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Here is a little teaser from the inside of the Free RPG Day book:

What is Aspect?

Aspect is a breakthrough in fantasy gaming.

Aspect uses the same mechanics for the three Aspects: physical, social, and mental combat. An encounter can focus on one or two or all three aspects. Even a character that is wholly focused on social or mental combat can be effective in a physical encounter, provided they have some physical backup.

Aspect uses a point buy system. Make your character as flexible or focused as you want and never worry about falling behind (or being overpowered) because you multiclassed.

Your race matters as much as you want it to. Halfling warrior, dwarf wizard, giantkin rogue – these are all viable characters in Aspect. Your race makes you eligible for race-specific talents and powers but doesn't pigeonhole you.

Aspect has 16 gentle races as well as a hybrid system for making half elves and other race combinations. Humans, gnomes, dragonkin, catten, foxen, leonen, lizaren, desert elves, high elves, wood elves, halflings, and more are all ready to play in the Aspect Core Rulebook.

Aspect has power sets. Aspect has artificers in mechanized armor, elementalists, demonologists, necromancers, chronomancers, tacticians, sages, chaos mages, shapeshifting druids, preachy pastors and much more in addition to the classic mages, priests, rogues, and warriors. With 40 power sets to mix and match containing nearly 1000 powers, 350 talents, and over 100 rituals, you'll make the character you want to play.

Attack powers aren't just for combat. Fire powers allow you to create a dim light or set some logs aflame. Wind and Force powers let you levitate light objects. Cold powers can freeze water to bridge raging rivers. Keywords give your powers extra utility out of combat.

The five universal attacks mean your character can contribute to combat in any aspect even if you don't buy powers.

Everything is at-will in Aspect. Nothing is limited to once per day or once per encounter: fireballs, demon summoning, mighty blade attacks, and even healing are limited only by the amount of time they take to execute.

Aspect is a balanced system with 9 unique combat roles. We did all the complex math to make sure every power in the game is balanced against the others so you don't have to.

Stances let you adjust your role in combat, gain temporary powers, tweak your defenses, damage, and more. Every power set has one or more unique stances designed for that set.

Powers automatically fit your combat role. For example, a power that deals damage and defends nearby allies will do more damage if you are a Striker and give better defense if you are a Defender. This scaling is handled only once, when you pick the power.

Encounters are easy to design and manage. Following monster budgets, you can challenge the players without leaving serious lasting marks or make a tough boss battle they will have to recover from. This is because health is split into two separate pools: scratches that heal easily and wounds that are much harder to heal.

Monsters are simple to make. Building monsters uses the same point buy system as player characters. Not only does monster making feel familiar, but they can use anything a player can. Because powers scale, they adjust to fit the monster's difficulty grade and combat role.

Pick up your copy of the Aspect Core Rulebook online at: http://www.StoneTabletGames.com

I just finished my read through of the Aspect free RPG day adventure. I am excited and intrigued by this game! The fact that it is so similar to the d20 system makes it easy to learn, but the changes made are extremely refreshing and look to be a lot of fun to try out. I've been a big fan of D&D since I started playing rpgs about 16 years ago, however superpowers have always held a special place in my heart and this game looks like it would satisfy both of my cravings! As soon as I read through Vilpa's character sheet, I immediately wanted to see the other elemental schools and try an Avatar: the Last Airbender type of game. There are so many differences between this game and the d20 system that I would love to comment on because they seem fantastic, but I don't want this post to go on and on forever.

Bottom line is I will definitely be requesting this book through my local game shop. Funds are quite low right now due to the economy, but this book is definitely on my purchase list (or possibly my birthday request list if I can't get my funds together before then )

Thanks for such an interesting game system! I'll be on pins and needles until I can get my copy...

I'm fond of the Elementalist power sources myself, having built several characters centered around those powers and talents.
I'm also really pleased at how well the Aspect framework can be used for themes beyond medieval fantasy, and not feel shoehorned into doing so.
Glad you liked what you've read, and there's more good stuff coming!

Maybe I'm overlooking it, but I can't seem to find the rules for Critical hits in the quickstart adventure. It mentions them several times and I noticed that certain powers have additional effects on a crit, but what are the rules you use for critical hits? Double damage or max damage, or something else?

A critical hit, unless otherwise specified by the power, is max damage.

Oddly enough what sold me is how easy it is to simulate terrible frustration

(i.e. a character in your party decides to forge a sword... fails many Handy rolls (active skill checks), but insists on retrying until he finally becomes mentally defeated...)

Looking forward to getting my copy of the game, then I just need players...

*laughs* That's hilarious. Try not to frustrate your players too much!

Kaleb7 wrote:Oddly enough what sold me is how easy it is to simulate terrible frustration

(i.e. a character in your party decides to forge a sword... fails many Handy rolls (active skill checks), but insists on retrying until he finally becomes mentally defeated...

Yeah, the damage from skill failure was originally intended to easily handle badly failed climb checks and such, but we love how well it works with absolutely everything else like trying to persuade someone (gak, I made a terrible social faux pas, so now I take social damage).

It adds extra tension to really tough skill checks in time-limited situations instead of just allowing someone to fail over and over with zero consequence. Of course in a leisurely setting, the character can rest off scratches between checks, but that just means they have to take more time, and there are often OTHER ill effects (such as in Here There Be Demons' final encounter).

Heather Gunn wrote:Yeah, the damage from skill failure was originally intended to easily handle badly failed climb checks and such, but we love how well it works with absolutely everything else like trying to persuade someone (gak, I made a terrible social faux pas, so now I take social damage).

It adds extra tension to really tough skill checks in time-limited situations instead of just allowing someone to fail over and over with zero consequence. Of course in a leisurely setting, the character can rest off scratches between checks, but that just means they have to take more time, and there are often OTHER ill effects (such as in Here There Be Demons' final encounter).

It also prevents the group where everybody makes a skill check to increase the chance of success. Roll the dice only when it matters. If you count too much on it, it will backfire at some point.

Great take on the D20/4th Ed mechanics. I can also see how to make better skill challenges. No more that many successes before the failures, the first side with it's reserve depleted will lose. It reminds me a little of the Heroquest system with the bids and pools of points from the players trying to defeat the pool of points of the opposition. Whether it was fighting, rhethoric or pursuit.

I have several questions about Aspect.

1) What differences will there be between the current Beta version and the final product? Will it just be the erratas included or will you add some content?

2) What about the setting for Aspect? There is little information in the Beta version, so I'm kinda hoping that the final version will ad more information. After all Aspect seems to be more than just a game system. Maybe will it be in another supplement...

3) Which brings me to the future of the game! What do you see for the future of Aspect? Modules, splat books with powers, setting, a campaign/adventure path? I know you haven't finished the core book and you have no idea of how well it will work, but you must have a plan. Something you will want to do with that game

4) Do you think Aspect would do well to play pure Dungeon Crawling adventure (dare I say Mega-Dungeons...) ? Or is it more geared towards Sword and Sorcery ? After all, the heroes are almost at the peek of their capacity. Except for magic, their attributes won't raise (they will just shift), their powers won't be more potent (except with the little boost of some talents)... So we are not really in the epic fantasy like with D&D. So what do you run with Aspect? That could be another post in you Dev Notes thread, explaining the feeling you want to give with that game.

5) Finally, will you allow third parties to write/distribute/give/sell/obi-wan-kenobi material for Aspect?

I think that's all for now