So if I am understanding the Morality System correctly it is possible to quickly gain light side points by simply not doing anything.

At the end of each session you roll a d10 and gain the difference in Light Side points, if you purposefully don't RP and don't generate conflict this is a quick way to achieve "Paragon of the Light" which seems a bit dumb to me.

My suggestion would be to have Dark Side and Light Side "Tokens". For every evil/bad action you gain a number of Dark Side tokens and for every virtuous/good action you gain a number of Light Side tokens. Dark Side tokens would be worth -5 points each and the Light Side tokens would be worth +3 points each, the reason for the difference in size is to demonstrate that the Dark Side is the easier/quicker path while working towards the light is supposed to be hard work. Obviously at the end of the session you subtract one from the other and gain/lose the Morality that is left over.

So what do you guys think? have you come up with your own solutions? or do you like the current Morality System?

Thanks for reading,

LeighPouse

If the player does nothing then they roll nothing. Mind you if they are doing nothing then they may generate conflict for their inaction.

Oh and you may want to post this thread in the F&D forum where it is more relevant.

If the player does nothing then they roll nothing. Mind you if they are doing nothing then they may generate conflict for their inaction.

I thought you had to roll the D10 at the end of the session regardless? and if you don't I still don't like the idea that you have to commit a Dark Side action for a chance of gaining Light Side points

An easier quicker fix would be that if a player does not generate any conflict at all in a session, then they don't make a roll to see if they go up or down.

As for being powerful - according to Beta, 70 points you get to add an extra Light Side Destiny Point at the start of the session, and gain two extra strain (1 at 80 and 1 at 90). This is NOT that powerful.

If a PC doesn't get conflict, you, as a GM, are not trying hard enough.

An easier quicker fix would be that if a player does not generate any conflict at all in a session, then they don't make a roll to see if they go up or down.

As for being powerful - according to Beta, 70 points you get to add an extra Position destiny point at the start of the session, and gain two extra strain (1 at 80 and 1 at 90).

If a PC doesn't get conflict, you, as a GM, are not trying hard enough.

As I said above, I simply don't like the idea that you have to generate Conflict (i.e. perform a Dark Side action) for a chance of gaining Light Side points. I do however agree that with the current system that if no conflict is gained then they shouldn't roll.

edit: I don't think I mentioned it being powerful

If the player does nothing then they roll nothing. Mind you if they are doing nothing then they may generate conflict for their inaction.

I thought you had to roll the D10 at the end of the session regardless? and if you don't I still don't like the idea that you have to commit a Dark Side action for a chance of gaining Light Side points

He means you don't get anything for having your character sit around and doing nothing, no XP, no Morality. It's not in the rulebook, it's more of a GM tactic to prevent problem players from making things harder on other players/trying to game the system.

If the player does nothing then they roll nothing. Mind you if they are doing nothing then they may generate conflict for their inaction.

I thought you had to roll the D10 at the end of the session regardless? and if you don't I still don't like the idea that you have to commit a Dark Side action for a chance of gaining Light Side points

He means you don't get anything for having your character sit around and doing nothing, no XP, no Morality. It's not in the rulebook, it's more of a GM tactic to prevent problem players from making things harder on other players/trying to game the system.

Oh I see, thanks for the clarification. Yeh, if that happens with my guys, I'll happily kick one of them from the party

While I catch the meaning, it might help to remember that there is no such thing as "Light Side points." There is just a Morality scale that goes from 0 to 100. It's actually important, and probably a deliberate design decision, that Morality doesn't go up any faster when a character performs particularly "good" or "Light Side" actions. Dark actions impact Morality, but heroic actions are just expected, and you can't "balance out" a murder with good deeds.

The fact that Morality trends upward by default seems to be a problem for a lot of people, but I think that's a necessary side effect of other design choices that work well. Rather than the stark Dark Side Points of previous Star Wars RPGs, the FFG system makes falling to the Dark Side a more gradual process. Precisely because Morality trends upward by default, most PCs can stand to gain Conflict from time to time or even regularly. It doesn't mean you're on a beeline to sticking "Darth" in front of your name. That makes gaining Conflict more tempting and gives a wider range of Morality for Force-users to exist in beyond the extremes of Yoda and Sidious.

