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Disagree slightly. They're possibly-narrative-effecting true facts about whatever gets the Aspect. They need not be known by the audience at the introduction, hence the Hidden Aspect. For example, imagine that you have a mine, and in it, several barrels. They could be anything. They're not labeled. PCs can make their guesses, but you mention that it could just as easily be a barrel of wine, too. After all, work in the mine is hard, and a little comfort would go a long way.

But in fact, you as the GM know that they're (probably) right: it's a barrel of powder. If they try to look inside, or if they use game mechanics to try to find a helpful Aspect in the environment, they might find out that it has the Aspect 'Explosive.'

But if it was wine? 'Flammable,' sure. But not 'Explosive.' Which makes a big difference when you're deciding whether or not to light it on fire and kick it down a ramp at some bad guys, incidentally.

And all that because, all they saw were some tightly-bound oaken barrels with a plugged-up bung hole at first. It wasn't until they discovered the Aspect that the camera shot showed a little bit of powder draining very slowly out of a seam that wasn't dust-tight.

+Robert Hanz thank you! I kept trying to comprehend aspects, but your explanation makes it all clear.

This is a great writeup.

One minor quibble: I like aspects being hidden initially.

I totally agree at the level of avoiding things like "my character's background is secret, but the GM's cool with it" -- ugh. But I love it at the level of letting the players have some help in roleplaying the uncertainty of their character's world.

Temporarily!

But if my player says "I'm checking the General out, trying to get a read on her, what's her deal?" and I can flip down a card that says "Federation Before Friends, Family, Probably Food", that's more exciting (to me, YMMV) than just telling them an aspect up front. And maybe I've got another one in the hole, so there's more to learn or reveal later.

Well said.

And in that case, +Nathan Holden, you could easily give them the aspect Unknown Contents.

Which would totally make a Compel viable (by either side) - "since those barrels have unknown contents, wouldn't it make sense that they'd get hit by a bullet and blow up?"

In other words - aspects represent what the audience/characters know, even if that's not the sum total of all knowledge.

Again, the question I'll always ask in Fate is "how would this play out in a TV show?"

+John Hawkins: That's totally fair. But again, I think there's value in establishing something about it visibly (see Court/Ship), and I'd also be very hesitant to invoke/compel a "hidden" aspect.

Another term I've played around with is "narrative causality", and invoking an aspect before it's established breaks narrative causality.

I'd even argue that a hidden aspect isn't an aspect. It's just a fact. A fact that can eventually be an aspect, but isn't necessarily one at that point.

I think hidden aspects are necessary if you want your game to be at all exploratory. You couldn't do Indiana Jones without them, or a dungeon-based game, or a crash-landing on an alien planet scenario, without hidden aspects.

Flammable and Explosive - in this example - are tactical qualities, and not necessarily Aspects. Which is fine: things can have those qualities. But there is a difference between a puzzle (the players need to use those barrels to blow up a thing I put in the adventure) and creative scene aspect use. From another perspective:

This mine has a bunch of barrels in this room. GM silently retains "Bunch of Barrels" as an unwritten (but not secret) Aspect, and the players likewise can take interest in the barrels, and trigger the revelation of an actual Aspect "Pile of Barrels". Whether they are explosive or flammable or food, in this case, is somewhat moot until it becomes narratively important.

Now if the players later wanted to create a barricade, they already have (or can easily establish) that a Pile of Barrels is there to help build it.

The GM could then, if it comes up, hand over a Fate point and invoke the Pile of Barrels, saying "you didn't know this, but the Pile of Barrels was Explosive, and that flaming arrow just set it off right in your face". The barrels were there to be investigated or ignored, and the Invoke and Fate Point are there so the GM can reveal the thing (Barrel o' Explosives) while not punishing the players outright for not turning over every rock in the mine.

I had more example but need to step away.

+Robert Hanz You're absolutely right about that. I almost thought about adding such a comment (my aspect was going to be Mysterious), and then I thought, eh, maybe you don't add that, thought.

You can probably guess why I left it off; if I'd thought of Contents Unknown first, I'd have felt a little less silly adding the Aspect to my example case.

(Although, your thought on the content of your average Mystery Barrel might be worth looking into! Wooden barrels are just as likely, if not more, to hold something like salt pork, or olive oil, or water, depending on the setting. I hope your salt pork isn't explosive... or else I guess your PCs just figured out why the mine shaft is abandoned!)

