Remembering When to hand out Fate points

[KnightKD]

Okay, our group has been playing for several sessions now and I am the GM. No matter how much I think on it, I can't figure out a good way to remember everyone's aspects and hand out fate points at the appropriate time! We're all new to the system, which means we're already interrupting the flow of the story enough by hunting down rules, if I'm constantly reviewing all the 3x5 cards I have with everyone's aspects, it just seems to be too much. The other players aren't doing much better at self-compels.

It's not so much that character aspects aren't coming up, it's just that we're not noticing them as such. My group is pretty good about staying in character, they're just not good about remembering when staying in character should garner them fate points.

Right now I'm thinking that we'll just have a wrap-up at the end where we can look over what happened during the session, point out aspects that "got compelled" and I'll hand out fate points for next session. This will work, but if someone's low on points at the beginning of a session, they have no real hope of gaining any for use during the current session. Not a perfect solution by any means.

Does anyone have any good secrets to keeping the fate points flowing?

[Aminar]

Honestly, just roll with it.  My party still barely gets any fate points(They get plenty of virtual ones from my running average of -2 on the dice rolls anyway.)(They've started calculating the average of my rolls.  Its bad)

Take time to build up familiarity with the characters and when they show an exceptional bit of roleplaying, shooting themselves in the foot, etc, give them a fatepoint.  I often hand out a few after scenes are done based on how things went.  As long as the players are having fun the rules don't need to be followed perfectly.

[sinker]

Honestly I'd just lean hard on your players. They're the only ones at a disadvantage in this situation (ok, kinda not but whatever) so they can step it up and ask for fate points.

The other thing that I've seen work is to really model it yourself. Bring in some NPCs and plan to compel them regularly. When the players start seeing piles of fate points over there they'll start asking for them.

[arthurfallz]

Here's a few suggestions that might help;

1) Make each player write, in nice legible letters, their aspects and display them on a tented card in front of where they're sitting on the table.
2) Read their aspects when you're not running game. Focus on how / when you could bring them up. Design a few situations to compel them. The more you use them, the more you'll get used to them.
3) Pay lots of attention when the players use their aspects. Make sure they invoke their aspects by speaking the name of the aspect aloud. Make sure their aspects are awesomely worded so that they are memorable.

Hope that helps