I didn't have any objections about it but I don't see any problem with the updated version.

The proponents of this view thought that 7 sides on a d12 and unrestrained use of Dark Side powers were not enough balance for the (I'm exaggerating ) inconceivably and irreparably great disadvantage of "losing a Destiny Point" and (again, exaggerating ) being crippled into uselessness by an entire 2-point drop in Strain.

FIFY.

As one of the people who made this point, intentionally misrepresenting the meaning of what people say is generally called "lying" not "paraphrasing".

Holy crap, people.

I apologize...I thought the hyperbole and obvious misuse of the term "paraphrase" was enough to convey the intended satirical tone.

I guess I should have put my writing in blue text or something.

I'd also add that this "unrestricted access" stuff is pure fancy. A lightsider is free to use Dark Side powers, too.

The wording I used was "un restrained access," meaning that a Dark Sider is not bound by morality concerns when activating Force powers. A light side PC is of course free to use dark side pips, but doing so can put them at risk of slipping further towards the dark side itself.

Note also the powerful effects of the Unleash power available only to Dark Siders.

As an aside, I've found that the dark side in this game is not more powerful; but it is easier, more seductive. I think with the +2 Wound Threshold, they have completed that feel.

Holy crap, people.

I apologize...I thought the hyperbole and obvious misuse of the term "paraphrase" was enough to convey the intended satirical tone.

I guess I should have put my writing in blue text or something.

I apologize...I thought the hyperbole and obvious misuse of the term "paraphrase" was enough to convey the intended satirical tone.

The problem is that your misuse of "paraphrase" isn't obvious unless you have read the paraphrased source. I've had enough of people (presumably) unintentionally misinterpreting what I've said on the subject that I don't have much patience for people intentionally misconveying it. Anyway, no hard feelings; I just wanted to make things clear.

The lightside morality choice at character generation is worth 4 sessions of angelig lightside play.

The darkside morality choice at character generation is worth 2 murders.

This imbalance is what I see as the real problem. The "quick and easy path" is not the darkside option... its extra gear and kill a few more innocent bystanders the first session. Same effect, more stuff

Murdering people is a big deal. The GM should have repercussions enough that the player doesn't get to have his cake and eat it too. If we remove the repercussions from murder, what's to stop a player from starting with 50, getting the creds and xp, then killing three or more people to get the mechanical benefits (if you want to call them that)

Nothing. That's the point. But it doesn't even take 3 murders. Or 1. Many of these things are fairly easy to do with little to no external consequence and doing them without a "light side" justification is supposed to confer extra conflict.

Murdering people is a big deal. The GM should have repercussions enough that the player doesn't get to have his cake and eat it too. If we remove the repercussions from murder, what's to stop a player from starting with 50, getting the creds and xp, then killing three or more people to get the mechanical benefits (if you want to call them that)

Heck, if I were really on my game that first session I could have done it, but I was playing nice that first session...

And yes, our group was dealing with the fallout from that for the next 16 or so game session... and then the fallout from those sessions for the next 16 or... and so on... until we finally convinced the Hutts that they were throwing good money (and lives) after bad by continuing the feud and it really was Teemo's fault in the first place and it was terrible he was dead and they couldn't punish him for starting the whole mess.

On the inverse I have a player who started at 50 and is actively trying to get down to the dark side and failing. It's only been two sessions and he's upset that he's still in the high 30s.

On the inverse I have a player who started at 50 and is actively trying to get down to the dark side and failing. It's only been two sessions and he's upset that he's still in the high 30s.

Or you didn't explain to him that each murder is 10+ Conflict on it's own...

On the inverse I have a player who started at 50 and is actively trying to get down to the dark side and failing. It's only been two sessions and he's upset that he's still in the high 30s.

How is he "actively trying"? It's pretty easy if you are d-bag evil. Mind you, depending on the group you may be escorted out the airlock door. Whether or not there is air on the other side may vary from group to group.

On the inverse I have a player who started at 50 and is actively trying to get down to the dark side and failing. It's only been two sessions and he's upset that he's still in the high 30s.

How is he "actively trying"? It's pretty easy if you are d-bag evil. Mind you, depending on the group you may be escorted out the airlock door. Whether or not there is air on the other side may vary from group to group.

Good point on the presence of the rest of the group.

I've seen enough D&D games where the guy that insisted on playing an Evil character (particularly a Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil one) found themselves in the cross-hairs of the rest of the party simply for being an unapologetic jerk and actively antagonizing other members of the party. It's amazing how inventive some PCs can get when it comes to the topic of either putting the reins on such psychopaths or simply dispensing with them. I think the one that still stands out in my mind was a d20 Modern game where the Token Evil jerk was "dismissed" from the group via double-barrel shotgun enema, after Token Evil jerk had (in game) assaulted a female PC. Player was told lines had been crossed, and that an Evil alignment was not carte blanche to be a prick to the rest of the group (even if we were a bunch of criminals).

