It is more accurate to say that Aspects reflect their character's narrative. They may reflect back story, or they may not. But they always show what the character's place in the story is, or at least one portion of how they fit the story.

I agree! I also think that an aspect can be the part of the back story or narrative that the GM and the Player actually want to see cropping up while playing the game. 

These aspects offer a dense set of information that informs the entire game table what that character is all about, and what will motivate that character to do something.  The person playing that character uses these Aspects, as does the GM and the other players.

So here's how I compel an aspect.  I'll take an example from play.

Errol the Shaman has the Aspect "Smoldering Bruiser".  The scene is a black tie dinner party, and he's trying to blend in so that he can talk to his estranged ex-girlfriend.

I push forward the fate chip and say to the player... "You're giving off a Smoldering Bruiser vibe, and these sheltered rich folk are getting really nervous".  This is the compel. The Fate is sitting on the table, offered to the player.

The player then has a few choices.  He can take the fate and play up how he sticks out like a sore thumb, his aura of intimidation causing people to be terrified, and further estranging his girlfriend.  He can also spend one of his fate to refuse the compel, saying that he puts on a smile, changes his body language, and acts more like a big teddy bear than a large slavering grizzly. 

Now, be aware that the Compel is not the sole property of the GM.  Players can also self-compel, playing their aspects as a hinderance voluntarily, which would also win them fate points.  In the same situation, instead of the GM coming up with the situation, the player self Compels "Smouldering Bruiser", saying that Errol snarls at a Butler "What the hell are you looking at?" while cracking his knuckles. 

The end result is that the Compel is designed to encourage dramatic and problematic events to in a game session, using a reward system to create incentive for creating or going with said problems.  The big thing to remember is that the Aspects are chosen by the players, and these aspects tell the GM what the Player wants in terms of problems and conflict.  Bringing up situations that are some kind of compel to the character becomes really important. 

For example, you don't want to introduce a damsel in distress storyline unless a character has the aspect "Chivalry to a fault!" or "Sucker for the ladies" or "Big Brother to the Rescue". Without a compel, a player has less motivation to do something.  With a compel, players will go for it for two reasons, because of the fate point reward, and because they indicated with their aspects what they want to see in terms of conflict.

Hey all,

I ran a one shot of the Neutral Grounds Casefile, which was a great time!  I had three players, who played Zack, Martin and Astra. 

We established that Zack dated Diane a year ago, but their relationship didn't go anywhere as Zack was too focused on his magical studies (Aspect: Ain't got time for love).  Diane rebounded with Eric, the abusive drug addict.

Astra had helped Diane break up her poisonous relationship with Eric, and even helped Eric kick his addiction (Aspect: Pillar of the Community).

Martin was currently secretly sleeping with Diane, a casual affair (Aspect: I don't believe in love anymore).

I think the key to Neutral Grounds is for the player characters to care about Diane.  If they don't, the entire casefile fails. We were careful to ensure that each person had a stake in saving her. In addition, Damocles Ravenborn was a kind of silly addition to the casefile, and I'm not really sure he makes any sense being in there. I played him up for laughs (the picture alone prevents anyone from taking him seriously) but the vampire jokes got old about 10 minutes into the game. Erik is the much more interesting Antagonist, and I played him up justifying his actions in the name of love, which in this case, was twisted to obsession.  "I'll make you love me" was an additional aspect I tossed onto him, to customize a bit. 

The overall theme was the open question regarding the strength of the love these characters had for one another, in spite of a Ghoul attack, the Rock demons and finally the climactic battle at the top of an old Fort.  Zack and Eric fought it out, and when Eric was encased in stone, he directed Diane to attempt to kill him.  Astra was given a moment where she realized she could have sacrificed a helpless Eric for his powers over the mind, but managed to resist it (a great Compel refusal!).

When Eric was finally taken out (punched in the face by an an Enraged Astra, which was great), Diane's mind was still locked away. Astra quickly deduced that "a kiss from true love will end the spell of obsession". With that revelation, I handed out two compels to Zack and Martin.

