Those last couple bring up a question I have about aspects. The book suggests, in the "GM-driven compels" section on YS101-102, that sometimes there will be plot complication compels that don't really involve character choices. The example given is that the PC's brother shows up beaten and bloody on the PC's doorstep. Being a compel, there is a PLAYER choice involved--the example has the player spend a fate point to avoid the compel and call an ambulance to go deal with more pressing matters. But how often does a situation like this crop up in someone's game not in the form of a compel? Dramatic things happen constantly in games, and I'd think it would feel strange to present them in the form of compels. In other words, I'm not quite understanding how one would utilize compels that don't involve character choice. Here's a fate point to get your character to do something appropriately stupid makes sense, but here's a fate point for something to happen TO you doesn't to me. Anybody have experience doing things this way? And if so, how do you distinguish between compels of this sort and story-driven drama at the table?
Well, like I gave an example, a guy's enemy of the police force is in charge of a crime scene or case would be their ASPECT making life more difficult. The character doesn't make that happen with a choice and probably can't get that undone by any action (not easily anyhow). There's a player choice there potentially where he can say "no, I don't like that" (which can easily be lame, mind you), or say "serendipity means this isn't a problem this time around...he just doesn't see me."
This isn't simply dramatic stuff, it is things that make a
character's life more difficult (and should make a player's life at the table more fun). If someone is trying to kill the character because they are his arch-nemesis, then that's making his life more difficult. Yeah, maybe you don't have a session planned out without this guy going after the character, but that makes it all the bigger of a compel. (That's the sort of compel a player should always accept). This is one reason why a player should be very happy with all of their aspects and how they can be compelled. It is very important that these compels are things they want to see as part of the game story. Ideally, from what I gather of the system, players should be negotiating exactly how to implement a compel a lot, lot, lot more often than buying out of a compel.
If the
player in your OP isn't happy being a shady criminal with the difficulties that entails, for instance, then he should probably be a bit redesigned so he doesn't have to deal with compels along those lines (of course, the character might find it really annoying). Similarly, if we look at Harry as a character, his player should be quite happy with all the compels he gets to shoot his mouth off to annoy people...because that should be the sort of thing the player wants to see and deal with. Similarly, we could imagine Harry with an aspect "Queen Mab is interested in me" later on, and that would mean the player WANTS to deal with the difficulties that entails (and he'll get fate points for those difficulties coming up, even if they are the basis of a session or story-arc).
If a player is often buying out of difficulties from a particular aspect, that's probably a sign they actually don't like it. Someone trying to play a Harry-like character might just enjoy keeping his tongue in check a lot in an actual game, or maybe just prefers blowing Winter to smithereens rather than having deals with them. When something like that comes up, it is a good idea to sit down with the player, look at those aspects, and figure out what they might be replaced with that he would enjoy.
