Characters in Fate: Statistics

There was a very cool discussion on the Fate list sparked by a new player of Spirit of the Century. He was having problems moving his mindset from d20 AD&D to Fate. Jovin and Landon Darkwood showed this cool way of thinking about Aspects, Skills and Stunts:

• Aspects represent what your character Is.
• Skills represent what your character can Do.
• Stunts represent what your character's Role is in the game.

Landon goes on to explain that Stunts are as close as Spirit of the Century gets to character classes. They are there to say, "my character is the dude who does 'X' in the story." Be that crashing the car into stuff, soaking damage or hypnotizing people.

I was just thinking—another way of thinking of these three types of stats is:

• Aspects are the answer to "who are you?"
• Skills are the answer to "what do you do?"
• Stunts are the answer to "what are you known for?"

I hope that helps!