Aspects represent central strengths of your character. Aspects aren’t chosen from a list; they’re player-defined and used to help describe the character as a person, and define their abilities. They can be used to reflect a character’s heritage and/or non-human species in games where there are options other than human, and can also be used as prerequisites for Special Abilities.
Characters begin with two ranks in Aspects, either divided between two different characteristics or stacked in a single specialization. Whatever Aspects you choose, they will be more effective if they’re backed up with other Characteristics. If you’re Utterly Charming, you should probably have some social skills, and should think about your Connections. If you’re a Practiced Thief, you should probably have the Skills to back that up.
Aspects should be short phrases that are easy to understand. Generally, it should be clear just by reading them what circumstances they should cover. They can imply groups of skills, a career, a general area of expertise, or a variety of other things. An aspect should be at least two words long, but can be a full sentence if they need to be. They should be broad, but not so broad as to apply to every — or even most — situations.
Aspects can look suspiciously like other Characteristics. Something like Damn Strong or Has several Veteran Buddies might look like Traits or Connections respectively, and that’s okay. Aspects are souped-up versions of these things, allowing you to pull an extra Characteristic into a check, and can be used more broadly or with fewer limitations.
- Olympic Gymnast
- Damn good starship pilot
- Veteran Private Detective
- Hard to Kill
- Never Gets Sick
- Ran away from the circus to go to school
- Jaw-droppingly attractive
- Inherited a fortune and a business empire
- Raised by Wolves in the jungles of India
- The last Princess of EverLight
- Driven by Revenge
- Fine Arts Major
- Elvish Archer
- Strong Sense of Honor
- Always avenges an insult
- Has a mechanical heart forged by a Dwarven craft master
Sometimes things change over the course of a character’s lifetime. People get older, or have their priorities shift. When this happens, it might make sense to shift an Aspect.
At any point in a character’s career, if it makes sense, the GM can approve an Aspect Shift. If this happens, it changes to a different but thematically similar Aspect. Practiced Thief might become Security Consultant; Fine Arts Major might become MFA in Poetry, making it even less useful; and so on.
Most of the time, an Aspect Shift should make an Aspect more useful, and less specific. Just because you've gone from Practiced Thief to Security Consultant doesn't mean you've forgotten how to be a thief; instead, you now also know how to apply those skills to help someone beef up their security. You can indicate this on your character sheet by putting the original Aspect in parentheses, followed by the new title, i.e.:
(Practiced Thief) Security Consultant
Aspect Shifts don't require spending Advancements, and are driven instead by in-game events.
Aspects can be pulled into any check where they apply like any other primary Characteristic. Because of their broad nature, they can be used as a Trait, a Skill or a Connection, either supplementing or acting in the place of those Characteristic types.