So if the rest of the players in Revanchist7's group are of the generally good sort that most RPGs presume the PCs to be as opposed to "wandering murder-hobos," that's probably going to put a crimp in how fast a PC is able to commit those high Conflict-earning actions like torture and murder, especially since the other PCs will themselves earn Conflict simply by inaction if they're aware of what the Token Evil member is doing.

It's a "bad guy" campaign. The player has no quarrel murdering those that are no longer useful or being cruel to his defeated foes, it's just.... This is a good player, his character's motivations and objectives are more important to him then finding some random people to murder just so he can say he's dark side now. He favors roleplaying, not GTA style mayhem.

It's a "bad guy" campaign. The player has no quarrel murdering those that are no longer useful or being cruel to his defeated foes, it's just.... This is a good player, his character's motivations and objectives are more important to him then finding some random people to murder just so he can say he's dark side now. He favors roleplaying, not GTA style mayhem.

Tell him not to worry he'll get there.

It's a "bad guy" campaign. The player has no quarrel murdering those that are no longer useful or being cruel to his defeated foes, it's just.... This is a good player, his character's motivations and objectives are more important to him then finding some random people to murder just so he can say he's dark side now. He favors roleplaying, not GTA style mayhem.

To quote Adam Savage of MythBusters fame: "Well there's your problem."

About the only time we see someone quickly fall to the Dark Side is when they actively engage in GTA-style mayhem. It took Anakin quite some time to get to the point where he "fell," with his attack on Mace Windu being the tipping point, after which he pretty much embarked on a murder-spree starting with the Jedi Temple and rounding it out with butchering the Separatist leadership before Force choking his wife as the closer. In AotC he only goes on a single rampage against the Tusken Raiders, which likely pushed him close, but for most of his apprenticeship and even during the Clone Wars, he had Kenobi to serve as a role model and restraining influence on his darker impulses. Take Kenobi out of the equation... and we saw what happened.

If your players are really determined to be a dark side Force users, then I'd say simply hand wave it and treat them as such when the campaign starts, particularly if that's one of the main focuses of the campaign. After all, if the PCs in an EotE game are meant to be enforcers working for a Hutt crime lord, you wouldn't make them go through the process of actually having to impress their Hutt employer to get hired in the first place, but instead start them off as having worked for the Hutt for some time prior to the campaign's start. Same with a group of AoR PCs, who by default start as active members of the Rebel Alliance, having already at some point in their respective backstories made contact with a recruiter, joined up, and been assigned to a mission group or squadron.

But at the same time, most groups aren't going to want to play the bad guys, which is the default assumption that FFG is going with, and as such the Morality system accounts for that. And based on what I've seen of various FaD games, FFG is not wrong in that; my own group are practically a group of Paladins.

I wonder if they changed the mechanic to be "Roll a d10. If the roll is under the amount of conflict gained for the session, lose the difference in Morality. If the roll is equal to or greater than the conflict gained, there is no change to the character's Morality score."

Then expand on the ways in which a GM can award Morality for deeds and actions taken.

I raise this idea in that becoming more Moral is usually a conscious decision, and something actively strived for. Not random. Also, in the sample adventure, they do mention awarding one Morality if the characters are able to do things in a moral/altruistic way during the adventure.

Thoughts?

The problem with all the various Morality "awards" methods suggested is that they all wind up encouraging certain players to treat the Morality system as a "zero sum game" and thus game the system in the idea that they can freely call upon the dark side (be it converting dark side pips to Force Points or using dark side powers like Harm and Unleash) so long as they take care to do enough good deeds every so often to avoid completely falling to the dark side, something that is a stark contrast to how the Force has largely been established to work.

The current system already "rewards" players that avoid negative actions by virtue of them simply not having any Conflict points to reduce the result of that d10 roll at the end of the session, If you play by the Jedi Code and don't generate more than 1 or 2 points of Conflict a session, then reaching Light Side Paragon is simply a matter of time, particularly if one's Morality triggers and you get a high die roll at the end of the session and have managed to avoid accruing a large amount of Conflict.

That and it's generally easier to establish for a broad base of customers what constitutes an evil/dark action than it is what truthfully constitutes a good/light action. Simply consider all the debates had about the D&D Paladin, their Code of Conduct, and the various tales of how Paladins got screwed over by GMs that were jerks about interpreting said Code of Conduct. I've heard similar stories regarding what does and doesn't constitute a Dark Side Point worthy infraction all the way back to the days of WEG's Star Wars system. It got to the point for WotC that Gary M. Sarli had to write a Jedi Counseling article that pretty much set-up a series of Yes/No questions to determine what level of transgression merited a Dark Side Point in Saga Edition (and it was a pretty **** good article too).

Did this resolve anyone's objections to the way Morality was working?

Given that new threads keep popping up with half-baked attempts to "fix" the Morality system because the OP didn't want to bother learning how it actually worked or wanted a mechanic that they could metagame, I'm gonna go with "No" on that one.

Once the final version of the rules get printed and the Force and Destiny forums go live, you probably won't be able to swing a dead cat in that forum without bumping into somebody's ham-fisted attempt to "fix" Morality.

