Let me begin by saying (for all the good it's going to do ) that I'm fine with the Morality system. There are three places I'm "stuck" on, however:

1) If I use the Sense (using LSP) to cheat while gambling for the sole purpose of gaining credits, should I gain "Lying for personal gain" Conflict? If so, per hand or once for the game?

2) If you're skulking around a facility and need to get past a stormtrooper, should sneaking up and knocking him out count as "Resorting to violence as a first resort" Conflict?

3) Some thugs want to mug you so you Coerce them by showing your lightsaber and saying, "You don't want to do this". Conflict?

The point is that I want to use the Morality system but as peace keepers Jedi sometimes need to threaten with violence to do so. Perhaps they gain Conflict or does it have to do with the why? I was thinking a "Coercion/Threatening with Violence just to bully" might be added.

1. Yes. Cheating is the epitome of lying for personal gain. I would do it as a "once for the game" conflict though.

2. No, I wouldn't count knocking someone out in such a (only in the movies) way of getting passed an obstacle. Especially in the case of a storm trooper where you know he would never be reasonable anyway. Killing him on the other hand? Conflict.

3. Nope. Seems reasonable enough to warn someone against a course of action and having them know that going through with that action could have serious consequences.

I agree for the most part

1. I would say it would depend on whether you were trying to get the credits because you really want to but some more stimpacks but can't afford them or as part of a strategy intended to help people who are in need. So long as you are not 'stealing' from someone who is an innocent and the credits are not for you I might let the conflict slide.

2. and 3. I agree with DanteRotterdam entirely.

The conflict rules are meant as guidelines, decide whether the characters intent is the important part or whether the action itself is the relevant part and run with that. Personally I go with intent, if a Jedi is using his force powers to cheat at gaming so that he can get a potential force user free of his slave master then I would likely not punish him especially if he had tried to buy the slave first (Qui-gon and Anakin - Ep. 1).

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I think the big thing is a couple conflict here and there is no big deal, so while you shouldn't be slamming them with it, it's ok to drop a point here and there if you feel there's reasonable "light" alternatives.

1) If I use the Sense (using LSP) to cheat while gambling for the sole purpose of gaining credits, should I gain "Lying for personal gain" Conflict? If so, per hand or once for the game?

Probably. If he's doing it to get credits for the sake of getting credits (or for the sake of getting a flamethrower using said credits), yes. If he's doing it to win credits off a jerkface to pay the ransom on the princess to another jerkface, probably not, or at most 1 or 2 conflict for the total act instead of for each hand.

2) If you're skulking around a facility and need to get past a stormtrooper, should sneaking up and knocking him out count as "Resorting to violence as a first resort" Conflict?

Probably not, but it might. Was sneaking around the Stormtrooper a seriously viable alternative? Was this part of a greater plan where the stormtrooper needed to be neutralized? Could they have tried mind trick? Typically mook footsoldier types shouldn't generate conflict, but they can if the play seems to be going too far, or enjoying it too much. Though the knocking out vs. killing should also be considered.

3) Some thugs want to mug you so you Coerce them by showing your lightsaber and saying, "You don't want to do this". Conflict?

Probably not. Though if the player seems to ENJOY scaring them a little too much it'd be ok to give em a point if you feel they deserve it.

3) Some thugs want to mug you so you Coerce them by showing your lightsaber and saying, "You don't want to do this". Conflict?

Agree with the others: No. Reminds me of a TCW scene in a cantina, with Plo Koon and Ahsoka:

Plo: "Stand down!"

Bar thug: "You can't take us all, Jedi!"

Plo: "Would you care to test your theory?"

I'm tempted to say Yes to 3). You're resorting to fear, especially if you're enhancing your roll with The Force. You're basically causing fear, and fear... well we all know where it leads, don't we?

If I read that correctly, a player with no Conflict at the end of the game will automatically gain morality, so to make things interesting you really have to give Conflict pretty liberally (I'm AFB and need a re-read anyway). So I'm going to throw them around very often, especially for Paragon players...

In general, the way I think of awarding conflict is, "Would the most devout Jedi feel conflicted about taking this action?"

In my mind that's what it's about - the character's internal conflict in the fight against good and evil within oneself. Of course, an evil character would not feel any conflict about performing an evil act, which is why the standard must be an idealized, "pure" person.

I was considering HOW they used fear. Did they expose their lighsaber hilt and calmly say, "I don't have credits, but I have this" as opposed to holding their blade to a thug's throat and saying, "Tell us what you know or lose your head!"? Anyway, thanks to everyone!

Plo: "Stand down!"

Bar thug: "You can't take us all, Jedi!"

Plo: "Would you care to test your theory?"

Well he draw his lightsaber, but only after they where surrounded by a lots of thugs that had drawn their weapons. They stod in defensive stance and had that conversation if i remember it correctly.

Well he draw his lightsaber, but only after they where surrounded by a lots of thugs that had drawn their weapons. They stod in defensive stance and had that conversation if i remember it correctly.

Copy. Perfectly a-okay from amorality stand point then.