I wonder if opinions would be less negative if there was no particular "reward" at the top of the Morality scale. It does seem as though "Light Side Paragon" was invented just to balance out "falling to the Dark Side" at the bottom end of the scale, and I'll admit it does seem weird that one could earn such a status by just refraining from serious evil.

I said this in another thread but it bears repeating. The GM is the final arbiter in the game. And while you should be fair, players also have to be the same. Nobody likes a d.o.u.c.h.e. on either side of the table. Someone sitting back trying to avoid conflict either through inaction or other means either doesn't deserve to roll or deserves to possibly gain conflict. The rules are just guidelines and at the end of the day the GM must decide what is or is not applicable.

I wonder if opinions would be less negative if there was no particular "reward" at the top of the Morality scale. It does seem as though "Light Side Paragon" was invented just to balance out "falling to the Dark Side" at the bottom end of the scale, and I'll admit it does seem weird that one could earn such a status by just refraining from serious evil.

Actually this is funny considering the outcry that going Dark initially in the F&D beta was considered substandard to going light. People wanted more benefit to going dark. And honestly, does it really matter? If you are going to allow someone to easily go light through inaction, it is just as easy for someone to go dark through action.

Leigh, no you didn't mention that, and I'm sorry if I misunderstood, however I do feel that you may be worried about something you don't need to worry too much about as even if they do reach Light Side Paragon...its not really a big deal to game play.

I wonder if opinions would be less negative if there was no particular "reward" at the top of the Morality scale. It does seem as though "Light Side Paragon" was invented just to balance out "falling to the Dark Side" at the bottom end of the scale, and I'll admit it does seem weird that one could earn such a status by just refraining from serious evil.

Actually this is funny considering the outcry that going Dark initially in the F&D beta was considered substandard to going light. People wanted more benefit to going dark. And honestly, does it really matter? If you are going to allow someone to easily go light through inaction, it is just as easy for someone to go dark through action.

well if you read the Beta Update (https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/StarWarsRPG/force-and-destiny/support/Beta%20Errata%2010.pdf) there is a "reward" at the bottom end of the scale now as well.

Leigh, no you didn't mention that, and I'm sorry if I misunderstood, however I do feel that you may be worried about something you don't need to worry too much about as even if they do reach Light Side Paragon...its not really a big deal to game play.

maybe I am overthinking it . But like I say above there is a "reward" at both ends now

Something I've been doing, if you are worried about "do nothing" sessions, move all secondary mechanics and XP rewards to the end of the adventure or to some key milestone. "Session" is kinda a fuzzy point as it's possible to have a session cover anything from a shopping trip and mission brief, to half a dozen encounters depending on the group, adventure design, and playstyle. Moving things like XP rewards and Morality checks to the end gives the players a requirement to actually Play the adventure to get anything meaningful out of it. Likewise keeping Conflict down is a lot harder over the course of a complete adventure of 6+ encounters vs. a session that might have only one, if any. Longer adventures can be broken up into Acts like how they do in Beyond the Rim.

Of course the above is reliant on the players actually having adventures to progress through. The more sandbox your campaign is the harder that will be.

That said, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I think a lot of the outcry over morality has less to do the with rewards, which really are only marginally better then you get out of Obligation or Duty, and lot more to do with the baggage, history, and lore attached to light/dark narrative and mechanics of the EU and past game systems.

Looking forward to exploring this system. I love how Obligation works and the potential roleplay it can trigger. I see Morality as an even bigger opportunity to throw story worthy conflict at players. I will present them with opportunities for light and dark, but I will have storyline consequences for bright light, kinda light, sorta dark and very dark. I don't expect the rules to provide this avenue for me, because there is a lot of subjective ruling in morality in the real world, much less a game. I will explain this so that we are all on the same page about where things will go for them.

In general, I expect to make things hard on anyone that wants to choose a Jedi path. I remember the early days of Galaxies and I also remember the first time I saw a Jedi pull out a lightsaber in a cantina (for someone smart enough to achieve it, he sure was dumb) and get gunned down. At one point, I had a list of all of the Jedi I had ever seen... and it was less than ten names prior to EZ-Mode. I even made friends with one of them and he took me Rancor hunting with my Beastmaster character.