So, +RJ Grady, I kinda disagree there. But I think that's worth discussing a bit.

I think there's a level of assumption that I'm saying "there can be no hidden information". That's not what I'm saying. There can be tons of hidden information. There's zero wrong with that. Not every fact has to be shared.

The difference between a plain old ordinary fact and an aspect, in Fate terms, is two-fold. One: An aspect can be invoked. Two: An aspect can be Compelled.

That's mostly it. So when we make something an Aspect, what we're really saying is "I plan to invoke or Compel this. Be ready." It's the "setup" part of the "setup/payoff" structure.

So what I'm really saying when I say "I don't like hidden aspects" isn't "share everything with your players". What I'm saying is "don't invoke or compel things that haven't been established".

Now, we don't get the advantage of being able to tightly script everything, so that might, to some extent, be unavoidable. But it's a good idea, and worth striving for, because then we don't kind of break down narrative causality or, in more game-like terms, feel "cheap".

So, we don't have to tell people that Bill is a vampire. But it's worth noting that he's a Night Owl and Curiously Strong. By giving out that information, it's a lot easier to feel "fair" if we compel/invoke, and also makes the players curious about exactly what the heck is up with Bill.

+Nathan Holden: A Fate Point could be used to declare that the Unknown Contents are, in fact, salt pork if that's what the characters happen to need ;)

+Nathan Holden Not everything that's true needs to be an aspect.

If it is not important that the contents are unknown/mysterious, then, it doesn't need to be an aspect. Maybe the aspect is simply that the room has Barrels. Maybe it doesn't even have that aspect at all until it becomes narratively important by someone seeking to make them narratively important, with a CaA action or a Fate point declaration or something.

The GM would make "Unknown Contents" an explicit, stated-out-loud aspect on the "Barrels" if the GM already knows that it will become important. Or wants to prompt the players to take an interest in the contents.

They're aspects if they're going to be focused-on. By Robert's camera. Or your player's. If the GM only expects to pan over them, not-an-aspect. But if the players then grab the dolly or the steadycam and pan back, now it's an aspect, they'll say why, and, depending on exactly what happens, either they or the GM will say what the aspect is.

As an example, in this thread ( https://plus.google.com/u/0/112236572046293656570/posts/Ru3Hjj5Lrw3 ) a GM Compelled a hidden aspect of "something wrong with the gun" so that it wouldn't fire.

It's universally declared as bad form in the thread. Why? A gun that's got something wrong with it not firing is pretty much a textbook example of a Compel. Okay, I would do the Compel before Fate Points and Invokes were spent, but it's still a totally fair Compel.

It's bad form, in my opinion, not because it's a bad Compel, but because it was based on a hidden aspect. If something had happened like it getting the Dropped Roughly aspect as a success with cost result on a failed attempt to toss the gun from PC to PC? Then it would be totally fair, IMHO.

Again, look at it as a TV show - a character throws the gun over to his friend! But it hits the floor, and we see it get dented, or the characters wince, or something like that... we've now been informed that the gun has had a rough time of it, so that when it doesn't fire, we don't feel cheated. If the gun just happens to not fire without that being called out? It feels cheap.

+Robert Hanz I don't think anyone would disagree with you there. You need players to know about something before it's used. That doesn't mean it should never be hidden, just that it needs to be revealed before you use it.

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Gotta go play hockey... Will respond later

+Robert Hanz Yeah, I think I'm with you, closer to the metal. I think the resonant point I'm getting is something like "if an Aspect is hidden, it's not in play".

And that's actually interesting to me, not just something I consider obvious. The dungeon example is an interesting one. I mean, if you blindside your players with a brutal trap, in some kinds of games that might feel pretty unfair. But! If the Aspect is, say, at the dungeon level, along the lines of Centuries of Ancestors Didn't Want You Here, or Just Traps Like Whoa, well, different story.

So your core point, exemplified by the Geysers, points to an idea that if you have something hidden it should be something that's really not in the game right now. Sure in the bossfight, this lady is going to be an Ancient White Vampire, but right now she's just Super Pale and Disquietingly Sensual. And all of that is justified by the campaign aspect Vampires Like Ants On Candy. It's hidden state, but it's fair hidden state.

I feel like there are tricky corner cases hiding here, but in terms of guide posts for new players I think you captured some important ideas.

On the issue of hidden aspects, what works better is to have aspects that are only partially true rather than to have them completely true and hidden.

