Using Aspects Against Players

[Drachasor]

Yes, I agree with that last part. If it bothers someone, they should be using a situational modifier. But, I disagree that you're making a choice to suspend disbelief that a brightly lit hallway is just as easy to sneak down. The GM is using a currency to say that "you can't get the drop on the guard, because I see you in the brightly lit hallway +2." But, the guard hasn't seen anything until after the roll. And the aspect is just providing a bonus to that roll. It's not a question of easier or not. Aspects are not creating a model of the world, they're influencing a dice roll. The results of which will determine the direction of a narrative. Until the contest is determined and a winner decided, we can't say if this particular guard was snuck up upon or not, and the fiction will inform us as to how hard or easy it was. All we know is he is in a brightly lit hallway and we know that brightly lit hallways tend to make sneaking hard. If the guard wins, than dammit that brightly lit hallway really fucked up the PC. But, if the PC wins, they managed to get the drop on the guard despite all those lights and you can narrate how damn hard it was to sneak up on the guard.

Depends on the person.  Some people can watch a show where someone makes a hole in the event horizon of a black hole and have no problem with it, whereas another person might cringe in intellectual horror.  What falls under the willing suspension of disbelief varies from person to person, and so it will vary from group to group.  So for some people the "despite all those lights" will be fine, and for others it will be something they just can't take seriously.

Ideally, everyone in a group can find a good compromise where everyone is happy.  Ideally there's a middle ground between the extremes of complexity/realism (for a given game) and simplicity/abstraction at a given gaming table.

I agree with Sinker that for a new GM in general, going with what is straight out of the book is definitely best.  Complexity can be added later once the core rules are well understood if desired.  Someone new to GMing Fate is probably best getting used to aspects to start even, before adding fractals, since it is a pretty unique concept/mechanic (imho).

[TheMouse]

It's actually funny you should mention this particular example because this has been asked of Fred. His response was that yes, you can use ongoing/environmental damage to represent that, but it's boring and not remotely the way he would do it. It has a mechanical effect (which only serves to put a time limit on an encounter) but no relevance to the narrative at all. However if you use an aspect it's dynamic, capable of many many things (falling debris, heat, damage, forced movement, tactical considerations, etc) but most importantly it's relevant to the narrative. The story changes because someone has to react to the fire, or the fire narrows (or creates) options. Additionally it's not all encompassing. Sometimes the hero's not on fire. When we read and write stories how often is someone in a burning building and then doesn't burn to death (or even get burned). Regularly. Having an aspect means that it can effect the outcome, however sometimes it also doesn't, and you can't say that of ongoing/environmental damage (well, I suppose you can, but it's not as intrinsic to the concept).

Yes, but none of this helps the many people I've seen who want a burning building to cause people to take damage. They want walking through a fire to, well, burn. They want stress to be inflicted and Consequences suffered.

For those people, Aspects aren't the answer.  Which was my initial point. For those people -- and sometimes I'm one of those people -- environmental damage is the answer.

Really, to get back to my thesis regarding Fate in general, there's a sliding scale.

Some people want all Aspects, all the time. Hell, I wrote an Aspects only version of Fate which literally features no stats of any kind that are not Aspects. (Okay, there's a Stress track, but that's really only to time the arrival of Consequences, which are after all Aspects.) For such individuals, it's totally fine that the fire does nothing if fate points don't change hands.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who would prefer to have more traditional systems with some storygame stuff on the side. Their fun really needs the fire to burn, darkness to make hiding easier, etc. Fate points changing hands for baseline stuff like this kills it for them.

And, of course, there's the representative portion of Fate players falling somewhere in the middle.

So, when you say that there's a particular right answer (and I'm not necessarily saying that you are right now), you cut out everything else. Saying that you should always use an Aspect cuts out everyone who would have more fun with an environmental hazard. Saying that you should always handle it with an environmental hazard cuts out the people who would have had more fun with Aspects. There's room for both, and it really comes down to personal decision.

[noclue]

What falls under the willing suspension of disbelief varies from person to person, and so it will vary from group to group.

Well, sure. But my point is that the game is saying "the player may spend a FP for a +2 to their roll, when an Aspect is relevant." It's not saying "if no FP is spent, the characters ignore the aspect." It's not a matter of suspending disbelief at all, because we're not being asked to believe the impossible. We're not being asked to believe that there is no difference between sneaking in a bright hallway vs. a dim one. We're being asked to believe that the player can't get a +2 unless he spends a fate point.

Look at it this way:

We're in a burning building full of pillars. There's smoke and flames everywhere. I shoot at you through a wall of smoke and blistering heat. But, I miss and the bullet careens off a nearby pillar. What happened mechanically? We don't know. Three examples:

I roll my Guns and get a 7, you roll your Dodge and get an 8. I miss.
I roll my Guns and get a 7, you roll your Dodge and get a 6, but you Invoke "smoke" for a +2. I miss.
I roll my Guns and get a 7, you roll your Dodge and get a 6, but you Invoke "smoke" for a +2. I invoke "blistering heat" which drives you out into the open where I can get a clear shot, +2. But you invoke "lots of Pillars nearby" that screen you from the shot for another +2. And I miss.

The roll is determining if you get hit. The aspects are determining how high we roll in the contest to determine if you get shot. What is not being determined is the percentage chance of hitting you in a room full of smoke and fire and pillars.

As long as we believe it is possible to shoot someone in that room, there's no suspension of disbelief. There's just an adjudication of the outcome using dice and a bidding process.

And yes, if this is still a problem. There is always the environmental modifier.

[Drachasor]

The willing suspension of disbelief comes in when you consider the probabilities involved and how they change with regards to aspects.  These are significant, but they bother some people a lot and others not at all.  And of course, like Mouse said, fractals can do things that can't otherwise be represented by aspects, like environmental damage.

[Watson]

If a player character was trying to sneak past security into a BRIGHTLY LIT hallway (in case there are not really any places to hide), I would compel that aspect and say that sneaking in a futile and the guard would spot him automatically. If the player pays off the Fate Point, I would let the guard look the other way and allow the character to roll his Stealth against the guards Alertness.

[noclue]

@Watson that brings us back to the OP, which was essentially how to do that if the guard is a nameless NPC and has no FP for the compel. A GM compel on the Aspect, with a straight roll if they buy it off works fine for me. Someone else might apply a situational modifier to the roll, which still works.