The problem with all the various Morality "awards" methods suggested is that they all wind up encouraging certain players to treat the Morality system as a "zero sum game" and thus game the system in the idea that they can freely call upon the dark side (be it converting dark side pips to Force Points or using dark side powers like Harm and Unleash) so long as they take care to do enough good deeds every so often to avoid completely falling to the dark side, something that is a stark contrast to how the Force has largely been established to work.

The problem is that the Force hasn't really been established to work any particular way (especially not in canon). We have some points of view espoused by various mouthpieces, but the Force itself is pretty much a mystery. In fact, many Jedi are shown using the Force in manners that would probably incur Conflict in this system but aren't seen to fall to the Dark Side. Of course, I've expressed my vexation that Morality is even a mechanic before.

...because the OP didn't want to bother learning how it actually worked..

Oh really now?

The current system is still open to being metagamed to some extent, and rewards those who do play that game. Go conflict light a few sessions, and hopefully the dice favor you and reward your Morality.

However, if you only gain Morality when you perform good deeds, and those are left up to the purview of the GM (and maybe the other players at the table), it becomes a more valuable resource. One you'd be less likely to want to lose due to a roll of a die.

I do agree this would be more contentious, and require that all those at the table trust each other, and have the same outlook when it comes to what is right and wrong.

Anyway, I find the randomly rising Morality a bit false feeling. Just making some suggestions for those of us who don't play "it's me against the GM" and want a little "cause" with their "effect"

Avoid Conflict and earn up to 10 Morality per session. Do unsavory things and the probability of earning Morality starts to drop. Using the info on pg. 220 that should be enough to ensure that the player has to make a decision or risk gaining Conflict just from inaction. How is this not cause and effect? The player's response to a scenario determines Conflict gained or not.

How is the possibility of gaining positive Morality points outside of the dice make them more valuable? All you are doing is degrading the value of Conflict points because now the player can weigh them against positive points. The die roll makes Morality far more valuable since every point of Conflict will affect that roll.

Avoid Conflict and earn up to 10 Morality per session.

You've stated perfectly what I perceive as an issue.

In life (and perhaps more so in fiction) it is those that learn from their conflict that we perceive as more moral.

We do not cheer for the hero because they avoid conflict, but because they face it and make the hard choices.

A wild swing to having more morality from a play session where a character avoids conflict and did pretty much nothing during the session, seems out of place to me.

At the very least, the die roll should only be done if the character has gained any conflict at all. No conflict, no roll.

You have to be tested to learn from it.

Avoid Conflict and earn up to 10 Morality per session.

You've stated perfectly what I perceive as an issue.

In life (and perhaps more so in fiction) it is those that learn from their conflict that we perceive as more moral.

We do not cheer for the hero because they avoid conflict, but because they face it and make the hard choices.

A wild swing to having more morality from a play session where a character avoids conflict and did pretty much nothing during the session, seems out of place to me.

At the very least, the die roll should only be done if the character has gained any conflict at all. No conflict, no roll.

You have to be tested to learn from it.

Except that the very nature of sitting at a table and rolling dice is to deal with conflict. Taken for what it is yes the morality is light side focused, but one is not playing the game just to build up morality. We play these games to be thrown into tough positions and be forced to make hard choices. If a player is trying to follow Kreia's teachings and "Do Nothing" for a whole story, I would say that your group needs a character who isn't just there for the ride.

As the developer pointed out in the last update, each side of the force is going to be advantageous to someone so both were made accessible for the purposes of telling the best story possible. The beta even says that morality is supposed to go up and down as part of a typical story.

So your character falls to the dark side, so what? You shift your use of pips on the force dice, gain some extra wounds and lose some strain but your characters personality is still under your control. Nothing says you have to play your character as a rage fueled murder machine or heartless megalomaniac. Even Ventris struggled up and down the morality scale which made for some great character development.

The best suggestion I can make regarding the morality system is to just play your character. If your morality falls, so what. No one is going to take your character away or tell you your not playing them right (at least I hope not).

I believe it was OggDude that posted this in a different thread, but perhaps the fundamental tripping point that folks are having with the current Morality system is that rather than thinking of it purely as earning Conflict for dark actions, that the proper mindset for how Morality operates would be "I have a chance to be awarded up to 10 Morality each session, but if I act like a jerk and do a bunch of evil/scummy/self-serving things, then I'm sacrificing the chance to increase my Morality."

Also, the lack of being able to "metagame" the Morality system applies to both players and GMs. As the countless tales of "Paladin Screw Jobs" out there will attest, not all GMs are fair and benevolent dictators. And while the GM can present a number of courses of action that would generate multiple points of Conflict, the PC can simply choose not to take the "quick and easy" path and find an alternative course of action to solve the current problem facing them.

And Dermaius Kerr has an excellent point as well, particularly the last two paragraphs of his post.

So what's left for mechanical objections. Pretty much just difference of opinion on conflict acquisition (easily house-ruled)?

Still wish they'd pick a different motivation mechanic... Oh, well. At this point it looks like I'm SoL there.