Choosing Aspects

Aspects can be both useful and dangerous, but they should never be boring.

Whenever you choose an aspect, stop a minute to think about what kinds

of situations you can imagine using it for, and what kind of trouble it might

get you into. The very best aspects suggest answers to both those questions,

and an aspect that can answer neither is likely to be very dull indeed.

When you’re picking aspects, one of the best ways to determine that you

and the GM are on the same page is to discuss three situations where you

feel the aspect would be a help or a hindrance.

This is especially handy if the GM suggests the aspect – she probably has

a pretty clear idea of what it means when she suggests it, but that idea may

not be immediately obvious.

Example: Sally Slick’s player, Tracy, decides to take the aspect

“Monkeywrench” since she figures it’s nicely reflective of the character.

The GM asks what sort of things it’ll be useful for, and Tracy suggests

that it’s useful for her as an engineer, since it’s indicative of her getting

in there and getting her hands dirty. Even more, it’s useful for breaking

things, throwing a figurative (or literal!) wrench in the works. Lastly, it’s

handy for whacking people upside the head with a wrench, her weapon

of choice.

The GM thinks that’s a pretty solid image, but asks if there’s any way this

might end up causing trouble for her. Tracy doesn’t have any ideas right

off, and the GM asks if maybe it means that because Sally’s so hands on,

it might occasionally come up when dealing with people who plan things

without actually knowing how to build them.

Tracy is lukewarm on the idea, so the GM lets it drop. The GM tries this

instead: How about if things can sometimes just go wrong for Sally and

her plans – they have a “wrench” thrown in them, so to speak. Tracy likes

that, but she wants it to be especially about mechanical things. The idea

of things breaking entertainingly appeals to her a lot, and the GM thinks

that’s pretty workable. With a little back and forth, both Tracy and GM

now have a much better sense of how the aspect will work in play.

Powerful Aspects

At first glance, the most powerful aspects would seem to be things that

are broadly useful with no real downside, things like “Quick”, “Lucky” or

“Strong”, and a lot of players are tempted to go with those out the gate.

Resist that temptation!

See, there are three very large problems with aspects like this: they’re

boring, they don’t generate action points, and they surrender your ability to

help shape the story.

Boring is a pretty obvious problem. Consider a character who is “Lucky”

and one who has “Strange Luck”. The latter aspect can be used for just as

many good things as the former, but it also allows for a much wider range

of possibilities.

You’ll also want to have some room for negative results of aspects. This

may seem counterintuitive at first, but remember that every time an aspect

makes trouble for you, you’ll receive a action point, which is a pretty powerful

incentive.

To come back to “Strange Luck”, it means that the GM can throw bizarre,

even unfortunate, coincidences at the character, but you get paid for it. If

this doesn’t seem tempting enough yet, remember that the GM is probably

going to do something bizarre to you anyway – shouldn’t you benefit from

it, and have some say in how it happens?

And that leads to the last point. When the GM sits down to plan an

adventure, she’s going to look over the aspects of the players involved. If

one character has the aspect “Quick” and another has the aspect “Sworn

Enemy of the Emerald Claw”, which one do you think

suggests more ideas for the GM?

Your aspects give you a vote in what sort of game you’re going to be playing

in, so don’t let it go to waste. If nothing else, you have just established that

the Secret Brotherhood of the Flame exists in the setting, and the GM will

probably turn to you for the details.

So in the end, the most powerful aspects are easy to spot, because they’re

the most interesting ones. If you consider that you want an aspect you can

use to your advantage but which can also be used to generate action points,

then it’s clear you will get the most mechanical potency out of an aspect

that can do both. What’s more, aspects that tie into the world somehow

(such as to a group, or a person) help you fill in the cast and characters of

the world in a way that is most appealing to you.

Bottom line: if you want to maximize the power of your aspects, maximize

their interest.