Creating (Aspect) Advantages in Conflicts

Question

I'm somewhat familiar with Fate v2, and I recently backed the Fate Core Kickstarter to get an early PDF of the rules.

I have a couple questions concerning "Creating an Advantage" in a Conflict, relating to the Blinded example.

Here's my take on "Creating an Advantage":

On a successful Create Advantage action/roll, this Aspect is essentially permanent until removed by an Overcome action by the person tagged with the Aspect. (On a tie, it's around for one free invocation, but that's it). The person creating the advantage gets one free invocation as long as it's on the target.

Now some questions:

• You can't use the invocation immediately (on the same turn/action), correct?
• If you tie and get a "boost" (temporary Aspect and one free invocation), when must you use that before the Aspect is gone? Immediately? Next round? Whenever?
• Say you've put Blinded on an enemy, and it comes to their turn. They're Blinded but they're going to swing madly at the air hoping to hit you (aka using the Attack action regardless). How do you handle this? Does the PC have to use the free invocation to have them actually affected by the blindness? Does the enemy get a compel? It seems silly to me that if someone is Blinded that they can ignore the effects if no Fate points change hands.
• In the above example, who can compel this Aspect and when? For example, could the enemy begin the Attack action and a bystander PC butt-in and ask for a compel?

Answer 1

I'm assuming you are asking for a strict Fate Core perspective and not any of the other Fate implementations out there.

• You're right, you can't invoke the new aspect in the same action because the aspect comes into play as the result of the said action.

• Tie+boost occurs when you make an attack or overcome action. When you tie in a create advantage action, you get to place the aspect on your target, but without any free invokes. (A normal success gives you one free invocation and success with style gives you two free invocations)

• Yes, you do have to use any free or paid invocation for the aspect to have any effect after the dice are rolled

• … but you can compel the aspect before your opponent rolls the dice, offer a fate point and say that all he does is swing madly at the air.

  As usual, he can take it and do as you say, or give a fate point to you instead and say that he manages to give it a fair shot even though he is Blinded. Even if he decides to refuse your compel, you may still invoke the aspect (free or not) to give him a disadvantage (-2 or reroll)

And don't forget about the interesting nature of compels in a fate game:

• Characters don't compel each other. Players do. Characters are never aware of any exchange of fate points. It's just a twist of "fate" for the characters.
• There are no "free compels"' just free invokes. Compels are always made before a roll, invokes usually come after it.
• Anybody at the table can compel any action by anybody else, before they roll, provided that they have a fate point to offer, and they find a reasonable aspect to explain their alternate story. The aspect can come from any source that may apply, but the fate point goes to the compelled player.

_{PS. I may dig out some page references for these a bit later, stay tuned}