From Judd:
Okay, characters [in Spirit of the Century] don’t get better over time [they might change or shift, but not really improve]. That is fine with me. We did some suggestions in the book for character advancement and they felt flat to me when we played. I suggest we ditch ’em.
You don’t change your character, you change the world.
After every game (or after each arc, if you don’t finish a pulp novel’s worth of adventure per session), you see who spent the most Fate Points in the course of play. That player gets to add an aspect to the world.
This means that world aspects will quickly add up. But only a few are used in each game. At the beginning of each game, each player (GM included) can choose one world aspect that is in play in order to avoid ten world aspects just kind of falling on top of one another in a clutter.
World Aspects can be anything that is inspired from the game’s play, from anti-vigilante laws in Gotham to flying cars become affordable to Gorilla City’s first ambassador greets U.S. president. They work just like aspects.
Pulp characters do not change but dammit, at the gaming table, they should change the world.
I like it. I don’t like that I don’t have enough time available to run a regular installation of this game.
I like this a lot (esp. as further fleshed out in the other article you posted in GReader). And ditto.
Sounds like something to ask your players as they develop their characters. “How is your character going to change the world?” rather than “What are your goals for this character.”