Okay, so let's say you already have a group together that has a Force user. Up until now, Morality hasn't been incorporated (because, obviously, it was an unknown mechanic); would you apply it to the game? Is it fair to do so, given that the player has gone thus far without it?

So far, I am tempted to use of the rule of "If you don't take anything from FaD, you don't need the mechanic; but if you do, then you need to take on Morality." This mechanic's sudden manifestation could be justified by the character becoming stronger with the Force, and thus experiencing a greater pull from both sides of its dual personality, light and dark.

I would argue yes, you should bring it in, because it's significant to the Force. As you say, it represents the character becoming "known" to the Force, and so be subject to its "judgment." (Both the quoted words are for lack of better terms, though I tend to consider the Force mystical and have a will of its own.)

Of course, if the character has already begun leaning toward light or dark, I might give her a five point bonus/penalty in whichever direction is appropriate.

Sure. Although, to be fair, I'd let them start at 70 or 30, depending on past behavior, rather than 50.

This is just what I plan to do with the Force Sensitives in our group. I've already discussed it one of them and he seems fine with the idea.

I'd say that if the PC wants to go above Force Rating 2 or take any of the new material from Force and Destiny, then they'd need to use the Morality system as well.

As Lorne suggested, I'd take into account how often the PC has been using dark side pips to fuel their Force powers as well as the character's general method of acting. If most of their common reactions would be weigh in at 4 or more Conflict points, I'd put them at 30 Morality to reflect that this is a PC that's on the brink of falling to the dark side while alerting the player that they're on the cusp of falling if they don't shape up their act.

Conversely, if the PC has truly been living up to what it means to be a Jedi, then putting them at 70 Morality works, and they'll have no problem hitting light side paragon within the next session or two if they keep up the good behavior.

If you can't really say or if they seem to be walking the middle road (good intentions, but make frequent use of dark side pips to fuel their powers), then go with 50 Morality.

As for my group, I talked with the GM and he agreed to deep-six my character's existing Obligation (I'd already worked off the extra Obligation that I'd taken at character creation previously in the campaign) and replace it with Motivation instead. Valin started at 50 so that we could test and see how the system works when starting at the proscribed baseline. Since Valin's generally a good little Jedi-in-training (only earned 2 Conflict points in a 3 hour session) he got a slight increase in Morality, and I suspect that barring extreme circumstances, that will be the case for the next several sessions.

Ask the player, see if they want to use it. If they don't, and they keep to EotE or AoR Force specs and powers, don't push it on them. They didn't "buy in" to the Morality mechanic when they made their character, so forcing them to use something they don't want to use is a bit harsh.

Of course, like others have said, if they want to take anything from F&D I'd say you're well within your right to tack on Morality at that point, since they know F&D specs/powers go hand in hand with Morality.

-EF

So Morality would not apply to the Non-Force sensitives in the group?

So Morality would not apply to the Non-Force sensitives in the group?

It can apply to any one, but using Dark Side points on the Force Die generates conflict and your Morality also affects which color of circles on the Force Die are readily available to you. So Force Sensitives get the most mileage out of the mechanic.

Sam Stewart also mentioned that holding the Force Sensitives to a higher standard than the muggles in a mixed campaign could also make for an interesting juxtaposition. If you and your players want to tell that kind of story.

"You have taken your first step into a much larger world." That's how I handled it. Their new master showed up and showed them the deeper meaning of the Force. At the same time they unlocked their F&D spec and started at morality 50. Simple as that.

If they should start lower or higher then that's between the player and the GM. Just remember that morality is a story tool and not a punishment system.

"You have taken your first step into a much larger world." That's how I handled it. Their new master showed up and showed them the deeper meaning of the Force. At the same time they unlocked their F&D spec and started at morality 50. Simple as that.

If they should start lower or higher then that's between the player and the GM. Just remember that morality is a story tool and not a punishment system.

That makes sense, but I was refering to characters who already had Force specialisations. It makes sense to apply it to anyone without one who gains a Force Rating, but to suddenly shove it on an established Force-Sensitive without any IC justification is likely to cause problems for the GM.

