By the wording, C would get paid.

I expect by the intent, since the impact of the invocation was to his (side's) favor, he should not.

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't at my table.

I wouldn't have either, but the wording does seem to imply that.

I'm kind of curious if it's an oversight, or if there's some inner logic that I'm missing here.

Yes, but that's the exact confusion.

If that's the rule as intended, it would be trivial to come up with aspects that are easily invokable by other PCs, and by doing so ensure that any "spent" FP were returned to the group as a whole after every scene.  And that seems kind of broken based on my understanding.

The rule doesn't mention PC or NPC, but since NPC's done (by rule) remember any fate points from scene to scene except those gained by concession, it doesn't matter in practice if they get them or not.

+Leonard Balsera +Ryan Macklin 

/sub

Hmm.

So, the point of the rule is that if you invoke someone's aspect against them, they get paid. But consider that they don't get paid if you invoke your own aspects, a game aspect, or a situation aspect that's free-floating.

I would consider the aspect attached to C to be in that same space, and the fate point is just spent rather than given to B or C.

- Ryan

Also, +Leonard Balsera should confirm or deny my assertion.

Yeah, the intent is as Ryan states it, so I concur with his reading.

Thanks for the clarification, gentlemen.  I assume this is errata-bait?

I'd probably write page 69 as:

If the aspect you invoke is on someone else’s character sheet, including situation aspects attached to them, and the invoke is to their disadvantage, you give them the fate point you spent. They don’t actually get to use it until after the end of the scene, though.

I would add some parenthetical caveat to clarify that invoking a third party's aspect is treated just like invoking an unattached situation aspect, and doesn't give the person a fate point. (Except I would write it better than that.)

I've added things to the living errata.

That also clears up a potential other misread: that if you invoke someone else's aspect to help them, they don't get the Fate Point. Which I have done with relationship-based aspects.

For me the vital word is "Against". If the invoke isn't putting the aspect owner in a tight spot, then they don't get the FP.

To clarify:  The misread would be that they would get the FP even though they were helped.

The intended rule is that in that case they wouldn't get the FP, correct?

+Fred Hicks' writing would imply that in the above scenario, if B invoked C's aspect when opposing A, that C would (generally) get the FP at the end of the scene, as A and C are allied.

Which works for me, frankly.

It's worth clarifying, but I'm hesitant to label it a true erratum: we're talking about a pretty edgy edge case, if anything.

I don't know if our errata page has a distinction for clarifications. 

Weird edge case!

If invoking C's aspect against B puts C in a disadvantageous situation, then C does get the fate point from A. That's getting payout for having an aspect worked against you, even if indirectly (not unlike an indirect compel).

[This is per Lenny & I.]

+Robert Hanz Let's stick with A as the aggressor, etc. You're mixing up the players from your original write-up, which confused me.

If it helps, use this totally informal bit:
"Did an aspect on your character get invoked by someone else? Did that screw you over? No, we don't care if directly or indirectly screwed. It did? You gets paid, yo. It didn't? No coin."

Sure.  So, in this case A is attacking B.  B and C are on the same side of the Conflict.  A invokes C's aspect against B (presuming that it's appropriate).

Would C get a Fate Point?  Attacking his teammate is certainly not in C's best interests.

I interpret that as "C would get a Fate Point, since he wants his buddy to not get Taken Out."

And I totally think more RPG rules should be written in that style.  It'd probably end up with fewer needed clarifications :)

+Robert Hanz That's what we're saying, yes. Though I would strip out the "since he wants his buddy to not get Taken Out" bit. It's just "Is this bad for me? Yes. Pay me." The wants of a character aren't involved.

Also, my comment is the edited version. If you've read Mythender, you can probably see where I would have cursed in the rules. :)

Yeah, that clarifies for me based on the RPG.net thread as well (where I got a little side-tracked myself). 

Just to add: much as I can appreciate the value of the formal rubric, "aspect C" or whatever has no resemblance to an actual aspect, moving with fiction, in an instance of play at your table.

