Sometimes, a guy just wants his freighter back...

... while another just wants his girl back.

My campaign is 26 sessions in, and we briefly tried to incorporate Morality and Conflict. We disliked it too much to want to continue using it, however. One of the characters had made some pretty dark choices and earned I think 4 or 5 conflict, but then he rolled a 9 on his d10 and ended up gaining morality toward the light side.

We dumped the mechanic and are hoping a better one comes along.

It seems like there really isnt much of a middle ground for Morality, either you avoid Conflict-causing actions in general (aside from the occasional 1 or 2 point effect) and quickly reach Lightside Paragon, or you dont avoid them, and quickly fall to darkness.

I'm not really seeing the problem. I don't believe that there was ever an intention of maintaining a middle ground. The game is designed to represent a universe with a clearly defined Dark and Light side.

My campaign is 26 sessions in, and we briefly tried to incorporate Morality and Conflict. We disliked it too much to want to continue using it, however. One of the had made some pretty dark choices and earned I think 4 or 5 conflict, but then he rolled a 9 on his d10 and ended up gaining morality toward the light side.

We dumped the mechanic and are hoping a better one comes along.

define pretty dark choices? because looking at the list the stuff below 5 conflict is not very dark. look at page 220. You should be including that stuff as well as using darkside pips.

Our issue was more the arbitrariness of the d10 roll than the way in which Conflict is assigned. We all felt like something that important should not be left to chance.

Yet the existence of the d10 roll is intended to make sure that there is an element of randomness, to make the choices toward the dark side more tempting. Generally if you're taking conflict at 4-5 per session, that's pretty mild. Someone with 4-5 conflict may have told a couple fibs or swiped something that they otherwise shouldn't have. Of course, using dark side pips always adds to this total.

I think the challenge for GMs is to be able to put enough conflict into adventures to make it interesting. If a GM lets players kill scores of people without assigning conflict, qualifying it under the guise of self-defense, then obviously the mechanic isn't working as the GM isn't enforcing it.

I think, for example, of a car accident that I was in, for which I was responsible, some 20 years ago. Nobody was injured, but there was significant damage to both vehicles. I was horrified by this, and felt conflicted about it for years, not because nobody was hurt, but that I was damned lucky that no one was. Police officers when they are forced to take a life in self defense often suffer from PTSD because of the horror of having to take a life because they had to. So I would need good reason not to assign conflict when a life is taken in a game.

Conflict is something that should be always present for characters to struggle with. Good adventure planning, I think, will include a GM's consideration of what conflict might be generated.