Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Moving Forward - Fun With Aspects (Playstyle)

After so much time speaking about it last week I figured I owed you guys some closure. Last Friday, at the Dresden Files game, we wrapped up the story arc with the werewolves. The end result? Colin went full fae and is leaving the game as a player. This leaves me without a character, so this week I've been spending a lot of time in discussion with my GM (driving him mad) and working on another character. It seemed as good a time as any to make a post on aspects.

The Wrap Up
For those interested. The Werewolf arc ended as follows: the werewolves set a time and date to "settle things" with one of the PCs. The otherPCs assumed this was the battle and all showed up as well. Colin, using some fae trickery and helped by a fellow player, made a play to get the other Coyotes to show up and help out as well. The play worked. Werewolves, russian mafioso, italian mafioso, the players, a loup garou, and a bunch of shape shifting coyotes all showed up for the shindig. A winter storm, made with fae magic, helped make ranged combat even less viable than a pair of wizards hurling magical spells already had and Sparks (the player shape shifter Coyote) armed and armored with fae magic fought the loup-garou and won. Instead of killing the werewolves though, Sparks offered mercy and made peace. How long that peace will last is something the game will have to find out. As for Colin, he headed off into Winter with Liansidhe. He may be seen again, but as an NPC not a player. I wish him the best.

New Character, New Aspects
Going forward though I now have to make a new character, and that means defining the person with aspects. I only have about 3-4 of the 7 set as, coming into the game late, we're going to have my introduction be the character's first story and how the other aspects are defined. Still, that leaves me some room to play with. That room is also going to define how I want to enter this game. How? Well, let's begin.

Play Style, Interaction, and Trouble
One of the things I loved about Colin is that he got to be a big player in other people's stories rather than the focus of the stories.  I loved this because it let me help other people have big moments while I got more smaller moments. I could play a big part, I could make a big play, but I wasn't taking the focus of the game and could help ensure it passed around. This is something that I would like to continue doing, but with a new character I'm also ok with some stories being more focused on myself. So, how am I doing this?

First, the High Concept. My new character is an Emissary of Power. They were chosen to represent someone or some thing. This will mean that the occasional story (or story bit) focuses on my character because there is a sponsor to my power that has a will they want acted upon. In this case I've gone with the Roman goddess Diana. Why? Well, because Artemis/Diana has always been my favorite member of the Greek/Roman pantheon, so why not? Also, I've been on a huge archery kick lately as I get into the sport, so why not? The choice of Diana also helps keep things a bit subtle. Diana wasn't a huge player in the events side of things. She is the goddess of hunting, archery, the moon, the tides. All things that help things along, but she is rarely involved in big events like her brother Apollo or even her father Jupiter/Zeus. It's a good fight.

Second, the trouble aspect. Your Trouble Aspect defines what gets you involved in plots and what makes things in your life interesting. Everyone in a Fate game has one. For Colin it was "With Friends LIke These..." with the idea being that he gets into trouble because of his friends, or interference from his friends. With the new character I need something different, but that still will let me focus on helping others while causing my own mischief at the worst possible times. My response? "I was raised better than this!" The character I'm making has been raised to help people, and to be capable of helping people. They've also been raised to stand for something and not back down from it. It is an aspect that can be tagged to get the character involved on a moral level in a number of situations. It is also one that I can easily compel to get myself involved following up on small leads because of how the character was raised.

Put Them Together
The other aspects I've defined speak more to the character's past and abilities, not the chosen play style. However, these two (High Concept and Trouble) are specifically geared towards the playstyle of the character in question. From the Concept we get a mission, a cause, and a duty to perform. From the second we get a firm moral backing (though what the morals are is in the air) to add some sternness to the character. These make a character who is like capable of taking the show, but also of supporting others when they need it. The transition should be fairly seamless as well when it is needed. Whether that stays true in game or not I'll find out next Friday, but design wise I think I've molded things quite well.

Your thoughts?

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