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I'm pretty enthusiastic about trying out Fate (Accelerated variant), but I have some questions about how to handle aspects.

  1. Can aspects have superposition?
  2. Can attacks have aspects?

  • Example 1: I am casting a spell that is "Fire based" on a Troll that is "Vulnerable to fire." Does that mean that I've got 2 aspects to invoke? If one of these aspects was gone, other one would not be applicable.

    The more I think about this, the more I see it in everything. Maybe attacks can't have aspects (I don't see why not).

  • Example 2: If a room is "Full of spiders" and my character has "Arachnophobia" do I get double penalized on the same grounds? It seems to me that the only way some aspects would work is if they have a compatible aspect to have superposition with.

Does this mean that in any situation you can actually spend double the Fate points to achieve something, or not?

Is there some part of the rules that address this superposition or have I missed something?

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    \$\begingroup\$ I have edited your question to organize it, format it, and correct a number of word and spelling errors. Please review the edit and if what you mean has not been preserved, edit the question again to make it more clear. Welcome to RPG.SE. Please take the tour and visit the help center to get an idea how this Q&A site works. Thanks for your question, and happy gaming! \$\endgroup\$ Sep 26, 2016 at 12:28

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Attacks do not usually have Aspects. Casting a Fireball (or whatever) usually just means rolling your Magic skill (or whatever you're using) and you can tag the Troll's "Vulnerable to Fire" aspect. You could also tag your own "I am good at Fire Magic" aspects to double up on it, though.

It will cost 2 Fate points to do both, but in this case you can indeed get a double bonus. This is because there are, genuinely, two things that emphasize why burning the troll is going to work: you're good with Fire and it's vulnerable to it.

For your second suggestion, if there are the Aspects of "A room full of spiders" and "Arachnaphobia" in play then that doesn't automatically mean you can tag both to get a double bonus.

The reason is that you need to explain why the Aspect you tag is helping you succeed. While your opponent could tag "Arachnaphobia" and point out that there are spiders present that are distracting you, it doesn't work the other way around.

Your opponent cannot point to the presence of the spiders and then say it's making your life harder because of your Arachnaphobia, because "the roomful of spiders" is not the thing making your life harder in this case. Your Arachnaphobia is; but he already tagged that. In order to really tag the "roomful of spiders" aspect, he would have to actually use the room or the spiders themselves; ie by pointing out that you will fail to find the Key of Opening Plot Relevant Doors because the cobwebs are blocking your vision, or that you can't pick the Lock of Relevance because the poisonous spiders will bite you.

The key is to look at the specific Aspect and ask "how is this Aspect influencing the situation?". "Fire based" and "Fire vulnerable" for example are not dependent on one another; you can still fireball a human (who isn't "vulnerable to fire" the way a Troll is), it just won't be as easy to tag anything for a bonus.

Likewise; a non-Arachnaphobic person might still be hindered by a room full of spiders. They won't be as easy to hinder by the mere presence of spiders, and they won't be hindered as much, but the physical presence of a bunch of potentially poisonous, web-spinning creatures might still bother them.

If you want to tag beyond the specific vulnerability, you need to make it clear how even a non-vulnerable person would be hindered and then tag the generic aspect. If you just want to point out the vulnerability, you just spend a single point and point out the vulnerability.

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As far you can justify the use and you have Fate Points enough and you didn't use them before into a specific check, you can stack as many Aspects you have, paying 1 Fate Point/each.

For Compels, I don't think it would be impossible to Compel multiple Aspects at the same time, the PC receiving 1 FP/Compel. But (a) I don't think this is a good sport and (b) it would be a penalizing way, specially considering a Double Compel

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Did you leave (b) half finished? It sounds like you stopped halfway through. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 7, 2016 at 21:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ Okay... I don't think it would be needed to used more than an Aspect to Compel, because the Double Compel system: if the player don't want to be compelled, he needs to pay 1 FP for you to refuse the compel. However, you can raise the stakes and offer 2FP if you think the Aspect compel really apply at that moment. If the player wants to refuse again, he needs to pay 2FP. So, you can always raise the stakes and Double Compel a specific Aspect instead of Compel more than one Aspect \$\endgroup\$ Mar 28, 2017 at 17:14

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