Mar 05, 2014 Fate Core Thought of the Day Aspects...
Fate Core Thought of the Day: Aspects, the Information Economy, and Chekov's Gun
(No, not the Star Trek guy).
Okay, I think most people are aware of Chekov's Gun - "if a gun is on the wall in the first act, it should be fired by the third."
Ultimately, what this really means is "don't bother the audience with extraneous detail." Especially in a play, everything that's there should be there for a reason. There's a deliberate choice that's made to focus on what's important, and remove everything that isn't.
We see this in TV shows, movies, and books, as well, but not to as great of an extent. Most of these media try to immerse their audience in the reality of what's happening, something that's generally not a goal for plays. And so there might very well be a gun on the wall that never gets fired, or a shadow that nobody leaps out of.
But the camera will never focus on those things. And that's a useful way of looking at it, as well - an aspect is something that gets camera focus in describing the scene.
To put it another way, there's a difference between a scene being dark, and a scene being Dark. A dark scene may be a poorly lit bar - but the lighting is just ambience. It doesn't influence the plot in any way. It doesn't really impact how the characters do things. It's just there to set a mood.
A Dark scene is different. In a Dark scene, we can expect somebody to jump out of the shadows at some point, or disappear into them.
And that's kind of what aspects are. They're the things we're pointing out to the players as important. We don't try to capture every detail, or worry about the minor things that have a slight influence on what happens. Size advantages/disadvantages aren't a big deal, until you're talking about something on the level of Bruce Lee vs. Kareem Abdul Jabaar... yeah, one guy might have a slightly longer reach, and one guy might be slightly faster, yada, yada, yada, but all of those are minor factors.
Fate worries about the major factors. It worries about the big things that will swing how the scenes play out. It doesn't worry about the minor effects, even though those certainly can add up to a big effect - but it assumes that, like a TV show or movie, that those turn out to be a wash most of the time.
Now, since we don't have full control of the story, we can't fully obey the law of Chekov's Gun. But it's important to keep in mind that every aspect should be something that could be important, and that could be something that causes the scene to swing a different way.
And that's why aspect "spamming" is kind of a bad thing. The point of aspects is to restrict what the players have to think about, to restrict the important elements in a scene. If your scene has a list of twenty aspects, then you've destroyed this economy of information, and have reduced the value of calling out things as aspects in the first place.
(No, not the Star Trek guy).
Okay, I think most people are aware of Chekov's Gun - "if a gun is on the wall in the first act, it should be fired by the third."
Ultimately, what this really means is "don't bother the audience with extraneous detail." Especially in a play, everything that's there should be there for a reason. There's a deliberate choice that's made to focus on what's important, and remove everything that isn't.
We see this in TV shows, movies, and books, as well, but not to as great of an extent. Most of these media try to immerse their audience in the reality of what's happening, something that's generally not a goal for plays. And so there might very well be a gun on the wall that never gets fired, or a shadow that nobody leaps out of.
But the camera will never focus on those things. And that's a useful way of looking at it, as well - an aspect is something that gets camera focus in describing the scene.
To put it another way, there's a difference between a scene being dark, and a scene being Dark. A dark scene may be a poorly lit bar - but the lighting is just ambience. It doesn't influence the plot in any way. It doesn't really impact how the characters do things. It's just there to set a mood.
A Dark scene is different. In a Dark scene, we can expect somebody to jump out of the shadows at some point, or disappear into them.
And that's kind of what aspects are. They're the things we're pointing out to the players as important. We don't try to capture every detail, or worry about the minor things that have a slight influence on what happens. Size advantages/disadvantages aren't a big deal, until you're talking about something on the level of Bruce Lee vs. Kareem Abdul Jabaar... yeah, one guy might have a slightly longer reach, and one guy might be slightly faster, yada, yada, yada, but all of those are minor factors.
Fate worries about the major factors. It worries about the big things that will swing how the scenes play out. It doesn't worry about the minor effects, even though those certainly can add up to a big effect - but it assumes that, like a TV show or movie, that those turn out to be a wash most of the time.
Now, since we don't have full control of the story, we can't fully obey the law of Chekov's Gun. But it's important to keep in mind that every aspect should be something that could be important, and that could be something that causes the scene to swing a different way.
And that's why aspect "spamming" is kind of a bad thing. The point of aspects is to restrict what the players have to think about, to restrict the important elements in a scene. If your scene has a list of twenty aspects, then you've destroyed this economy of information, and have reduced the value of calling out things as aspects in the first place.
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Reshared by: Kairam Hamdan, Ryan M. Danks
None of which is to take away from the points made by Robert here.
Misleading the audience is a perfectly legitimate purpose.
Heck, if you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun, it appears that the first usage of it was actually relating to a monologue that was deemed unnecessary, and nothing as literal as an actual gun.
While it appears to be an ordinary six-shot revolver of dented grey metal, Chekov's Gun is actually a powerful relic of Fate.
If it is listed in a scene as one of its situation aspects, Chekov's Gun must be fired at somebody by the end of the scene. This is is a compel on its own high concept that can be used to affect any character in the scene but which can be resisted as normal. The gun may attempt to compel every person in the scene at least once.
If nobody accepts the compel then the gun fires itself due to a fluke accident even if nobody is holding it. This counts as a Fantastic attack against the most dramatically interesting target.
