Edit: After some discussion I realized that my initial thesis was probably more confusing than it needed to be. I'm going to leave the mechanical analysis below the break for context/, but the part above it is really what I'm getting at.

The Fantasy Flight Star Wars games seems to be fond of using mechanics, such as Obligation and Duty (O/D). While they're not strictly necessary, they do provide a nice mechanism for forcing players who may not be familiar with narrative roleplaying to consider their character's motivation and what they want their character's story to be about.

My issue with Morality is not that its an awful option (as mechanics go) in itself, but rather that it doesn't do the same thing as O/D. O/D provide a very broad concept of what influences the decisions your character makes in a context that makes sense for their specific settings. Morality makes sense to the specific setting, but it doesn't really seem to influence your character since it instead tracks the decisions the character makes and the concept seems fairly narrow (morality tale). There's also the side note that although O/D work fine for Force Users in those setting, Morality doesn't actually work very well as a motivation for non-Force Users in the F&D setting.

What I'd propose instead is something like Destiny. It seems like most of the Jedi (and many of the supporting characters) in canon and EU have some sort of destiny that they're expected to fulfill (either by their peers or by the reading audience). So, what if your character actually has a real destiny; or at least thinks she does? There's plenty of potential in-game reasons for this, such as internal motivation, Force visions, familial/peer expectations, etc. Choosing a destiny has 3 factors as I see it. I'm not a game designer myself so I'll just outline some rough ideas.

• In one part, you choose what your destiny is. This could potentially be short term (fall to the Dark Side) or long term (found a new Force Order), small scale (uncover force sensitive children) or large scale (bring balance to the Force). Subject to narrator approval, of course.
• Once the destiny has been chosen, you need to decide whether your character is embracing or fleeing this destiny. Some players might consider that their character falling to the Dark Side is a bad thing. Others might feel their characters would find it liberating.
• Finally there's the issue of how strong your destiny is. This isn't intended to force your character into a particular course of action, but rather like the O/D motivation mechanics it would determine how often opportunities to interact with this destiny come up. For instance a character who's Destiny is to become the next Dark Lord of the Sith and has a strong tie to his Destiny will be frequently faced with circumstances that require him to make decisions of morality or to use the force. If the character is fleeing their Destiny would then choose to do what they can to avoid doing the obvious thing (earning the money to buy the MacGuffin), while a character who embraces his Destiny will likely do the obvious thing despite any obvious cost (stealing the MacGuffin, even though it will almost certainly mean a new bounty).

So you'd end up with a table like the ones for O/D with multiple subcategories intended to be tailored by the player into something specific to their character. Depending on what seems best to those with more knowledge than I, the character could either select a positive (pursuing) and negative (fleeing) Destiny - you'll either bring balance to the Force or destroy the galaxy - or simply assign a polarity. Once that's been decided on the character can decrease the connection to a positive destiny or increase the connection to a negative destiny, much like one does with O/D. The character could then increase their connection to their destiny (by making choices that lead toward it) or decrease it (by making choices that lead away from it). At some point the character would either achieve their Destiny or reduce their connection below the minimum threshold (realize that it isn't their true destiny, after all) and choose a new one at the minimum connection level.

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The mechanical problem with Morality is that it interferes with the narrative rather than aiding it. Giving a bonus for being a Light Side Paragon gives people a reason to stick to good deeds. Likewise, applying a penalty to Dark Side extremes gives people a reason to stay away from "immoral" acts. While we generally think of these as good things for the heroes to do anyway, the problem is that it makes certain choices more appealing without any sort of player input . In other words, it removes player agency.

Sorry, man. I really wanted to read the whole thing, but I fell asleep just scrolling through this.

I could make it shorter but then I'd just have to type it all again the first time somebody asked a question. At least you didn't try to form an opinion without reading it. That's the one I'm waiting to derail the thread.

Edit: I cut out a few redundant pieces but there's not much I can do and still convey the proper information. It's less text than reading a page of your F&D Beta book, really.

I understand that have a Light Side and a Dark Side are core conceits of the game, so I'm not even going to get into the issue of "does the dark side even exist". I understand that the Morality mechanic fits this conceit but my main issue with Morality is that it just isn't interesting. By applying mechanical penalties to extremely low Morality and mechanical benefits to extremely high Morality, you are effectively telling the players/GM how they are supposed to play the game.