"You have taken your first step into a much larger world." That's how I handled it. Their new master showed up and showed them the deeper meaning of the Force. At the same time they unlocked their F&D spec and started at morality 50. Simple as that.

If they should start lower or higher then that's between the player and the GM. Just remember that morality is a story tool and not a punishment system.

That makes sense, but I was refering to characters who already had Force specialisations. It makes sense to apply it to anyone without one who gains a Force Rating, but to suddenly shove it on an established Force-Sensitive without any IC justification is likely to cause problems for the GM.

I agree. A conversation between player and GM needs to happen. It's very important that both sides are considered.

If you introduce Morality into an existing game, or include it into a new campaign based on EotE or AoR, would you allow the starting Morality bonuses to be included? Give the existing game's PCs a +10 XP bump? Find a credit chip with 2500 credits? The +/- 20 Morality? For the new campaign, would you allow both a bump from the Obligation/Duty mechanic and a Morality bump? Possibly doubling up on the XP, lots of extra credits, or restricting a combo so that you could only take the +/- 20 Morality in conjunction with an XP/credit boost? Opinions?

That makes sense, but I was

That makes sense, but I was refering to characters who already had Force specialisations. It makes sense to apply it to anyone without one who gains a Force Rating, but to suddenly shove it on an established Force-Sensitive without any IC justification is likely to cause problems for the GM.

So was I. A force sensitive character may wield the force but not fully understand what it is that they are wielding. So when it is finally revealed to them the world suddenly opens and they can see the vast connections between all living things.

Would you allow me to buy off some of my obligation for taking Morality? Perhaps, just the base amount each player came with. Any extra I took on for XP/money would be mine to keep as would any we roleplayed out.

My group is trying to implement Morality into our game, already 20 sessions old. I didn't have the means to figure out how much Conflict my character might have accumulated session by session and roll a d10 for each, so I guesstimated and started him with a Morality of 40, knowing that his actions of late have had him on the long, slow side toward the dark side.

In the most recent session (the first after F&D was available), he gathered two Conflict points in the session and rolled a 9 on the d10. Resulted in gaining 7 Morality, which made zero sense to me and the others in the group. That one die roll could nearly balance the scales after nearly a year of play was patently ridiculous. Hence our desire to come up with a different system for Morality.

So it's a work in progress for us. Not sure if we'll kitbash it or dump the system; it doesn't work for us.

I had implemented a Lure of the Darkside Obligation. One of my players had 15 points in it (over the course of 5 sessions) while the other had none. The one that had 15 points made a habit of spending DS pips and actually cut down a child that was an obligation of another player. I sat him down before the last session and had him roll 3 conflict rolls at 8 each (felt it was a good representation of what he had done over the course of the 5 sessions), while the other I had roll 3 rolls at a 3, the resulting numbers were added or subtracted from the base of 50, for their starting morality.

In the most recent session (the first after F&D was available), he gathered two Conflict points in the session and rolled a 9 on the d10. Resulted in gaining 7 Morality, which made zero sense to me and the others in the group. That one die roll could nearly balance the scales after nearly a year of play was patently ridiculous.

This isn't a method of judgment, just a general gauge. The character is going to have really good days and morality is going to go up. They are going to have days where everything goes wrong and morality is going to go down. If you want to see morality drop faster come up with situations where the right way isn't the best way.

Lets say the player is in a convenience store and one of the patrons pulls out a blaster and starts pointing it at the store worker. Then the lightsaber comes out and a body part goes flying across the room. So he gets a good hit roll but gets three threat and a newly freed hand goes sailing across the room and lands on a bystander. The bystander screams and processed to have a panic attack.

I would call that a correct response with some unfortunate consequences, but the Force wouldn't agree. That would be 3 conflict (1 for using violence as the first solution and 2 for inflicting emotional torment) all before your morning caff!

The big takeaway here is that we have a system that the player and not the GM control their characters fate. Want to see a character rise to the pinnacle of the light side? Run a game of moral transcendence. Want an express decent to morality 1? Run a dark and gritty revenge story. Its up to the GM and the player to get the most out of the morality system.

