstanes, and should be well familiar to
folks from standard Fudge who might fall back to an
Attribute when a Skill was otherwise nonpresent or
unavailable.

* Doing it with NPCs means you don't have to write out
all their skills.

But it was written long ago and I don't entirely remember.

In general, unless you're applying careful containment &
balance to your aspect levels (skill levels get this
already via the pyramid), this method doesn't stand up
real good because aspect ratings can at various points
outstrip what skills can be rated at, which can seem
unbalancing. So it should be used judiciously or, to put
it another way, "rarely".

There are a few ways to make your situation a little safer
though.

The first is to follow our recommendation that you don't
allow someone to promote a single aspect to a level that
is greater than half the number of phases-so-far (so you
shouldn't be taking an Aspect above 2 levels until you're
at Phase 6, etc). This approach has a loose "pyramidding"
effect on aspects. Your alternate approach is to keep in
mind what your ultimate number of phases is going to be,
and size that accordingly -- so if you're doing a 6-phase
character generation, someone could have an Aspect of 3
levels by phase 3, but would not be allowed to take it
beyond that. Either way, the cap serves you well in
creating a feeling of balance if you're going to roll
against aspect levels occasionally.

The second way is something you suggested already --
charge an aspect check-off to roll against an aspect
instead of a default-or-nonexistent skill. This is pretty
elegant in a number of ways. Consider if you had someone
with a Superb (level 4) Aspect of Strength, but their
combat skills only topped out at Good. Throughout an
adventure, they could spend a box of Strength during a
fight, to:

* Reroll their Good combat skill roll, or
* Roll against their Superb Strength rating instead of
their combat skill to strike a powerful blow (which
could then be improved with more box expenditures for
rerolls and die flips, too!).

That's nicely limiting on how often they can "exceed their
normal bounds". The only "flaw" I can see with this is
that it would encourage people to take a smaller number of
aspects at higher levels, rather than spreading things all
around -- but with a "capping" method in place like the
first one too, you may have yourself a working solution
there.

--
Fred Hicks * "Curse you iago and your fast fingers!" - Rob Donoghue
Co-Author of Fate - Managing Editor of Fudge Factor - The 'fan' in fanatic
Fate RPG * http://www.faterpg.com/ Fudge Factor * http://www.fudgefactor.org/
Plink * http://www.rainlikely.com/ Jim Butcher * http://www.jim-butcher.com/