Jedi are polarizers in this game. They are immediately recognizable. Everyone they meet (in-character) will have an opinion on what they should be doing. Everyone. There is a reason they hid themselves. I expect mine to do everything they can to hide themselves... and if they cannot, then they better get out of Dodge quick! And I expect them to have moral conflict in any town they enter or often in random encounters with strangers.

Dice may play a part.. in fact, I'm looking forward to the choices they have to make with the force die results they get. Especially if they are doing it trying to save someone else. Choices made in difficult circumstances will direct where I take them. Really, really looking forward to getting to use this mechanic.

What GM runs games in which the players do nothing? Why aren't you challenging them with difficult situations that require tough choices?

What player wants to sit around, taking no action, for 10 sessions just to get 2 extra strain? Was it worth it?

Has this actually come up at someone's table, or is this a theoretical problem?

If the player does nothing then they roll nothing. Mind you if they are doing nothing then they may generate conflict for their inaction.

Oh and you may want to post this thread in the F&D forum where it is more relevant.

This, on both points. Knowing inaction grants conflict just as much as doing "the wrong thing." Anywhere from 1 to 6 easy Conflict if you just sit there and let an innocent come to harm.

Also, F&D forum would get you more posts and insight from people playing with F&D rules

-EF

What GM runs games in which the players do nothing? Why aren't you challenging them with difficult situations that require tough choices?

What player wants to sit around, taking no action, for 10 sessions just to get 2 extra strain? Was it worth it?

Has this actually come up at someone's table, or is this a theoretical problem?

Bit of both.

I haven't had much issue with it in the games I GM, but I run adventures that follow a similar style to published modules that are built to keep the plot moving forward and the players in the railyard if not on a particular set of rails. So I can typically keep the players challenged, with i only being a real problem in situations where we've got like a major battle that takes a while to get through, simply out of scale.

However I'm also playing in a much more freeform sandbox type game where while the GM is giving us stuff to do, there's not always the kind of clear objectives and "Plot this way" signs you'll see in something like I run. In that case there will occasionally be sessions where we're all just kinda standing around figuring out our next move. And in that situation, yeah the system does skew toward light.

Though I totally agree, 2 extra strain and a Dpoint isn't that big a deal compared to the fuss...

The biggest issue I've seen with Morality is two-fold.

One is that the GM isn't providing their players with "hard choice" situations, where doing the "right" thing (options that won't generate very much Conflict if any) are a lot harder and more difficult than the "easy" thing (options that will most certainly generate Conflict).

The other is that it seems a number of players wind up meta-gaming when it comes to Conflict, feeling that earning a point of Conflict carries with it a similar weight that earning a Dark Side Point did in the prior Star Wars RPGs. When the fact of the matter is that is not the case at all. I've had a couple of players get very worried over earning Conflict, and to that end acted like a pack of goody-two-shoes paladins; admittedly part of that was my own fault as I was still pretty new to the Morality/Conflict mechanic and didn't really give my group any "hard decision" scenarios, but at the same time I did have a couple PCs knowingly and willingly undertake actions that generated a lot of Conflict (including outright murder) simply because it was what their character would do.

Personally, the Force users I've played since the FaD Beta was released tend to walk the path of the Jedi anyway, so me as a player I tend to prefer taking courses of action that won't result in my earning Conflict, such as interceding in an argument between a fellow PC and a shop merchant that looked ready to break out into violence. I told a few fibs in my talk with the shop keeper, but those fibs were to prevent violence and not jeopardize the Alliance mission we were on (droid pick-up as per Act 1 of Dead in the Water) rather than for any personal gain on my character's part. Later in the same adventure, when the Alliance command ship we were on got seized, more than a few times my PC went straight to "chop up the bad guys with my lightsaber" instead of finding other solutions, and each time my PC earned a point of Conflict for doing so. Character in question is a Light Side Paragon (upper 80's for Morality score) but it took several sessions and also took my character consciously choosing not to undertake certain courses of action that would have been quicker and easier.

In a Dawn of Defiance game I'm playing an Ataru Striker who is also a Light Side Paragon, and again he's made the deliberate choice to not take the quick and easy actions in favor of doing what he knows is right, having Justice as one of his Motivations on top of trying to find non-violent solutions to our problems; doesn't always work (much to our Twi'lek Smuggler's great chagrin), but at least I'm trying.