Our group was always used to old Star Wars game systems with hard and fast rules for morality, so the Force user in the group never even flipped a single dark point (from the beginning of the Edge of the Empire Beta). With the introduction of the FAD Beta, that character has 70 Morality. This also makes any question of "owed" starting XP or credits moot, so everyone was happy.

My group is trying to implement Morality into our game, already 20 sessions old. I didn't have the means to figure out how much Conflict my character might have accumulated session by session and roll a d10 for each, so I guesstimated and started him with a Morality of 40, knowing that his actions of late have had him on the long, slow side toward the dark side.

In the most recent session (the first after F&D was available), he gathered two Conflict points in the session and rolled a 9 on the d10. Resulted in gaining 7 Morality, which made zero sense to me and the others in the group. That one die roll could nearly balance the scales after nearly a year of play was patently ridiculous. Hence our desire to come up with a different system for Morality.

So it's a work in progress for us. Not sure if we'll kitbash it or dump the system; it doesn't work for us.

I think you might want to give the system more of a chance. This system isn't like many previous Star Wars games where the character's morality is easily and harshly impacted. If a player is truly going Darkside, they're going to be racking up the conflict - remember the average roll on 1d10 is 5 or 6 (over many rolls, of course), so that means the character would need to average at least 6 conflict per session or they will eventually trend lightside.

I realize that might sound like a lot, but remember that it's not just about spending Destiny Points to flip Dark Pips to fuel Force Powers - a lot of actions, even simple ones, generate Conflict.

In past Star Wars games GMs needed to be wary of impacting the character's Morality because it was so harsh, but here the GM needs to be "generous" with conflict points. "You just killed that bounty hunter, without attempting to negotiate or find any other way out of the situation! Here's your conflict. Oh! Now you're taking his jetpack, that's grand theft! A bit more conflict. Uh, huh. Paying off the security officer who was sent to investigate? Would you like conflict with that?"

One of the things that's difficult about using the Morality system is that the length of a gaming session can have a big impact on how much Conflict is generated before that 1d10 is rolled and Morality is adjusted. One game I play in has a 6-8 hour session, the other is about 3 hours. It's far easier to trend upward in a short playing session.

I wonder if the boxed beginners game of F&D will have the "conflict events" build in so that you can get a feel for how often to roll? Published adventures and the rulebook adventure can probably have "conflict events" noted.

I wonder if the boxed beginners game of F&D will have the "conflict events" build in so that you can get a feel for how often to roll? Published adventures and the rulebook adventure can probably have "conflict events" noted.

Judging by the adventure int he back of the beta, I expect that it would. Judging by Duty/Obligation in previous beginner adventures, we might not see conflict in the beginners box but likely in the followup adventure if only in a simplified form.

Both of the Beginner Box adventures "glossed over" the Obligation and Duty mechanics, with the AoR BegBox follow-up adventure touching on the subject by offering adventure hooks that were important to certain characters.

So I suspect that the inevitable FaD Beginner Box adventure and PCs will do much the same, likely figuring everyone starts at the (current) default of 50 Morality, and that the equally inevitable follow-up adventure will possibly touch on Morality and Conflict there.

I think for the Beginner Box they might do a "oh you killed ALL the orphans? the characters morality drops by 1" or some such simplified version of the whole "your actions affect your morality" mechanic, without going to the conflict mechanic. The IS all about Dark side/light side and morality being a big part of the game (even more than Duty and Obligation were of the other systems, I feel) and I think new players will expect a game about playing force users to have some dark side vs light side things going on for it.

I might be wrong, too

I think it was Katrina Ostrander on the Order 66 podcast who discussed how much they liked having the Obligation hooks in one of their adventures ("Under a Black Sun" perhaps) and how they were planning to do that more.

It seems like it'd be great to have the follow-up adventure to the F&D Beginner Box include hooks for handling the PCs' Morality challenges.

It seems like it'd be great to have the follow-up adventure to the F&D Beginner Box include hooks for handling the PCs' Morality challenges.

Including good M/O/D hooks is one of the best things any module-writer for this game can do.