Why Seven?

[Wyntonian]

So, as practice in aspects and how they work, I've been trying to give them to fictional characters. One of the pits I run into is that a lot of the time, seven aspects just isn't enough.

That lead me to another question. Why do we have seven? Does it hurt the game if you go with six or eight? Could a game with just four or five aspects be easier for new players?

Has anyone tried a game with a non-standard number of aspects?

[Vargo Teras]

The more Aspects, the less each Aspect comes up. Seven almost seems too many, to me; running a FATE pulp game with seven aspects, half of the players had aspects they'd never used over the course of three or four months of gaming. I'd certainly never go as high as Spirit of the Century's ten; something's going to disappear into the cracks. Five might be manageable for less experienced players; I definitely saw a correlation between general roleplaying skill and the number of aspects that were used frequently.

[Sanctaphrax]

Some games have more Aspects per character, some have less.

Diaspora has 10, Spirit Of The Century has 10, DFRPG has 7, Fate Core has 5. Dunno about other games.

Different people prefer different Aspect numbers, so mod away. Nothing will break.

[Taran]

Well, I find the aspects help define your characters personality.  So the seven, to me, is just kind of a natural progression through the characters life, I suppose.

The seven doesn't seem like too much. It's true that some don't get used but overall the good ones get used and the bad ones get changed at milestones for ones that are better.  Over time, you have a good balance of aspects for different situations: combat, social, investigation/awareness...those being the big three I can think of - or at least I try to have aspects that help me in all those areas.

Personally, I wouldn't go with more than seven because there are also campaign aspects, scene aspects and temporary aspects that can be added on where appropriate.

Yeah, and what Santaphrax said.

EDIT:

The biggest challenge for me is coming up with aspects that encompass multiple dimensions of a phase.  So if your character is 200 years old, his background aspect might have to cover a lot of ground.  So sometimes it's tempting to want multiple aspects for a phase, but the key is to make the aspect broad enough encapsulate everything and still have it say what you want it to.

This may be why it's a challenge aspecting fictional characters. 

Also consider that fictional character with lots of experience have changed.  If you look at Harry's 7 aspects in the first book and compare them to the aspects he might have in the 13th, there will probably be significant Changes.  If you're trying to put aspects on Harry that encompass all 13 books, it will be very difficult.

It might be easier to take a character and break them down into "X" chunks and make an aspect for each.

[fantazero]

I'm the opposite, 7's too many. Fate Core has 5, that's prefect

[Crion]

Some games have more Aspects per character, some have less.

Diaspora has 10, Spirit Of The Century has 10, DFRPG has 7, Fate Core has 5. Dunno about other games.

Different people prefer different Aspect numbers, so mod away. Nothing will break.

What Sanctaphrax said.

7 can be a lot, and it is rare when an arc would go by and we even touch 3-4 Aspects per character, much less all 7. In fact, in my current campaign, I don't think I've even HIT all 7 on ANY character yet. . .

That being said, it won't break the game to have less. I think they went with 7 for the numerology aspect that gets brought up from time to time in the Dresdenverse (as it's a number of power and all that).

In a side game I run, I have everyone with 5 Aspects (as per Fate Core) with the "addition" of "Story Aspects" that last as long as necessary, mostly for side things (like small reputation boosts and whatnot). That seems to have gone over well, as the "unimportant" Aspects hit "story" level and only come up as needed.

[Mr. Death]

In the games I've run, most of the problem the players have had trouble with for aspects was coming up with all seven. A lot of times, I'll let them start the game with 5 or 6, and decide on the others as the game goes on or at the next milestone.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I prefer seven. It's better to have a couple that don't carry their weight-- as long as it's not too many-- than to not have enough to really describe your character.

[InFerrumVeritas]

When we started our game, seven was way too many.  We started with 5 (high concept, trouble, three regular aspects).  We added aspects as we played, slowly building up our characters.  Now everyone has 7, and they all come up.  But we've been playing the same game with the same characters for a couple years now.

For a new game, I'd probably go with 3-5 at the start of character creation, depending on how new the players were.  By the end of the first session of play (after city and character building), I'd want everyone to have 5.  Then add one at the next major milestone, and one more at the second major milestone.

[gantrakk]

At a guess it is seven because it is a slightly arbitrary number that fit in to the not too few but not ridiculously too much range that fit thematically with the source material, what with the seven laws of magic, seven deadly sins, seven heavenly virtues.