1. I'd say at least 1 point of Conflict for cheating, possibly more depending on what they're cheating for. For instance, I'd probably give Qui-Gon 1 point of Conflict for cheating at dice with Watto, but since he was doing it for a good cause (freeing a slave, finding a way to get their ship repaired). Possibly more if no attempt was made at all to find a legit way of obtaining the credits/freeing Anakin.

I think the era that it happens in would also have to factor. During the rise of the empire era, when Jedi were prominent, they had their reputation to fall back on, "Pulls saber, and villain starts falling all over himself to apologize for messing up the Jedi's perfectly good day." or "Jedi Business, go back to your drinks" and the entire cantina tries to climb into their glasses. but in the Empire era, Jedi are folklore and unknown, no longer feared by the bad guys. So in the rise era, the fear of the Jedi is almost implied (or more likely fear of their reputation). But Yoda says, only use the weapon in defense never attack.

1. I'd say at least 1 point of Conflict for cheating, possibly more depending on what they're cheating for. For instance, I'd probably give Qui-Gon 1 point of Conflict for cheating at dice with Watto, but since he was doing it for a good cause (freeing a slave, finding a way to get their ship repaired). Possibly more if no attempt was made at all to find a legit way of obtaining the credits/freeing Anakin.
2. Only if there was no attempt to find another way, or it was done with glee.
3. Doesn't sound like he should have received any Conflict for that one. Again, it depends on how it's handled. "You sure you want to get cut in half?" vs. "Lightsaber. Jedi. You know what follows."

1: I'd give Qui-gon a point of Conflict and I doubt he would have blinked twice at it. Qui-Gon didn't come across as the more

"goodly" of Jedi. He was a bit more practical.

2: Yes, I'd actually give this conflict. It's Unprovoked Violence (with a reason, so I'd probably dial down the normal 4-5 to 2-3). TK-123/45 was just standing there, doing his job when some crazy sneaky Jedi rolls up and clubs him over the head, ties him up with mesh tape, and stuffs him into a locker. Sure, the Stormie has "kill on sight" orders for Jedi, but there were other options, like simply trying to sneaking by.

3: 1 Conflict at most. And maybe not even that. You are using Coercion, but you're not lopping his arm off as your first response.

But that's me, and as you can see I feel differently about each situation.

Remember two things; first, the objective is not to avoid Conflict but to manage it. We've all done things that may have been a harsh response at the time, or aggressive, but ultimately we're good people. We take a hit to our concience and grow from it. The Conflict system shows it is VERY difficult to live completely in the straight and narrow and never do anything that generates conflict. Especially for adventuring heroes.

And Second; The Force does not care. Your character is sensitive to the Force, and vice versa. Violence pleases the Dark Side. Anger and Fear please the Dark Side. Your character's personal thoughts of "well, I only knocked him out!" only slightly diminishes from the fact that you didn't lop the Stormie's head off. Or that you brandished an unlit saber and puffed up your chest and got some gangmembers to back down in fear of you.

Manage Conflict. Don't "game" it.

Live a little. It'll be more fun that way.

The way I see it, conflict is not corruption. In other words, it's not necessarily "being immoral" as much as generating conflict/doubt in oneself, being put in front of difficult choices. That's how you grow, how you evolve. Stability is stagnation.

That's why you can still do questionable actions but still gain morality.

If it were up to me, gaining 0 Conflict in a game session would be an automatic "status quo" for Morality, as how can you define being "good" if you were never really challenged on your beliefs? (That's also a convenient explanation for why characters would not have Morality shifts between adventures).

So for all of these reasons, that's conflict across the board for me (for #2, maybe just for Paragon-types). Someone trying to scare someone from fighting (instead of somehow just leaving or avoiding confrontation in the first place) who rolls a "1" on the post-game Morality check probably just thought "Hey... that worked... I should use this more often", which is sometimes a slippery slope.

(could be factually wrong - really need to re-read the Morality rules)

Yeah, I'm starting to see this as "Heroes Gain Conflict by doing Heroic Things"

So I re-read the Morality Rules; some minor miscomprehension on my part, but overall I had them OK.

That being said: Do I read this right or does a Dark Side user HAVE to do generate Conflict every single game to "keep being dark"? That seems weird ("Why does Darth Tata always goes about killing random civilians?")

A dark side user will continue to be a dark side user until his morality exceeds 70.

So you don't necessarily have to continue to murder everything in sight.

What isn't specified is - after becoming a dark side user- if you continue to generate conflict for every dark side point used. It is my opinion that RAI would have you continue to generate conflict, but it only specifies suffering conflict when flipping a DP, suffering strain, and converting dark to light.

Still, the overall tendancy is for Dark Side Users to continue gaining morality unless they do a lot of bad things. Seems weird.

It doesn't really take that much. I'm in a group of mostly goodish guys in EotE and in the last session we used a bit of violence as a first option and a little threatening. I'm pretty sure we did a lot of questionable things for personal gain. It shouldn't be hard to generate some decent conflict for a dark sider, especially if you ramp up the selfishness and strong emotions inherent to such a thing.

6 points of conflict is all to takes to average a decrease. I also agree with the idea that adventures that pose no conflict at all don't need a roll because you probably didn't really do anything, unless you went out of your way to be super-pristine then you can maybe get the bonus.