Despite all of my experience in Fate, there is one thing that still boggles my mind: Aspects provide narrative rules about what you can and cannot do. A person who is tied to a chair cannot attempt to run away before they untie themselves and remove that aspect. However, I distinctly recall the writing in one of the books also explicitly suggesting that you could attempt to run away, and if you succeed, implicitly you must no longer be tied up anymore, so that aspect vanishes.

I don't really know how to reconcile that. That says "aspects can say what you can and can't do, until you do the thing despite them".

@doppelgreener I think it's quite simply that sometimes, getting free is part of another action rather than an action all on its own, depending on the narrative permissions of the character.

If the Flash is tied to a chair, Barry can just use an overcome check to Run away. Being tied up may add +2 or +4 to the check, but he doesn't have to spend an overcome action just to remove the aspect.

However, if Captain Cold has trapped the Flash in a block of ice, Barry's gonna have to spend at least one action--probably more--to get out of that before he's going anywhere.

So, I guess that's another example of not letting the mechanics get in the way of the narrative by insisting that the only way to get rid of an aspect is to use a dedicated overcome action, if the story implies some other way to do it.

That last bit made me laugh. Thanks for your insight @BESW

[grin]

Another example: if you rock the chair over to the edge of the balcony and fall off, chances are when you land the chair is smashed and you're free. Also probably injured unless you're super awesome, but them's the breaks.

Pun intended.