See, to me, this is fundamentally wrong. For one, the bonuses and knockbacks (per only the book's recommendations - anything else is solely up to each GM) you receive are definitely present, but they really don't have a huge impact on the game. What do devoted lightside players - who work their butts off to stay good and holy? Up to +2 to their Strain threshold and a Destiny point gets flipped in their favor. What do players that just do what they want, or even have to, which may bring them to a lower morality? They get to use Dark side points, for free, and now the statistically less likely to appear Light side points are the ones that cost a Destiny Point and strain, and there's also up to -2 to their Strain threshold and a Destiny point flipped in the GM's favor. So just purely in the aspect of one end being better than the other - it's really not; these are negligible differences that really balance themselves out. Also in the case of the Heal/Harm power, Dark Siders only get restricted to the Harm section, but since they, by their nature, will primarily use dark side points to activate powers, they get cooler more offensive versions of the rest of powers. But really, if you're doing stuff to knock you below 30 Morality, you probably don't mind losing access to Heal when you get better access to so many other cool powers.

So no, it doesn't tell GMs/players how to play the game - like everything in this game, players can do whatever they want, and there'll realistically be penalties and benefits to doing either.

Obligation gave you a bit of story on why your character is doing more than fighting for survival. Duty gave you a bit of story on what your role within the alliance is. Both mechanics let you provide the GM with a leash to guide you toward the parts of the story you thought were interesting. Morality doesn't do that. Instead, it has the GM putting up a shock fence to say "Don't go there". Morality (little 'm') is fine, but it doesn't actually need a mechanic. Or, at very least, it doesn't need one as the core conceit.

Morality is exactly like that. Nowhere in the book does it tell you to tell your players "Hey, don't do that" - you let players do whatever they feel they need to do, and then, if it ends up being bad, then you mark down how much conflict they earned and just let them know the total at the end of the session. As minimally railroad-y as Duty and Obligation are, Morality is even less. Obligation leads players to be confronted by things they've done, Duty leads players to do things that can help out the Rebellion (or even Empire) - Morality brings up an issue and allows the player to choose how they want to deal with it.

Looking at a table similar to that of Obligation and Duty, the player picks a Destiny; perhaps "Creation", "Destruction", or "Discovery". Then the player can interpret it (like with the others) into something a bit more specific; say they are Destined to found a Force-Using Order (Creation) or find an older version of the Jedi Code (Discovery). Rather than being good or bad in itself, the Destiny rating would reflect how strong the pull of Destiny is on that particular character (Anakin, 80; Asoka, 5). Whether that's good or bad would depend on whether the Destiny serves as carrot or stick for that particular player (one player's "Fall to the Sith" might be another player's "Become the new Dark Lord of the Sith"). Depending on what playtesting revealed it might even be viable to encourage both a "light" and "dark" destiny.

But now, see THIS is telling players/GMs how to play the game. While Morality is about choices and conflict, Destiny would be describing everything you think Morality is.

"I want to go destroy this slave trade."

"Well, you can't, because Destroy is Bob's Destiny, and he's not here today."

"Well, can I change my Destiny?"

"No, everything has been pre-determined at character creation - you can only have varying degrees of your own Destiny, not somebody else's."

"Well fine, what can I do?"

"Anything under the category of Creation."

"Ugh. Fine. Well, what if I say that I want to create a happy world by destroying that slave trade."

"No."

See, to me, this is fundamentally wrong. For one, the bonuses and knockbacks (per only the book's recommendations - anything else is solely up to each GM) you receive are definitely present, but they really don't have a huge impact on the game.

+/-2 Strain is about 15% for an average character. Flipping a destiny point is mechanically huge . (There's a reason higher level abilities require them.) And as your Force Rating increases (and you try to do bigger things with it) the fact that the Dark Side occupies more faces becomes irrelevant because there are an equal number of black and white pips. The Dark Side may be easier to access but the Light Side is more powerful.

