How often do you compel aspects in one session?

[wednesdayboy]

If you're a GM, how often to you compel a player's aspects in one session?  Or if you're a player, how often do your aspects get compelled in one session?

I'm curious to see where our fledgling group stands in terms of compels--whether we need to ramp it up or if they're about right.  I would say our GM tries to compel our aspects about 1-2 times per session.

[admiralducksauce]

each character is compelled 1-2 times per ASPECT per session, or each character is compelled 1-2 times TOTAL per session?

The former is awesome, but IMO nigh-impossible to maintain that kind of compel rate.  The latter is nowhere NEAR enough, though.

I typically open with a compel for everyone in order to get them into the game, with the understanding that if you want to play, you'll take the damn FP and come along on the adventure.  I like to use setting and scene aspects to compel as well, so I can hit the entire group with them and keep their FP stock high.  Then I try to compel each PC as many times as I can while still being reasonable.  I'd say I get 2-4 table-wide compels each session, and then perhaps another 2-5 compels per PC, but that varies a lot based on how close the adventure hews to their own personal backstories and such.  When someone's nemesis shows up, they get compelled a lot more.

[wednesdayboy]

That would be 1-2 times total per session.  That number might be a little higher, the GM's been making a conscious effort to compel more often and we're still getting used to the system.  (We've only played three games total.)

So for your games if a session focused on something that a character was already inclined to do, would you still compel that character to get into the adventure?  To me that seems like the character wouldn't be "compelled" since they're already inclined to do it.  But maybe compelling less strictly would be better because it gets the FPs flowing.

[zenten]

So for your games if a session focused on something that a character was already inclined to do, would you still compel that character to get into the adventure?  To me that seems like the character wouldn't be "compelled" since they're already inclined to do it.  But maybe compelling less strictly would be better because it gets the FPs flowing.

As long as it fits with an Aspect that would be a self compel then.



As for me, not enough I don't think.  I only get maybe 2-4 compels per PC per session, which I need to up more.

[admiralducksauce]

So for your games if a session focused on something that a character was already inclined to do, would you still compel that character to get into the adventure?  To me that seems like the character wouldn't be "compelled" since they're already inclined to do it.

As Zenten says, it's a sort of self-compel.  They COULD choose to go home, drink beer and watch TV but instead they are inclined to knife-fight vampires inside burning warehouses.  That's a compel in my book.  Compels don't have to suck - they just have to complicate things, they have to represent the harder road taken.

A PC with an aspect "Why Buy When You Can Steal" walks past an unattended coat check.  He swipes some cash from some random peoples' coats and gets away with it.  NOT A COMPEL.

Same PC swipes a few smartphones from the coats.  Smartphones with GPS.  Now it's a compel, because the law can track him down or whatever.  Sure if he was thinking rationally, like someone who wasn't a kleptomaniac, he might not have taken the phones, but he's compelled to take the shiny tech precisely because this is his nature.

BTW: That PC is in my campaign, and he'll pipe up now and then with "anything for me to steal?"  See, he WANTS the compels.  Compels are shiny FP for him to burn later.  Compels from smartphone GPSes get our fist-fightin' PC into brawls with cops, which leads to more shiny FP because a guy with "Renegade" as an aspect isn't going down to the station without a fight.  And fighting is fun, so the entire group benefits from a few PCs' lack of restraint. 

[devonapple]

I *want* to Compel about 3-4 times per PC per session, but it is working out to be more like 1-2 times per PC per session. Our group seems to move things along well enough, so I'm not seeing it as a terrible drawback.

[sinker]

Seems to me that the ideal is probably 1 compel per PC every 2-4 scenes. In reality it seems like that's very hard to manage. Do remember the self-compel though, and remember that a lot of the things you do already are actually self-compels in and of themselves. If your GM doesn't give you FP for simply joining the adventure (as admiralducksauce and many others do) then it's likely a self-compel for you just being there.

Then again maybe it's a compel on your personal aspect of "Gamer looking to enjoy the evening rather than play someone who sits on the couch all session."