For Zack, I compelled "Aint' got time for love", and he realized, with some degree of horror, that he didn't have any fate left to counter!  He had to admit that though we was fond of Diane, he didn't truly love her.  The player was thrilled, it was a really neat way to show how awesome and terrifying zero fate points really is. 

For Martin, it was "I don't believe in Love anymore".  I tossed the fate out to ask the question, is it still true?  He had a handful of fate left over, and had the option to refuse the compel, to overcome his aspect, to kiss Diane and break the spell. 

We were all waiting to see what he'd do.  The player looked at the fate point, and says "I take her into my arms and kiss her, tenderly."  And then he takes the fate chip and says "Nothing happens".

I cut to Diane sitting in a mental hospital, quietly watching a blank television screen. Her eyes are blank, empty. 

Such wonderful, terrible sadness.

Here's a link to the sketchbook I mocked up, using charcoal drawings I found on the internet.  I wanted it to drop some atmospheric background for the Cranston House, giving the teens some idea of what actually happened. I had them scattered inside of old cupboards, inside of a writing desk drawer, and a few other places.  They really helped establish a bit of the mood!

I have to add my two bits. As one of the players of team Alpha, I have to say it was a blast.

Thank you! Were you the person that played Jaimie? Or were you the one that played Dani? I'm just terrible with names, and the con badges all kind of swam together towards the end. 

You're spot on about rushing it at the end.  I was worried about having a long slot at the con as I was competing with a lot of other events. There was also an hourly smoke break of about 10 minutes, but I actually quite liked the regular breaks for people to go out and use the washroom or stretch their legs. I think it helped maintain the energy levels of the game. When I run it again, I think I would give it a full 4 hours, maybe 5, and really slow it down at the beginning, give people a chance to play their characters.

You reminded me of two things I did.  First off, I actually put together a small set of sketches, grabbing some creepy free charcoal art online, with scrawling writing next to each sketch, for some clues about what was happening supernatural-wise. I then tore it up so that several of the players could find them and do whatever with them.  They weren't essential to the plot, but certainly helpful and very atmospheric.  I figured that in con games, the more tactile stuff you give people, the easier it is to get them into what's going on, and the more they can use this stuff to get more invested into the game.

The second thing I did was crop and print out a blank floor plan.  This was helpful as well, but I think next time I would put it on bigger paper and have a few counters just to keep track of where everyone was in the house.  Some of the players got a little floaty in terms of their relative position, and one person who was upstairs in one room was interacting with people downstairs in another room.  It would just help to establish who was in which position.

I absolutely adore the page with the pictures of every playable character on it.  Both Casefiles do this, and I really hope that future Casefiles do the same.  Slapping that down and saying "who do you want to play?" is excellent, and avoids having people scrutinizing character sheets. 

I'm planning to run this again at another of our local conventions later on in November, with these things in mind.

I had a chance to run the Night Fears Module at a local Convention (Keycon Winnipeg) not once, but twice.  In both games, I had a combination of people I didn't know mixed in with one or two people I did know.  None of them had played Dresden Files before, and before I get into it, the summary of this is that I found Night Fears to be an EXCELLENT teaching resource for how to play the game, and it's great for Con games where time is short and there are competing events of interest going on.

In the first game, I ended up with 7(!) players. Every kid got used, and though I was worried that people would feel a little forgotten in the very loud and energetic table, it actually turned out to be quite fun. The players were enthusiastic and interested, and they bought into the premise of kids exploring a haunted house. I'll call this Team Alpha.

The second game had far less players (4 in total), and far less energy around the table. They were very quiet, and the enthusiasm seemed quite low, and I had the sense that they didn't really like the initial premise. This is going to be called Team Beta.