Which leads me into your second objection. I'm not saying Morality forces anything. It's about affordance. The Morality mechanic makes it easier to be a light side player than a dark side player, thereby encouraging people to play toward the light side and discouraging them from playing toward the dark side. I recognize that I am free to ignore those rules in my game but I find it fundamentally uninteresting and feel the game would be better served by an alternate motivation mechanic (whether or not its the one I proposed).

But now, see THIS is telling players/GMs how to play the game. While Morality is about choices and conflict, Destiny would be describing everything you think Morality is.

[....]

This massively misrepresents what I said; enough to make me wonder if you actually read it. Like the Duty and Obligation mechanics I compared it to, a high Destiny would make your Destiny trigger more often - putting you in situations where you are forced to interact with it; not binding you to a particular course of action. Your example conversation is absurd and not in any way part of or indicated by what I proposed.

Perhaps more importantly, it actually brings up the very point I'm trying to make. Duty, Obligation, and "Destiny" would all be things that are story elements decided upon by the player. Morality is not something the players decide on; it just is.

Edit: Just by way of clarification (I'm not saying its a good idea), picking a code (Jedi, Sith, Gray, whatever; there's quite a few) would be a player choice and if morality reflected their adherence to the code then it would be more like the other mechanics.

It's a sticky subject. There are many interpretations of how the dark and light side work.

Even if you reduce it to dark side = evil; light side = good, the current Morality system is still missing anything that I regard as advantageous about the dark side.

In my opinion, you should always be glancing over at the dark side options and feel tempted. I'm not feeling that even a little.

But, to get back to your point: Apart from what I mentioned, I agree. It would probably be far easier to throw out the Morality system and replace it with something akin to the Duty and Obligation systems.

The problem, then, would be that you wouldn't have a system that tracks your standing in regard to dark side/light side. You'd need a new system for that

Don't get me wrong, I think that'd be the best way to solve it, but it would still require more work.

In my opinion, you should always be glancing over at the dark side options and feel tempted. I'm not feeling that even a little.

Really? Not even a little ? Oh well, no accounting for taste...

The "but" is: how well you GM and your players RP their characters. I've discussed implementing Morality into our Edge game and one of our players, who wants to become a crime lord, and he said go ahead it won't stop him from pursuing his goals. My point is, if as a player you try to game the system and only look at the pluses and minuses then yeah, Morality sucks. But looking at it holistically: with character obligation, motivation, duty, current story lines, and group interactions, it suddenly adds another element into the mix that can make for dynamic roleplaying.

But looking at it holistically: with character obligation, motivation, duty, current story lines, and group interactions, it suddenly adds another element into the mix that can make for dynamic roleplaying.

I guess I just don't see what it adds at all. Its kind of like if you turned Lawful/Chaotic or Good/Evil in D&D into a hundred point scale and started sliding characters along it. Either you add penalties/bonuses that change what the players do... or it doesn't change what the players do and its meaningless. You can do the same thing without a mechanic and there are more interesting things to do with that space in the book.

Lawful/Good/Chaotic/Evil is not the same thing as the Force. Not at all. Shouldn't even be part of the discussion.

It is deeply ingrained in Star Wars lore that prolonged the dark side can physically warp you. It's not just your mind that is twisted, but your body & soul. -2 Strain Threshold seems like a decent effect to emulate this idea.

Contrariwise, being a proper light sider can give one a real boost, both in morale and in physiological terms. Being in tune with the Force, in harmony with all living things, surely could have some holistic benefit.

Perhaps a dark sider could have an actual mechanical benefit, but being able to use Unleash, Bind, and Harm with impunity seems as though it would make for a rather powerful character anyway.

Lawful/Good/Chaotic/Evil is not the same thing as the Force. Not at all. Shouldn't even be part of the discussion.

We're not talking about the Force, we're talking about Morality. Regardless its an analogy not an equivalency and a very apt one at that. The non- mechanical effects of morality on the narrative are non-existent. It's just a tracking method. I don't know how many different ways I can say that but people seem to keep conflating the two problems.

There are two distinct problems with Morality. One is affordance. I'm not sure I can explain this any more thoroughly.

The other is interest. Without the affordances of its mechanical aspects Morality actually does nothing at all. It doesn't lead you toward particular plot points. It doesn't influence your choices. Without the mechanics it literally just becomes an arbitrary tracker.

