Author Topic: Tagging a Scene Aspect  (Read 3921 times)

Offline Xilver

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Tagging a Scene Aspect
« on: November 10, 2010, 04:07:55 PM »
The simple question here is, can a Scene Aspect be tagged on a target or must it be invoked on first use?  Or, should a declaration be made on how the scene aspect applies to the target (applying an aspect to the target) and that be tagged?

Example: Let's say the target is in a zone that restricts movement, for instance the zone has the scene aspect "Muddy Bog." The PC wants to take a shot at it.  Can the PC tag the "Muddy bog" aspect to improve the hit chance vs. target's athletics or should the PC make a "Scholarship? or Survival??" declaration that the target has the aspect "Stuck in Mud" to tag that?

Offline WillH

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2010, 04:29:19 PM »
You can only tag an aspect when you "make a roll to gain access to or create an aspect." So aspects that are just on the scene and require no roll to gain access too can't be tagged. However, most people I have played with allow it because it encourages you to work the aspects into the scene

Offline devonapple

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2010, 04:53:13 PM »
You can only tag an aspect when you "make a roll to gain access to or create an aspect." So aspects that are just on the scene and require no roll to gain access too can't be tagged.

For that matter, how do the players or storyteller work in the Aspects for Locations and Themes/Threats?
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Offline Drashna

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2010, 05:38:37 PM »
Theoretically, if you declare, discover or *apply* an aspect to a scene, it's first come, first serve to tagging it as far as I'm aware. Turning off those lights applys a "Darkness" aspect, would it not? And as it's a new aspect, first is free.
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Offline WillH

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2010, 05:56:40 PM »
Theoretically, if you declare, discover or *apply* an aspect to a scene, it's first come, first serve to tagging it as far as I'm aware. Turning off those lights applys a "Darkness" aspect, would it not? And as it's a new aspect, first is free.

You would need to make a maneuver to create the aspect "Darkness." Anyone could invoke that aspect, but only you, or your allies could tag it.


Offline Xilver

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2010, 06:21:13 PM »
You can only tag an aspect when you "make a roll to gain access to or create an aspect." So aspects that are just on the scene and require no roll to gain access too can't be tagged. However, most people I have played with allow it because it encourages you to work the aspects into the scene

This is more in line with the second part of the example.  The appropriate RL approach would be a simple assessment but those "take time" in Dresden.  Hence the only option is the declaration.  In the declaration scenario, is it reasonable to make a Scholarship roll to declare that someone who is in a zone that has a "darkness" aspect, would have the aspect "Can't see well?"  This would usually be a free action which would give a taggable aspect.

Offline WillH

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2010, 06:48:22 PM »
This is more in line with the second part of the example.  The appropriate RL approach would be a simple assessment but those "take time" in Dresden.  Hence the only option is the declaration.  In the declaration scenario, is it reasonable to make a Scholarship roll to declare that someone who is in a zone that has a "darkness" aspect, would have the aspect "Can't see well?"  This would usually be a free action which would give a taggable aspect.

Like I said above, in actual practice I go with a first use of a scene aspect is a free tag. That is my recommendation. But, it's not by the book.

Offline noclue

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #7 on: November 11, 2010, 08:01:13 AM »
As a player, I prefer not to have freely taggable scene aspects. The economy works best if placing an aspect is the result of a roll or spending FATE. A bunch of free scene aspects (doubly free because none of the players created them) is a plethora of riches, discouraging spending FATE on character aspects which are awesome.

Offline mostlyawake

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #8 on: November 11, 2010, 03:38:18 PM »
As others have said, I use declarations for this.  Our group limits declarations to once an action, so this really isn't a big deal (they could easily have used another declaration there).  The only difference is that for really obvious things, I don't make them roll anything, though they still name the relevant skill that allows them to take advantage of it.  And of course it has to make sense for what they are trying to do.

Example: someone turns the lights off.  Mechanically, this is one of three things: a free action (that we'll call the player's declaration) to flip the switch, which is something really easy to do, or a supplemental action (so the lights were on a big lever, and I rule it as equal to trying to cross a zone, and we'll still call that a declaration, or a full action (the lever was REALLY big and hard to move, requiring a might roll) that we'll call a maneuver (because it's going to take someone else doing a maneuver to get the lights back on).

In the first instance, the player goes ahead and also ducks down to hide behind some machinery, with a stealth roll assisted by her declaration for the +2.  In this last instance, the player also makes a declaration of "Hey this light switch is really hard to get to, behind some machinery, so as soon as I flip the switch I'm going to duck down for cover as well, okay?" Now she's got a +2 ready from the maneuver, and another +2 for hiding from her declaration, but she's going to wait until the next round to roll stealth.

The baddie decides to go silent as well, makes a declaration of "the lights just went out", and makes a maneuver (alertness roll opposed by player's stealth roll) of "I draw my gun and cock my ear to listen carefully"... netting him a +2 to whatever darkness can bring, as well as a +2 on a future alertness roll.

Player 2 tries to make for the door, with the intention of declaring the darkness towards his stealth roll as well. Instead I offer a fate point as I tag the darkness against him, and he accepts, tripping over some old machinery.  The baddie uses his +2 on his alertness roll to hear this and target the player.

