Assessments

Assessments
Assessments are a special kind of simple action used for determining a target’s aspects. This target could be another character (PC or NPC), a particular scene or location, an object—basically, anything that could potentially have an aspect on it. Most of the time, you use an assessment in order to set up some kind of future advantage to exploit later, such as using Burglary to case an establishment for vulnerabilities before breaking into it, or using Empathy to figure out a good tactic to make a good impression on a dignitary at a Red Court ball. The skill descriptions mention which skills are most suited for assessment actions, but a creative player could probably think of a few more (“Oh, I have Weapons. Can I assess his fencing style and look for weaknesses in his form?”).

  When making an assessment, state what kind of information you want to assess, and the GM assigns a difficulty to the attempt. If the target is a character, she might decide the difficulty is equal to one of the character’s skills, like using the dignitary’s Resolve as the difficulty for the Empathy roll mentioned above. If the target is a location, the GM assigns whatever difficulty she feels is appropriate, with a default difficulty of Average. If the target is somehow aware of the assessment attempt, the GM might even treat the assessment like a contest and have the target roll his skill against the assessing player.

  When you succeed at an assessment, the GM reveals an aspect of the target, allowing your character to interact with it as per the rules in Interacting with Aspects.



Guessing Aspects
Sometimes, because of the way the GM roleplays an NPC or due to some other factor, you might be able to make a specific guess as to what aspects a character might have. (You might correctly guess that a Mafia bodyguard has a Hot Temper, for example, because the GM is playing up that NPC’s impulsiveness.) The GM can skip the assessment roll if you’re right—it means you’re paying attention and keying in, and that’s always a good thing. Also, don’t worry about being too exact about phrasing—say you guessed Quick to Anger instead; that’s in the ballpark, so it should work. Of course, sometimes you’d rather save your action and spend a fate point to make a guess about a character’s aspects, and that’s okay too. See Discovering Aspects for more details on guessing aspects.