The questions at the beginning did a great job of establishing initial characterization of the very broad characters. For Team Alpha, they jumped on the questions, and had a ready answer for everything I asked them, and even began a series of excited connections from those questions. The interplay between the three girls was great, because they worked out that Dani and Nicky were friends, and Dani and Jaimie were formerly friends. Jaimie thought that Dani was just social climbing, but the truth was that Jaimie was creepy and codependant, and it was making Dani really uncomfortable.  This added some nuance to the session.  In game, whenever Nicky was trying to be super nice to Jaimie, Jaimie's jealousy kept her surly and distant. This was all talked about after a single question!

Team Beta had to be poked and prodded to get any kind of response. There was a lot of "deer in the headlights" moments with Team Beta, and I had to really hand hold them through the process. Their responses focused on the pictures of the characters. Dani was a popular girl and bitch because "the picture makes her look like that".  They kept wanting to know what the right answer was, even after I repeatedly told them that they were supposed to make it up.

Interestingly, Team Alpha and Team Beta both had very different responses to their questions, which led to very different characters.  In Team alpha, Terry was Zealous and harshly Judgemental to his fellow teens.  In Team Beta, Terry was much more awkward, struggling with temptations of the flesh and guilt ridden that he's spending the night with... gasp... girls!

Team Alpha took everyone, and I got a chance to see what kind of stuff Chris could come up with.  Chris is a neat character, and the player decided it was his mission to get the other players to run out of the house in fear, and then record the whole thing on his little camcorder "For Youtube!".  He told the other teens he had to "use the washroom", and then set up all kinds of noisemakers and other fear based pranks.  In fact, for the first little bit of the game, Chris was doing the Ghost's job for them!  What made it even more funny was that when the ghosts started to make their move later in the night, they kept rolling their eyes and saying "nice try, Chris".  ("Nice Try, Chris" ended up becoming a scene aspect when they discovered some of Chris' traps)

Team Beta took Dani, Nicky, Jaimie and Terry.  Because Terry was the only boy in the house, the player took a "Lead me not into Temptation" aspect, and it was compelled like crazy, leading to Terry holding Dani a little too long when she slipped on some floorboards, and him stealing a glimpse when the girls were cleaning off the disgusting mold that coated their legs in the basement. 

One of the questions that tended to come up in both games is "what does my character have on them?"  I handled this pretty loosely and hand-wavey (you have teen stuff!) but it actually led to a disconnect that ended Team Beta's game on a sour note (Dani pulled out a .45 revolver and started shooting).

In Team Alpha, they actually wrote down what they had on them.  For example, Terry had a Bible, Nicky had a whole list of stuff (one of her aspects was Level Headed, another was Voice of Reason) ranging from power bars to pencils (and a pencil sharpener!), Andy had a six pack of smuggled beer from his dad's fridge (Whenever I addressed Andy, it was either in a voice of his Dad, or as John Madden. "Student of Madden" and "Screw You, Dad" were two of his aspects), and Dani had a bottle of Vodka, stolen from her dad's liquor cabinet ("Daddy's too busy to care" was one of her Aspects). I was uncertain how to handle alcohol, so I just used temporary aspects.

I would advise adding a question of "What are you bringing with you to the Cranston House?" to avoid some of the issues that cropped up in my game.  I also advise that you make very clear that these are (fairly) normal kids, and that they would pack in a manner that would match young teenagers.  I found that with a specific list of what they did and did not have, it went a lot better.  

At any rate, all the players said that they had a great time, and were really enamored with the system.  I quite enjoyed running Team Alpha, and found parts of Team Beta to be ok.  That being said, this game really requires the players at the table to participate, rather than just kind of sit there and expect to get spoon fed the plot.  Though Team Alpha had 7 players, it had 7 players interacting with me and each other and enthusiastic about the premise.  Team Beta's lack of energy and shyness to interact really caused the game to drag considerably.  Again, something else to think about.  

All in all, Night Fears is a great first game of Dresden Files for those looking to try it out, and makes for a really great Con game. The module is highly configurable, what was happening in the house for Team Alpha was very different from the House for Team beta.  The Replayability is pretty high, and I highly recommend trying it out!