And for both characters, I very much weigh "do I really need this Force power to activate?" if I roll dark side pips on my Force die. In many cases, the answer is "no" but then being a Force wizard isn't a major feature to either of those characters. If I were playing a character's primary method of offense was the Move power, that might be different. Closest I've gotten is with my Dawn of Defiance character earning 2 Conflict from rolling 2 dark side pips on his Force die in order to use Move to save an ally from certain death via plunging into the depths of Bespin; in that case I didn't fret over the Conflict earned, figuring that and the strain taken reflected the character's desperation and tapping into his emotions to save someone that he cared very deeply about.

Back to topic, perhaps one alternative to cut down on sudden Morality increases is to change/alter the die type being rolled. Since FFG has only used a d10 in terms of standard dice, it stands to reason that's the die type they'd use for Morality changes at the end of a session. From the Beta period, suggestions were put forth to instead use a d6, so that this way if a PC generated more than a couple points of Conflict, odds were they're Morality would go down, and even if they were a bunch of paladins, it'd still take a while to reach Light Side Paragon since the average gain would be a +3 Morality (average die result of 4 less one point of Conflict) instead of a +5 (average die result of 6 less one point of Conflict). The other would be to still use a d10, but just halve the result before applying the PC's Conflict, which again has the result of slowing down the ascent to Light Side Paragon for those PCs that don't undertake actions that generate much Conflict.

Another possible idea is to not tell the player how much Conflict a course of action is going to earn them; simply say "If you do that, it could earn you Conflict." And by that token, use the chart provided in the book as a guidelines for the minimum amount of Conflict an action would incur.

Or if the GM feels their players are still meta-gaming too much in regards to Conflict.... then don't tell them their action would generate Conflict until after they've done it, and make sure to disallow "take backs." Most of the things that will earn a PC Conflict in this game are pretty straightforward and most sentient beings would be aware of, things like "don't start fights, don't steal, don't cause unnecessary destruction, don't torture animals, don't murder a helpless person." Bear in mind the Force has a pretty strict Black and White stance on what is and isn't morale; a character's culture has ZERO bearing what actions will generate Conflict. Or as GM Chris of the Order 66 podcast has so succinctly put it "if what your character is doing would make Palpatine chuckle with glee, then it's an evil action."

Bear in mind the Force has a pretty strict Black and White stance on what is and isn't morale; a character's culture has ZERO bearing what actions will generate Conflict. Or as GM Chris of the Order 66 podcast has so succinctly put it "if what your character is doing would make Palpatine chuckle with glee, then it's an evil action."

image: a happy Emperor Palpatine

"I'm not laughing At you, I'm laughing WITH you!" - Emperor Palpatine

Sorry, got lost. Thought this was a Force Move thread

Moving along...

I agree with the take no action make no roll approach. Jedi and Sith are persons of action not nanny pants worry warts. The Force isn't a 401k, it's playing roulette while skydiving.

One could argue that being nancy pants worry warts is what led to the fall of the Jedi Order and Old Republic...

One could argue that being nancy pants worry warts is what led to the fall of the Jedi Order and Old Republic...

One could ,if they wanted to hijack the thread and not stay on topic...

_{Besides, no way would I let a Jedi (or a Jedi wannabe) 'sit around and do nothing' just to avoid conflict...}

_{"you're aware that your actions could tempt you away from the path you've chosen, but if you do nothing then you know evil will triumph."}

_{Sounds like the very definition of conflict to me... not to mention a good story.}

_{You wanna sit this one out? Watch your Morality fall by the wayside... and let the Darkness roll in.}

_{Besides, no way would I let a Jedi (or a Jedi wannabe) 'sit around and do nothing' just to avoid conflict...}

_{"you're aware that your actions could tempt you away from the path you've chosen, but if you do nothing then you know evil will triumph."}

_{Sounds like the very definition of conflict to me... not to mention a good story.}

_{You wanna sit this one out? Watch your Morality fall by the wayside... and let the Darkness roll in.}

To the tune of "Let the Good Times Roll" is the new Sith hit: Let the Dark Side Roll!

-EF