Wow, I'm surprised. [...]@Harboe [...] how you manage to do so many compels?
Whenever there's a lull in the action, I mentally run through a list of whatever aspects they have that I can remember and try to compel the most interesting ones.
Having a member in the group who has "Peacekeeper" and another with "Drawn to Battle" has led to some great moments.
Also, when I write the adventure, I try to add in notes saying "here, you could compel X using Aspect Y for some fun results."
I'm of the opinion that, much like the spice on Arrakis, the Fate Points
must flow.
Can you give some examples?
When the PCs (more or less) had to defeat a particular ice giant, I compelled the honourable nature (I forget the name of the aspect) of one character. The player got what I was trying to do and rather than have a big fight between everyone, he challenged the giant to a single combat, using only their swords.
It led to an awesome fight, by the way with (IIRC) a total of 16FP having been spent during that scene (a couple previous to the fight, most during).
When the Red Court and the White Council were scheduled to meet to discuss a truce, a (self-)compel on one characters
Peacekeeper and the others
Drawn to Battle led to a great in-character discussion of whether they should try to help the peace talks (saving innocent lives in the process) or try to sabotage them (so that their own personal vendetta against the Red Court wouldn't be squashed by the, now, full attention of the local Red Courts).
I must be misunderstanding compels. Right now I'm using them mostly to lure characters into action and that's not needed very often.
I think it's the intent that characters should be lured into action or inconvenienced by compels. I see it as a "Take an awesome point for moving the game in the right direction" deal.
I'll compel for:
- Stuff that complicates matters.
- Things that makes things more interesting.
- Things that are awesome.
- To keep the game moving.
Do you use many compels mid-battle?
No.
It hasn't really come up, to be honest. Our resident mass-murderer is perfectly happy killing things. Our resident Believer/Knight is mostly trying to stay alive and destroy the occasional Red Court (but never without provocation) and our weremonkey mostly just annoys and disorients enemies in combat.