Like, me personally? Using your aspect to screw over one of your buddies would be something I'd judge on a highly situational basis and ad hoc, for whether that meant "bad for you" enough to earn you the point. There's no right way to read that, not really. If the invoke is on the action that takes your buddy out and leaves you massively outnumbered? Yeah, maybe you get the point. If all it means is that your buddy spends an extra fate point to shrug it off? Maybe you wouldn't. 

If the situation attached to the real aspect makes people at the table go, "Oh, damn, that's a sick burn!" or whatever? Yeah, probably you'd get paid.

Don't let the formal interpretation with variables replace the gut-level call you'd make when those aspects actually mean something.

+Leonard Balsera I'd also add the "if someone thinks they're being clever and avoiding paying a fate point to the opposition by being a rules wonk, screw that noise." to it.

But that's a specific harshness to someone who is trying to use the rules to be a jerk, though saying that I'm sure would help those accidentally falling into that trap from doing so.

I'm trying to gather from context what Ryan's response was. I am apparently blocked by him, probably for (politely) suggesting that one of his posts wasn't very constructive. Was Fred concurring with him by adding the "and the invoke is to their disadvantage" clause? This is how I was assuming things would work when I read the scenario in the OP.

Yes, the consensus is that fate points are only issued if the person with the aspect on his character sheet is affected negatively by the invoke. If it affects an ally negatively then it might be worth a fate point if the group agrees it also affects the aspect's owner negatively. Otherwise it's as if any other free-floating situation aspect has been invoked and nobody gets the fate point.

The RPG.net thread prompted me to explain why the rule exists: it's there to create further opportunities to give players in need fate points. You don't do it for every invocation because that would bloat the FP economy, and without it we've seen times where compels weren't story-appropriate but there weren't enough FP in the economy.

That's actually one thing I find missing from a lot of rules - not just the letter, but the intent of the rule, and what problem it's solving.

When I explain the more hard-to-explain hockey rules, I start with the problems they solve and what would happen if the rules didn't exist.

+Robert Hanz And you won't find that in a lot of rules. Often, that's a distraction at best and a point of contention at worst. If we were to tell you every single time why a rule exists, we're breaking the flow of the game and often (though you might be surprised to hear this) its referencability and understandability.

That said, in this case we could have put it in somewhere as GM advice for when folks are down on FP. But in general that's why rules don't explain themselves (even when, yeah, sometimes that would help).

Does that make sense?

Also, that's not its only intent. It is a PvP rule as well, not for game balance but for a sense of scaling up (an effect if getting the FP post-conflict).

It's also a phenomenon fairly unique to RPGs that a common end user response to being told "do this" in the rules is to ask why or alter it by reflex, rather than to trust, like you would in any other medium of game, that the rule is designed that way on purpose and leads to some desirable effect, whether emergent or deliberate, when used in play.

It's possible that this observation is really jacking the thread, so apologies in advance.

+Ryan Macklin:  I can see that, but I still think that in at least some cases, it would be useful as a guide.  One of the things that I've seen is a C# style guide from Microsoft that has commentary added to it.  That's an incredibly useful tool, and I would love to see an "annotated Fate" or the like.

(Here's the C# one:  http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-Covering-Microsoft-Development-ebook/dp/B004BSFKXY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390952657&sr=8-1&keywords=c%23+programming+annotated)

+Leonard Balsera:  Yeah, and that's kind of puzzling to me.

+Robert Hanz Sure, when it least to independent advice.

To get back on topic (not that there's much more to say), one of the RPG.net commenters called this "hostile invoking," which is what I'm going to refer to it as for now on...or until some better term comes up. Something in the lexicon for this is handy, if only for quick communication.

(That was +Christopher Ruthenbeck)

Yeah, hostile invokes is the term we've used for a while as well.

I didn't coin the term, I just use it. I don't remember who I first heard it from.

Well, y'all are awesome humans for coming up with that. I hope more people use it.