Player 2 goes ahead and hides, but we call it a her action, and she does so well (with her +4 from last time). despite the -1 for the supplemental action to go ahead and get her gun out. However, she goes ahead and declares (with her guns skill) that she's loaded with hollow-points, since she saw (before the lights went out) that the dude had no armor on. She'll tag it in a minute.

The baddie uses his darkness declaration from earlier, as well as his new declaration (Guns vs athletics: hey, i heard that guy go down, right? So he's off-balance for my attack)  Which - while I simply said the player tripped, makes total sense, so the player is -if not on his butt - at least still stumbling or staggering.  The baddie tags both of these for a +4 to his attack. Player 1 defends (taking some stress), and then tries to get away.. he'll once again use a declaration of darkness to aid in his stealth roll.

Player 2 now uses her guns skill (vs the baddies gun skill) to declare that she saw the guy's position in the muzzle flash from his round. She wins, taps both of her declarations to create a +4 bonus to her guns skill, tags one of her own aspects for a fate point, and is suddenly up +6 to hit the dude. She kindly reminds me that she's stealthed, so I roll an alertness roll for the baddie (who has already used his manuever's free tag, so he's SOL) and he gets caught unaware of the attack, with a defense at zero.  If player 1 has even a +3 gun skill, she's now at +9 to his +0, and assuming they both roll flat, he's looking at 11 stress.  That's enough to hit hard into his consequences, and he concedes (declaring with alertness that a window is nearby, and then fleeing out of it).  Now player 2 turns the lights back on.


So. Basically, the scene condition was usable by everyone. But, it really gave them no more than they could have gotten by declaring other stuff.  The benefit to them was that it required no roll. (Alternatively, you could have them roll with anything over a total of zero being successful, but I try to limit rolls.)

This can work even if the aspect isn't obvious. If the scene aspect is "scentless gas is filling the room", someone would have to discover that (scholarship once they start feeling woozy?)  But that discovery, while it is an assessment that happens as a free action, works pretty much exactly like the declaration above.  Once that person notifies everyone else, they can use it for their declarations, as well.


The reason I do this is that a smart player will quickly realize that there's no downside to trying declarations often... as often as they can think of them.   So tagging the scene aspect as a declaration (rather than just for free) keeps them from tagging it for free, also making a declaration, and hitting +4 on rolls.   So I find that it protects the fate point economy more than harms it.

That said, of course, the route to taking someone out tends to be a couple rounds of declaration+maneuver, then tagging those 4 aspects, with maybe one of your own fate points, to net +10 to your roll.  But you have to be successful in all of those rolls, which are typically opposed. Because the scene aspects allow you to play off of them with no roll or low difficulty rolls (vs opposed rolls, which may be harder and have more of an element of chance as the opponent rolls as well), this system REALLY encourages them to be used, which means the scene aspect really flavors the scene.   When those players go to describe that fight, the darkness there will REALLY matter in their recollection, because they relied on it so heavily mechanically.  If it wasn't really taggable - if they couldn't mechanically interact with it - then it would be flavoring that might be mentioned in passing during a retelling.

So I also find that making scene aspects a little easy to interact with really lets them shine. It makes them a more important narrative tool. 

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to make a good case for why you should totally use scene aspects, all the time.


Offline the_glasglow

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #9 on: November 15, 2010, 11:39:26 AM »
Thanks for the long example - It really gives me some Ideas about how to use scene aspects, which i'd mostly previously ignored.

Offline mostlyawake

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #10 on: November 15, 2010, 04:03:18 PM »
I'm glad it helped.  Yeah, usually when I bother to write scene aspects down, I try to make sure to jot down one or two ways my NPCs can use them.  I've noticed that once I have an NPC use it, the PCs pick up on it and use it as well.   Last night, as an experiment, I had NPCs attack in a crowded night club.  I had the aspects Crowded and Lustful (due to the music of the summer fey playing), but chose to not tag them with NPCs.  None of the PCs used the aspects the whole scene (investigation, making connections, then battling to save the summer fey from a hit squad of magical terracota golems).

So it seems to me that as a GM of players new to the game, hitting a scene aspect up by an NPC is almost critical to get the players involved.

However, I made the NPCs use a ton of declarations, and the PCs began doing that. (I wanted them to learn more about declarations). So perhaps it just reflects where their focus was.


Offline Wolfwood2

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #11 on: November 16, 2010, 09:03:58 PM »
One thing that I've seen in another FATE game is to limit using Aspects to only one of each "type" per roll or per exchange.  So a player can only use one of their PC's Aspects on a particular roll, and if they want to spend more FATE points they have to look outside for a useful Scene Aspect or one of their opponent's Aspects.

That might encourage hitting scene aspects more often.

Offline Sitrein

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Re: Tagging a Scene Aspect
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2010, 11:16:05 AM »
Wow, Mostlyawake. That was an amazing post. I'm not even kidding. I think I'm going to print that out and show it to my players at my next session in hopes that they'll start making greater use of declarations (we've been playing for over 2 months now at a session/week and we only had our first attempt at a declaration last session). Honestly, I wish people would write more examples like this to demonstrate game mechanics. I personally think the examples in the books are plenty good but for some reason a lot of players don't quite get it. Your post, however is absolute gold! Thank you!