How does adding Aspect Scope in Dresden Files change the feel of the game?

Question

I was listening to a podcast for Diaspora, and they were talking about aspect scope. Basically, in Diaspora, this sets scope on the Aspects available, and only one Aspect per scope can be used on any roll. The scopes are pretty self-explanatory - personal, opponent, environment, etc... from the SRD:

You may only tag one Aspect on each related scope per roll:

• one Opponent Aspect
• one System Aspect
• one Scene Aspect (if one exists)
• one Zone Aspect (if one exists)
• one Ship Aspect (if a ship is relevant)
• one Campaign Aspect (if one exists)
• one Ally's Aspect

In addition, any number of free-taggable Aspects from any scope may be tagged and don’t count against your tagging limit (that is, you can tag two free-taggables at zone scope and still tag a third if there is one for the usual fate point cost).

But this seems to solve a problem that I've been having- players are only using the obvious, instead of playing with the environment, i.e. I have 3 aspects that can apply, and 3 fate to use, so why look any further? It seems like this would make assessments and such more prevalent, as they search for weaknesses of their opponents.

Has anyone either (a) played Diaspora with scoped aspects or (b) tried this with The Dresden Files? How does this change the tone of the game?

Answer 1

I've played Spirit of the Century with scoped aspects. Players still use only the obvious, but do so in a different manner. They'll grab the most obvious opponent aspect, the most obvious character aspect, and if desperate the most obvious zone or scene aspect.

Anything past that is almost always an auto-success... as there's no "diminishing returns" function on aspects... and +6 is most likely going to be a success for anything, and +8 almost always gets anything the GM hasn't flatly said "no" to.

It does require that players either maneuver to set aspects on zone and scene, or the GM narrate some, or both.

Keep in mind: the Aspect/Fate economy puts everything into the realm of "Can I link enough aspects and pay the fate to use them"... failure only happens because either the player accepts it, isn't creative enough with aspects, or can't afford to spend the fate.

Answer 2

I think this would really limit what aspects character could tag, and possibly make things less interesting and potentially more difficult. Here's a list of aspects that I can think of that would be taggable.

• Character aspect (self)
• Ally aspect
• Opponent aspect
• Environment aspect
• City aspect

This really narrows down the aspects that they could use in any given situation because they might not always have allies around, have environment aspects that work, or even be in a city. Also opponent aspects aren't always known so those are tricky.