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The specifics are going to depend on your implementation of Fate, but in Standard Fate (and Fate Core), when you Create an Advantage (or create a temporary aspect), you get a free invocation. I'm going to quote the rule from Fate Core:
Free invocations work like normal ones except in two ways: no fate
points are exchanged, and you can stack them with a ...
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Aspects determine what is important in the scene. Those scene aspects defined when the scene is framed are the ones that the GM deemed to be important in the scene; the ones that add flavor to the narrative.
However, narrative games like fate share the narrative direction with the players. In this particular case, though the GM didn't deem the fact that ...
25
Fate points represent your ability as a player to manipulate the fate of the story. Aspects on your character(or elsewhere) just provide the pretext.
In FATE games, you do not simulate a world. You simulate a story and your skills represent what kinds of stories your character usually gets involved in. With fate points, you as the player get the power to ...
25
It becomes part of the character when it's more important than the other aspects that they have. Something as ephemeral as the Create Advantage action probably won't change a character in such a fundamental way, and (probably) neither will getting an item.
Hmm. Example time:
We've got a character with a couple of aspects:
"Always stand up against bullies"...
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Summary: Negative aspects are easy "push button here" dispensers for Fate points, but spamming that button needlessly is boring at best.
Two things need to be kept in mind: drama, and the Fate point economy. Being stymied or drained of Fate points by the same problem over and over isn't dramatic or interesting, so don't do it. But the Fate points must flow! ...
23
Wraith's answer is absolutely right: Fate is designed to be open and transparent, and revealing aspects is crucial to the players' mechanical viability in the narrative.
Now, DFRPG itself occupies a rather peculiar niche in the Fate paradigm and its narrative style unfortunately led to a lot of engine philosophy being implied rather than stated. So I'm ...
23
You do appear to be missing some stuff here. Here's how I'd handle your situation.
(As a foreword: bear in mind your players and the player characters being unaware of an aspect are two very different things, so you should make sure you distinguish between them.)
Entering the Scene
You said you entered a Forest with a River in it. The forest itself is ...
23
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 ...
20
What Ryan did in that video was suggest that there was an Aspect in the game that wasn't written down but was obviously there based on what was being roleplayed. Wil and the others at the table agreed, and so Ryan compelled the aspect at the same time that he brought it up.
See Creating and Discovering New Aspects In Play
If you’re not looking for a free ...
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Does a good Aspect say one thing? Or more than one thing?
We see in much Fate material the advice that a good Aspect says more than one thing. OK: sort of. It should say one thing and then say more about that one thing. It shouldn't say many things which aren't directly related to each other.
Many wordy drafts of Aspects contain information which don't ...
18
A lot depends on the implementation of Fate/the type of aspect it is, and the story that is being told in the creation of the character.
Type of Aspect
In some uses of Fate, all aspects are the same- no aspect is more important to the creation of the character than the other. In others, there is a High Concept or some aspect that to a large extent defines ...
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One of the problems that I run into with Fate is the preconceived notions of what a GM is, and the role played in other games. Fate is about the story, more than the system, i.e. the story utilizes the system rather than being constrained by it. So, though it may seem that you are letting the players know about something that they do not, what you are ...
18
You start at the beginning: Fate points represent those moments in the fiction when an Aspect of the story becomes prominent. If you're spending a Fate point on "My Father's Sword," it's because the fact that the sword was handed down to you is particularly relevant in this scene. As a result, spending them on the first three swings in combat might not have ...
17
In-fiction awesomeness is more appropriate as a reward than mechanical advantages. Players love to see their characters being awesome. Doing this leverages Fate's essential design, which is to move in a regular oscillation from narration to mechanics and back again. There are mechanical rewards possible, but Fate doesn't provide any guidance for what ...
16
As he attempts to hurdle the beam, you could compel his slash to the calf consequence to make the attempt harder.
That's a valid use, but it's not a compel. It's invoking your opponent's aspect for your roll. (Or for the fixed difficulty.)
A compel would be preventing the leap in the first place...
Player: "I'm going to leap the beam"
GM: holds out fate ...
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It could work. How well depends on the fiction, the player, and you.
I appreciate the thing you're trying to do, and yes, Fate is pretty good at handling these kinds of Aspects. However, in cases like this, you'll want to make sure that everyone agrees what they mean.