[mostlyawake]

This answer varies greatly according to:

1) How many players you have
   a) fewer players makes it easier to compel one repeatedly and stay with the story line
   b) a bigger group seems to benefit from situational compels; asking "who has an aspect that they think would compel them to [save the princess/slay the dragon/do X] here?" is a good strategy.
   c) Bigger groups make personal agendas like "looking for my lost sister" really hard to compel while keeping the story universal.
   d) 5 players means you're keeping up with 35 PC aspects.  8 players means you have 56!  You're just NOT getting to all of those.

2) How well the characters blend together / were designed to mesh at character creation
    a) IF your nerdy scientist type has all his aspects about investigating things, and the werewolf is all about hitting things, then some scenes are only going to hit one person.  If the nerd had an aspect of "help the werewolf", now he gets compelled in all the fight scenes.
   b) IF you have players with completely disparate main agendas, it's harder to compel them at the same time.  IF those last two phases reflect a bond between the characters, then it's easy to compel one character onto the other's agenda. IF one has aspects about being a do-gooder and the other about being selfish, it can be difficult (but fun) to compel both simultaneously.

3) If you write scenes around the characters' aspects
   a) several blogs (rick neal, ect) suggest planning scenes by linking them to character aspects.  The simplest (I really pared this down from the blog) version is to put all the PC aspects onto scraps of paper, then draw a few from a hat as you script each scene and specifically design elements in the scene for that aspect compel. Then, WRITE THAT DOWN so you remember to compel.
  b) by choosing aspects, the players have told you the kind of game they want to play. IF you write a scene that includes one of each character's aspects (easy with a group of 4 or less, again, big groups complicate this), then you'll usually find that you end up compelling much more than just the one aspect, because you're hitting on what the players wrote their character around.

4) How readily your characters self compel
  a) this is pretty obvious, but again, way more important in a bigger group.  Training new players to this is key; after a while my players would choose to fail in a scene to earn fate points.  "Hey, it would be really inconvenient for me if I couldn't get this info out of his computer. Can I have a compel on my high aspect [wizard]".

5) How easy the aspects are to compel.
  a) also pretty obvious, but if you write your aspects in latin or haikus or whatever, and it's not really obvious what that aspect is for (yes, even if we had a conversation about what you wanted it to mean), then it's damn hard for me to compel.  Really good blog advice on this one, too (can't remember if this was Rob or Rick), about having the aspects be kind of like catch-phrases for the character.  IF the character would say it, or if it would apply to the character, then it's a compel.  (I think this was Rob. He's at http://rdonoghue.blogspot.com).   
  b) equally, the book and every blog give a ton of advice on making compels both positive and negative, so you can both compel it and use it.  Here's my own personal take on that:
   For every point of available refresh you have, you can have one completely positive aspect, OR one obscure/ mostly irrelevant aspect (looking for my lost sister, in a large group).  Meaning, a wizard with -1 adjusted refresh really needs 6 out of his 7 aspects to be things that I can compel.  Meanwhile, the pure mortal with an adjusted refresh of 4 can really afford to take 4 completely positive aspects.  He's going to be starting battles with plenty of FP, and refreshing each game easily. If his other 3 aspects are really broad and focused around his character concept, he'll earn those easy enough.  He really needs to focus on outlets, though, making sure he can spend those points readily.
  Never, ever, ever take a completely NEGATIVE aspect.  It's your job as a player to figure out how to use your weaknesses to your advantage.  "Blind" is a horrible aspect.  "Keen-eared, blind old seer archetype" is immensely useful.
  c) if the players wrote their aspects to cover all three categories of combat (physical/mental/social), the aspects can be useful in most situations.  IF they wrote all physical, then it's hard to compel them in a social scene. If they wrote one aspect for each type, they can run out of ways to compel in each scene.  So I try to encourage players, for EACH aspect, to list how it would be used both positively and negatively in at least two out of the three types of combat.    For instance, I had a player with the ultra-mature aspect of "big boobs!", but actually this ends up being pretty easy to compel or invoke in all three types.

Wow, this was long. Hope it helped!