As an example, in a murder mystery, the aspect that a particular person is suspicious, like "no alibi" or "had motive" should be introduced early in the story. The key to a good mystery is that the cards are on the table, but that the detective and audience doesn't realize it until later. When those two are one and the same, it is even more true. A mystery in which the detective has information the audience does not cannot work here at all.

When using aspects for a mystery, you can also change them to represent new evidence."No alibi" can be upgraded to "Observed fleeing the scene of the crime" or inverted to instead say "His true alibi was that he was sleeping with the victim's wife at the time of the killing." Something that ironically both makes him appear more suspicious as well as entirely proves his innocence.

Even if we are talking about the pure shock value of hidden details, it is still better if were are expecting something, even if we don't know what that is. Tension is all about buildup, and there can't be buildup if the heroes aren't expecting something. Misdirection is even fine, but there needs to be an idea something is there. That something should be an aspect so that it can be compelled or invoked.

+Nathan Holden:

What I'm kind of suggesting is that if it isn't revealed it's not really an aspect. I mean, if you can't compel or invoke it, does it really matter if we call it an aspect or not? Functionally, it's not - you aren't doing Aspect-y things with it.

Now, that's in a perfect world. In the real world, yeah, I'll have aspects on characters, and do my best to not use them before revealing them. But really, we should be thinking about what we can reveal if we want to Compel/Invoke these things. We don't have to reveal that Bill is a vampire, but we should foreshadow enough things that it's a plausible thing that happens.

Also, lots of things that might be reveals are also modeled as skills/stunts, so that's even more area for hidden knowledge. +John Hawkins has some excellent examples of what you might reveal in some cases to have an aspect in play without revealing your hand.

Though it's kind of interesting that the "hidden aspects aren't really aspects", which is kind of a side derailment of the post, is what's gathering all the discussion and attention. I'm wondering if that's becuause it really strikes to the heart of the difference between viewing aspects as a modeling tool, and the way I see them as as more narrative tool.

If viewed as a modeling tool, obviously hidden aspects should be a thing.

I'll have to agree that events that aren't foreshadowed feel cheap when they come out of nowhere. It's one of the reasons I feel cheated 9 times out of 10 whenever I watch a Doctor Who episode. "What? You didn't know that this model of alien invasion ship has a self destruct button right below the left landing gear? Ha, earthlings are so quaint!"

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I like the idea of demoting the hidden aspects. If something is not narrated in the fiction, it's not important, it's forgotten in the memory of the author. If it later has a consequece that takes us unprepared, we feel he pulled a Deux ex Machina on us.

+Robert Hanz Well, I think a lot of your post is non-obvious, and will be helpful to new players. But I think in the process you've gotten at something deeper and more challenging for veterans (hidden state), which has consequently sparked discussion. =)

1. Hidden aspects are weird.
2. It sounds like there's another book in process +Robert Hanz!
3. All this explains why I think Fate is wasted on the Storygames crowd! ;-) Seriously, none of the above means "and therefore you have to have a shared narrative game where everyone is a co gm and has co created everything" or "and therefore everything your character can do should be defined by Aspects." Spiderman's weird, guilt-driven drive is modeled well as an aspect, but there's no reason his webbing ability has to be (though it's effect can be).

+Gary Furash: I totally agree. While Fate certainly can be played in hardcore "shared narrative" mode, it can also be played much closer to a traditional game. Neither way is, in my mind, "doing it wrong".

Spiderman's webbing probably doesn't need an explicit aspect. You can have aspect-based permission, which still matches the "model" of narrative causality - we're not surprised when Bill shoots a fireball because it's been established that he's a wizard. Similarly, we're not surprised when Spiderman shoots webs because he's, well, Spiderman. It could also easily be a stunt. But I wouldn't require "shoots webs" as an aspect.

In another comment somewhere I talked about separating abilities into three parts:

1) How they work "in universe"
2) How they impact the narrative
3) Costing for the sake of balance

How they impact the narrative is obvious - you shoot stuff, and you can stick bad guys to things. And since you'd already have to buy the appropriate skills, those don't really seem worthy of additional costs to me, though you could argue for the web-based movement as a stunt, I think.

In my 80s action movie game, Fate points were playing cards that had an additional narrative function, as well as being spent as Fate points they could be used to create an additional effect, which I suppose is really a "pop-up" aspect... giving everyone the chance to make the "surprise reveal" of new information. See pic for the idea