I'm honestly surprised Morality has so many supporters. What's weird is that I see a lot of "Your arguments are invalid" or "It's fine as is", but not many people actually explaining why its important to have. Why is the Morality mechanic meaningful? We all know that not everything in a game needs to be represented by a specific mechanic or we wouldn't be playing this version of Star Wars. So what does Morality add to the game?

Consequence? Aren't there already plenty of narrative consequences to immoral actions? Using the Dark Side of the Force certainly already has mechanical consequences.

The Ability to Shift Between Light and Dark? This has always been one of my biggest beefs with Star Wars systems. I feel like the players and GM are plenty able to figure out whether or not a character is "Dark Side" without a tracker. And "slipping to the Dark Side" should be an intentional player plot point; not something that happens just because their amoral character happened to use Force Lightning to defend some innocents.

Motivation? I certainly don't see how it actually creates motivation for the players/characters. I provided what seems like a pretty reasonable alternative, although I'm open to others.

So, seriously, someone please tell me; what does the Morality mechanic do for the game that a few pages of fluff on "Codes" and the nature of the Force wouldn't do better?

A Far More Intelligent Breakdown Of The Problems With Morality Than EvilE Could Write!

Someone else gets it and more so explains it intelligently!

Everything I've read on Morality I've liked so far. I like that you can drive down the middle or strive to be a paragon of light or diciple of darkness. I like that it is a result of your actions, but doesn't stop you from doing those actions. The player decides for himself. Either end of the spectrum is not game - breaking. Unlike other games we won't mention, your character can't be taken from you or have his paladin hood stripped because of your jerk GM and his alignment trap. There are consequences for your actions, just not heavy handed ones.

One thing that I see that no one else has thought of or mentioned, is the xp involved in Morality. One of my players was purposely on the fast track to the darkside, and the negative effects didn't matter to him at all, until I pointed out that his character has a 5xp grit and a 15 xp grit. At 21-29 this doesn't matter much, but the darkside is almost self-accumulating. After hitting the 29 morality, then you have to spend Destiny and strain to activate lightside pips and reach 70 morality to recover to lightside. This means its almost inevitable that the dark pips will be used, accelerating the farther fall. at 11-20 the character loses his first strain, and in my players case, 5 xp (for the grit purchased). at the 10 and lower level the second strain and his 15xp grit, meaning the player has wasted 20 xp on this character. From this standpoint, the lightside paragon is gaining 2 strain, 1 at 80 and a second at 90, virtually gaining 20 xp.

I like that you can drive down the middle or strive to be a paragon of light or diciple of darkness. I like that it is a result of your actions, but doesn't stop you from doing those actions. The player decides for himself. Either end of the spectrum is not game - breaking. Unlike other games we won't mention, your character can't be taken from you or have his paladin hood stripped because of your jerk GM and his alignment trap. There are consequences for your actions, just heavy handed ones.

But isn't this all true without a mechanic behind it?

After hitting the 29 morality, then you have to spend Destiny and strain to activate lightside pips and reach 70 morality to recover to lightside. This means its almost inevitable that the dark pips will be used, accelerating the farther fall.

I consider the slippery slope a feature, not a bug.

Don't forget that dark pips have a 7/12 chance of being rolled; light pips, only 5/12. You're less likely to spend strain if dark pips are native. I figure that's why they compensate by adjusting the strain threshold, otherwise, why not go Dark?

Regardless, if you don't like the Morality tracking mechanic, simply don't use it. Just arbitrarily determine when and if a PC falls to the darkside or merits a gold star based on the narrative. Problem solved.

Regardless, if you don't like the Morality tracking mechanic, simply don't use it. Just arbitrarily determine when and if a PC falls to the darkside or merits a gold star based on the narrative. Problem solved.

It's not a matter of liking it or not liking it. I am well aware I'm not required to use it. But I think that the space taken up by it in the book could be better spent on something else; and am well within my rights to convey that. I still haven't seen anyone express why the Morality mechanic is actually a good thing. Just a whole lot of "Eh, its fine." or "Working as intended."

