1. Aspects are not disadvantages or flaws. They CAN be, but they don’t have to be. Good Aspects should do double duty (possibly triple duty), being things that can work for or against you. Christian has the Aspect “You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry.” He pulls that out in combat, and he gets a bonus by spending a Fate Point. I can also offer him a Fate Point to compel the Aspect when he’s questioning a frustrating witness to tell him that he loses his temper.

2. Until you’re out of Fate Points, there is always a choice to refuse a compel by buying it off. Christian can grit his teeth, hold onto his temper, and give me a Fate Point to say that he stays cool.

3. Compels limit your choices when you accept them, but they limit them in the way that you decide is interesting. In the above example, Christian may threaten the witness, which is kind of the easy way out. He may also punch through a wall, or decide that he can’t take any more and leave. All of these things are valid responses to the compel, and earn the Fate Point.

4. The idea is not for the GM to hose the player with his Aspects. THIS IS IMPORTANT! As GM, you can hose the players any time you like, in any way you like. The idea is to use the Aspects to create interesting dramatic scenes, and to reward players for staying true to their characters. If I throw a compel at a character that I know to have no Fate Points left, the end result is that the character acts in accordance with the compel… AND GAINS A FATE POINT. They get a reward, which they can use later to help them out when they’re in a bind. If I’m the kind of GM who throws impossible compels at my players until they have no Fate Points left, and then stop, I’m just a jerk. The whole point is to give players interesting choices to make about their characters. Going back to the example I’ve been using above, let’s say the frustrating witness is a five-year-old child. If I compel Christians “Terrible Hunger…” Aspect, I’m not really giving him a choice – he’s got to buy it off or eat the kid. That’s not a real choice in most games, so I’m just trying to steal his Fate Points. That’s why I would use his anger Aspect: it presents him with a real choice of what to do in play, either give in to the anger and probably at least scare the child, or buy it off.

5. GMs aren’t the only ones able to toss compel your character. You can, as well. Act in accordance with one of your Aspects in a way that limits your character, make a pointed comment to the GM, and collect your Fate Point. So, if Christian were to be in that interview with the child, and his player says to me, “I’m getting really frustrated with the kid, so I’m going to leave the room, because He Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry,” and I nod and toss him a Fate Point.

The point of disconnect comes from people who don’t always see how their Aspects can be used against them. That’s what causes the surprise. With your example of “One Year Clean,” I would probably compel it in situations where you’re faced with either alcohol or something from your past. It wouldn’t force you to drink, but it would force you to deal with the fact that you’re an addict in recovery. On the other hand, you might invoke it for a bonus to willpower (because you’ve been clean for a year) or getting information in the drug scene (because you’ve only been out of it for a year) or creating a rapport with another addict (because you’ve been there).

Aspects tell you what kind of person your character is, but they also tell the GM what kind of complications you want in the game.

But I don’t want to burn through my fate points like candy, and I definitely don’t want the character to start drinking not because I chose to accept a compel, but because I didn’t have the fate point to buy it off. I guess what I really want are guidelines for how often an aspect can be compelled, and an out so there is always a choice regardless of current fate point total.

Part of this I guess would be handled in character creation by talking to the GM/ST/(whatever the dresden idiom is). I guess the aspects are more open ended than the flaws I’m used to as well. So you could accept a compel on “One Year Clean” to go on a rant how alcohol ruined your life.

Seems I’ve somewhat answered my own concern, but I’d like to hear your response.

It didn’t seem to diminish the players’ fun; it was just a new concept to a lot of them. As for Team Player/Playing the Character, that’ll vary based more on players than on system, I find. My players tend to look on the compels as opportunities to have the spotlight shine on them for a few seconds, but more as a way to introduce character-based drama and conflict into a scene, and to give themselves interesting obstacles to overcome.

I find it interesting that Rowan couldn’t manage the circle properly. I thought she was a finesse caster.

*Man, I have had some bad experience with that, lately. :p

As for the monstrous compels, I didn’t find it an issue; I loved it. It just surprised the players a little. Three specific incidents:

1. Rowan makes her magic circle and can’t control the energy, getting a circle that glows as bright as the sun. I toss a Fate Point to Elaine’s character, compelling her Bite Marks Aspect, and say, “Too bright. It’s going to burn you unless you get out of there.” She was stunned for a second or two, trying to figure out how to get out of that, until I said, “Either run away, RIGHT NOW, or give me a Fate Point back to buy off the compel and tough it out.” She looked at her pile of Fate Points, made a sad little face at me, and Elaine ran out of the house. A good moment, good play, but it caught her off guard to see how the Aspects coupled with a low Refresh Rate to make you accept compels.

2. Legion dropped his human guise to fight against the shadowy hunter spirit, letting the demons he contains give him his strength and claws and such. At the end of the fight, I tossed him a Fate Point, compelled his Demons of the Flesh Aspect, and said, “The boys want to play some more. They don’t want you to force them back inside yet.” After a bit of an internal struggle, he took the Fate Point, and vanished out into the night to give the demons a good run. Again, I don’t think he was quite ready for the way compels work with such a low Refresh Rate.

3. On Monday night, Christian was fighting an ogre. He broke off for a second after getting tossed into a tree to look around to see how his comrades were doing, so I tossed him a Fate Point and said, “You’ve already used the Aspect You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry. You’re still angry, and all you care about is tearing the ogre apart.” He thought for a second, looked at the single Fate Point he had left, and said, “Okay. I grab him and try to tear him open along the spine.”

It made for an interesting dynamic, making players choose to play up their characters’ disadvantages in believable, interesting ways. It’s one of the things I like most about Fate games.