Chekov's gun is otherwise unremarkable and provides a damage rating of 2 in games that are using this mechanic.
Using Chekov's Gun exactly:
In Act One the gun may never be mentioned, but if the players find themselves back in that same room in Act Three, and one says, "This is a mahogany filled room that smells of fine tobacco, is lined with leather bound books, and is furnished with the finest reading chairs money can buy, so I grab the gun that must be hanging over the fireplace."
If nobody counter's that then the gun was always there, right? It only presents itself as relevant, and advantageous in Act Three.
The way I look at Aspects is very fractal, and one Aspect suggests others. Those others are there waiting to be Tagged, or have their inherent Advantages Created.
I'm still interested in thoughts on who the audience is. I'm still considering how that word would apply to people at the table. Are we all the audience, and performers at the same time?
Suppose the gun is there. It has the Aspect Out of Ammo, like other guns right? That might keep it from being fired, thus negate its relevance, and focus.
Dude's not always mad right? Sometimes he does take it.
A gun's Out of Ammo Aspect must be Compelled for it to matter. If that older ideas is being used then everything that is a gun has that Aspect, and it's just waiting to be Compelled. It is true of every gun with ammo that it can be out of ammo, so it's pretty much pointless to even write it down.
These would be cases where Chekhov's Gun is there, and not important at all to the story. They are Focal Aspects of the character, and Scene, but not the story.
If we apply your idea to the PCs themselves we can even determine that at some points in a session certain PCs didn't matter at all due to their die rolls, choices, etc. They become the unused gun, not for lack of trying though.
I think that in effective narration anything that is said will have impact. In writing, and oration more so than film, and television, because there are less senses involved.
The chief difference between a piece by Chekov, and a Fate game is that he is the sole determining factor in whether that giun matters. The determinant factor in a Fate game is multiplied by however many people are at the table, and find the gun compelling.
I don't know that it's a variable that directly controllable by anyone in a game.
This is why I ponder the relevance of the audience. By creating a standard by which to judge play we create a situation where one party might tell another that a certain thing isn't worth introducing, because it may not matter. Obviously, to the person introducing said concept, it very much matters though.
And that's why aspect "spamming" is kind of a bad thing. The point of aspects is to restrict what the players have to think about, to restrict the important elements in a scene. "
"Spamming" aspects can be an issue. Although Core and FAE trimmed character aspects back, the focus on the four actions really put the spotlight on Create Advantage. As a result players and GM's create a lot more advantages than we did in SotC or Bulldogs!
In a recent FAE game I had two initial situation aspects, eight aspects from create advantage, four from consequences, plus two from boosts = 16 non-character or setting aspects. Urk.
The recent clarification on boosts not being full-blown aspects helps with two of these, but that still leaves half (eight out of sixteen) added because of create advantage.
I'm still not entirely sure how to keep this under control. Perhaps using more overarching aspects, like Dangerous Environment instead of Roof on Fire and Toxic Gas and Blacked Out Casino. Players can still refer to the particulars, but maybe they can be bundled under the one heading.
"It's a dingy warehouse with piles of trash strewn up against the walls. It's very dark but you can see a little by the dim light cast by the streetlight outside the window. There's a rusty walkway around eight feet up the warehouse wall which is led to by a rickety staircase."
Very Dark and Rusty Walkway are the two I single out as aspects but there are potential aspects in the form of pikes of trash and rickety stairway. These can be singled out and made into aspects by the players if they want to make them relevant but otherwise they're just a part of the description.
Which line of thought makes me wonder... do we actually need to specifcally call out the situation aspects on every scene if they aren't actively doing something? Or can we rely on our players to remember the description and make appropriate aspects?
If the later you can be very minimal with the aspects, bringing all of the ones you place on the scene an even greater significance.
As far as your question on not necessarily calling out lots of situation aspects, that's exactly what I do. General description, and call out a few situation aspects per scene if I think they're especially important. Not only do I do that to really draw attention to the aspects that are there, but it also keeps the game flowing better in my opinion.
I'm going to vault off of the "Strange Marble Altar" to gain more momentum in my attack.
Hooray!
If they didn't care about that altar, then that's okay too. Instead they say:
"Where there's an altar there's got to be holy relics. I bash the cultist over the head with a creepy candelabra!"
I didn't even say there was one there, but why not?
Since everything I say is a potential Aspect that may have associated Aspects I hadn't considered there isn't really a point to writing them down as such. I let the players determine what will be important.
I think this may be a reason I don't understand why people fear Aspect Spamming so much. Since Aspects are built to be somewhat disposable I suppose I don't really see the point in making note of them at all unless they gain so much focus that it makes sense to start detailing the Aspects they themselves possess.
Like +Richard Bellingham's piles of trash that he didn't even care about when writing that. A player might not use either of the Aspects that he thought were important, but the trash? They love that, and start digging.
At that point I would bust out an index card, and note Piles of Trash, and make bullet points beneath it as I listed off what they found. Those things are Aspects of the trash. Some of them may have Aspects of their own as well.
I only track Aspect that become fleshed out, so I've never seen Aspect Spam first hand. I suppose I understand it in the Abstract, but I tend to think it comes from wanting to document everything, which I do not.