Obligation : things the GM make me do

Duty: things that make my character do things

Morality: choices my character has to make

if you want to avoid conflict, you choices are limited. Or at the least you need to find ways to avoid it.

It is up to the GM to put up those roadblocks, without them, I agree, morality as written seems to be rather lame. it is up to the player and GM together to make Morality mean something beyond a few pages of rules

It's good because it's an objective way to track a PC's behavior vis-a-vis the Force that resists being gamed to some degree.

It's good because it's an objective way to track a PC's behavior vis-a-vis the Force that resists being gamed to some degree.

Isn't just, y'know, tracking PC's behavior an objective way to track PC's behavior that resists being gamed entirely ? I'm not sure I would agree that you can't do this objectively without a mechanic, but if that's the way you want to go with it, why is objective better than subjective if the subjective expectation is clear? Conflict accrued from Dark Side use aside, its all narrator fiat anyway. What does several pages of mechanics add to the equation? That's what I've been getting at.

(I just want to be clear that this is about discussion, not "I'm right, your wrong" because I know discussing perspective can sometimes come off that way. The general feeling - as in nobody's actually said this - I've been getting from the negative responses is that "It's in the book, so it must be good". I'm hoping I can get a better perspective than that to work from. Its hard to entertain another perspective when you don't understand where its coming from.)

Well, it seems we're just bumping up against preferences here...

I don't know what's ungraspable or infuriating about that.

Did you miss the table where player define their PC's moral struggle, or did you just not like it?

Its neither. I just don't see why that point needs to be mechanical. The fall to the Dark Side is an interesting plot point but experience with a number of different forms of RPGs suggests that it is better as an *intentional* plot point than as a mechanical side effect. After all, its not like every Jedi needs to fall to the Dark Side at some point. In fact, it seems like for most of the Jedi characters (who are not Luke and Anakin), staying away from the dark side isn't even a struggle. They may disagree with the Jedi Order's tenants on the matter but I think there's plenty in canon to show that the Order is not objectively right about what constitutes Light Side behavior. And if that's the reason for it, then it has no applicability to non-Force Using characters (where Duty and Obligation can apply to all characters equally well).

I didn't miss the part about defining the struggle but it felt tacked on to me. After mulling over how to incorporate that some, in fairness, if your character is going focus on the moral struggle, that dichotomy probably isn't a bad way to do it. On the other hand, while the pull of the Dark Side is an important part of the Force User's tale it doesn't seem to actually be central to most Jedi stories. That's why I'd rather scrap the Light Side/Dark Side mechanic (leaving it at narrator fiat with player input, where to some degree it's at anyway) and replace it with something like Destiny where the characters decide what their story is going to be about instead of it defaultly being a morality tale. Compared to the other mechanics, the morality tale certainly feels like a very narrow window to work in - to me, obviously - and doesn't really reflect the sort of F&D game I would want to play.

Edit: Putting it another way for a moment, does the morality tale really seem all that interesting when 3-5 other people are also engaged in what is largely the same personal struggle?

It's good because it's an objective way to track a PC's behavior vis-a-vis the Force that resists being gamed to some degree.

Isn't just, y'know, tracking PC's behavior an objective way to track PC's behavior that resists being gamed entirely ? I'm not sure I would agree that you can't do this objectively without a mechanic, but if that's the way you want to go with it, why is objective better than subjective if the subjective expectation is clear? Conflict accrued from Dark Side use aside, its all narrator fiat anyway. What does several pages of mechanics add to the equation? That's what I've been getting at.

No, you really do need a mechanic to settle it objectively -- that's kind of the definition of objective. That's why we have logic, mathematics, reason, laws, etc -- all objective mechanics. Objective is superior because it avoids making judgement based on bias, poor memories, and the like. It's not fiat; they specify how much Conflict is generated by certain actions.

It's good because it's an objective way to track a PC's behavior vis-a-vis the Force that resists being gamed to some degree.

That's why I'd rather scrap the Light Side/Dark Side mechanic (leaving it at narrator fiat with player input, where to some degree it's at anyway) and replace it with something like Destiny where the characters decide what their story is going to be about instead of it defaultly being a morality tale.

A close kin to Motivation. It's not obvious why you need a mechanic for that .