Take "Fastest Man Alive," for example. In a real-world kind of game, that might mean you ...
16
In Fate Core you invoke aspects to improve rolls or passive opposition
The Fate Core rules are clear about this. Invoking an aspect is described on FC 68 and gives the following things you can do when you invoke an aspect:
Reroll all your dice.
Pass a +2 benefit to another character’s roll, if it’s reasonable that the aspect you’re invoking would be ...
15
fate is a narrative system. If the narrative for how each character gets these boosts doesn't work, the GM can simply disallow it. It's that easy - no fluent narrative to get all the boosts, and the player doesn't get all the boosts. This is especially important for situations where a player tries to use conflicting aspects or compels. If Bob wants to use ...
15
For resistance to fire:
It's pretty straightforward to use stunts and extras.
Because I am a dragon, I have armor:2 against heat-based attacks.
or
Because I am a dragon, I have +2 to defence rolls against fire.
If you go this route, then stress and consequences you do take will probably represent an attack finally penetrating your resistance. This ...
15
You're gonna have to go to the Fate Core book for the full explanation. Although they don't mention it for this particular case, FAE makes a habit of expecting players to refer to Core for more details on a host of subjects. This is because Fate Accelerated, in order to stay svelte, doesn't talk much about corner cases. Since multiple free invokes on one ...
13
It would simply give you excuses for invokes and compels, based on the aspect text. Nothing less, nothing more.
— Wesroth attacks Quadron using his longsword, with Fighting 3
— Ok but Quadron has a Long Spear, here's a compel for you, this fate point says Wesroth spends this exchange trying to close in with Quadron, struggling to find an opening.
...
13
Fate is more of a toolkit so you can use the tools in it to build game mechanics suited to your intended story atmosphere.
The major tools in Fate are: Aspects, Stunts, Skills, Stress tracks and consequences.
For your specific case, I'd construct a limiting mechanic using a new stress track for the whole mission. Let's call it the Budget stress track. ...
13
There's a couple ways you can handle this. Mix and match as you like; each probably works fine on its own or in conjunction with others.
Use existing mechanics to make stunning more significant.
So your character can impose a condition on someone that significantly debilitates them? We've got a mechanic for that, it's called a "consequence." Perhaps you'd ...
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Aspects are narrative permission, but that doesn't mean that they are mechanical permission. He can narratively make that shield—but mechanically that's Create An Advantage. If Create An Advantage is insufficient, then he needs to pay for a new Stunt that lets him use Will for physical defence.
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Dresden Files is pretty tracking-light compared to D&D; the only character assets that really need tracking are the Stress tracks (which work fine on character sheets) and Fate points.
For my games I've been using the following:
A stack of poker chips for Fate points. This makes it easy to keep the Fate economy moving quickly; I can take them when spent, ...
12
Fate is about narration, not simulation
I think the first thing you have to understand here is that Fate, unlike many other popular rpgs (for example D&D) is about narration, not simulation. So the proper question is not, "What makes most sense in real world terms when someone falls from zone 1 or zone 2?", but rather, "What makes most sense in terms of ...
12
There is no such thing as a weapon (or anything else noteworthy in a Fate game) without an aspect, so invoke away! But see the bottom of my answer for a challenge to the idea you need a numerical bonus (or an action!) at all.
Aspects are explicit statements about implicit narrative truths. This means that everything which is true about your story has an ...
12
As narrative truths, aspects can and influence the story being told. So whatever anyone does at the scene has to take the slimy floor into account. If someone says they are running across the room, just ask them how they are dealing with the slime. Maybe they have high traction shoes so it isn't a big deal, or maybe they want to overcome it with their high ...
11
The best thing to do is write multi-faceted aspects as much as possible, so that they withstand the rigors of a shifting storyscape, including a jittery cast.
In other words, make sure your aspects aren't too focused. Make them implicit if needed. If Bob has Suspicious of Joan as an aspect, redefine it as Suspicious of blondes with a southern accent (...
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DFRPG had mechanics for situations similar to this, and I think you could adapt them easily to Fate Core. Naturally, codifying them into house rules is probably to be avoided, but they're good options to have in mind because they give you an idea of the narrative/mechanical scope that previous Fate systems have expected this kind of thing to produce.
...
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