_{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."}

"Even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

- Rush, from the song Freewill

Yeah, I'd agree that a PC that just decides to "not get involved" in a situation so as to avoid Conflict would probably still earn some degree of Conflict for their inaction, particularly if that inaction allows a dark/evil outcome to occur. And if the character isn't out actively adventuring, then there'd be no d10 roll as well as no XP earned for just sitting on their butts. The only Obi-Wan grew during his exile was old, as he certainly wasn't taking any actions that would really justify him earning XP to improve his abilities; the whole "learn to become a Force ghost" is really more of a meta-plot ability since a Force ghost still can't interact with the environment.

_{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.}

Yoda sat out for almost 20 years and he didn't fall to the dark side.

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.

Are we talking about an Edmund Burke, "Evil triumphs because good is lazy," morality or a Wu Wei, "Do what comes naturally without effort or regard for consequence," morality?

Putting it bluntly, if you have a player who's character can quite literally sit there and do nothing for an entire session, it's probably time to hang up the GM robes. Either that or you guys were really playing a game of go fish and didn't realize lol.

_{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.}

Yoda sat out for almost 20 years and he didn't fall to the dark side.

Yoda pretty much sat in a swamp contemplating his navel, so while I agree he didn't fall to the dark side, he also wouldn't have increased his Morality either. Of course, Yoda's an NPC by every definition of the term, so it's like the Morality system really applies to him in the first place; he's simply Yoda, there to serve the story role of the wise mentor that guides the hero on the path to their destiny.

_{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.}

Yoda sat out for almost 20 years and he didn't fall to the dark side.

Yoda pretty much sat in a swamp contemplating his navel, so while I agree he didn't fall to the dark side, he also wouldn't have increased his Morality either. Of course, Yoda's an NPC by every definition of the term, so it's like the Morality system really applies to him in the first place; he's simply Yoda, there to serve the story role of the wise mentor that guides the hero on the path to their destiny.

The last 20 years of a 900 year life? If I am supposed to be a paragon of light in my last 0.02% of my life when even moving is going to be challenging, then I guess I would fall to the dark side as well. Hopefully we aren't talking about passage of time being any kind of factor in resolving Morality. Even cinematically time passes. Yet when we do see Yoda appear on the screen, no matter how much time has passed, his actions speak very loudly, though his words resonate. Training younglings and oldlings still counts as doing something good in my book as it is something outside himself.

After all, it's not like Yoda was hiding to protect himself. He could have theoretically done that on Nar Shadaa or somewhere else with spas and casinos or even just flush toilets. He was protecting knowledge because the other surviving Jedi knew that eventually, they'd need to send one or both of the Skywalker children to him to learn the lost ways of the Jedi. He was making a sacrifice. One might argue he earned a little bit of Conflict in fleeing immediately after the fight with Sidious, but throwing himself into cutting a bloody swath through the Empire (the former Republic, after all) would have been the Dark Side choice, not sequestering on Dagobah and preparing to train what might be the last of the Jedi to exist in the galaxy.

Lord knows I've said my peace on Morality and how I feel it's a narrative dead end. But never one to shy away from shooting off my mouth, let me say this. . . .

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

Should Star Wars have moral challenges? Absolutely - Anakin's bad moral choices and Luke making up for that is pretty much the entire point of the movies (at least up to this point. What the Disneyverse does from here on in will probably go off-book from that morality tale). One of the best RPG arcs from back in my WEG days was a PC daughter trying to bring her NPC father back to the light. So no argument that there is some powerful, meaty stuff to mine there.

My issue with constantly challenging the players with moral choices is that after a while it seems like trolling. "Look, another Imperial holding another blind orphan at gun point while his stormtroopers burn down the hospital. Oh no."

And I hate micro managing. Handing out one conflict here and there for stupid little stuff not only seems like trolling, but now it seems like petty trolling.

While the Force is generally superior to WEG, I think I prefer their Falling To The Dark Side mechanic - at least at a high level conceptual idea. Dark Side Points only got handed out for really important and significant events, that they were not to be taken lightly. You know something big was happening when the GM handed one out, or that the player was truly in dire straights when they called upon the Dark Side for something.

I agree with Desslok and several others, the Morality system as written is very problematic. I dislike the incentive to turn roleplaying into "soft powergaming" by policying morality choices.

But thankfully, this is a RPG and not a boardgame so there is somebody who is allowed to tweak/change/erase every rule that seems problematic for the group. I completely reworked Duty (and Obligation) for my games, so nothing will stop me to tweak/fix morality in our F&D campaign.

Ps: as a Player - if I ever get the chance again - I don't mind morality. I'd just do as my characters personality dictates and let the GM work out the rest.

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...

Taking the source material and liberally using the rules system to look at what major characters did in the original storyline could be considered on topic.

And that the Jedi Order collected too much conflict points for not doing anything, thus losing their firm grip on the force which made it easier for Sidious and Plagueis to cloud their vision...One could almost consider that 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.}

Yoda sat out for almost 20 years and he didn't fall to the dark side.

Yoda pretty much sat in a swamp contemplating his navel, so while I agree he didn't fall to the dark side, he also wouldn't have increased his Morality either. Of course, Yoda's an NPC by every definition of the term, so it's like the Morality system really applies to him in the first place; he's simply Yoda, there to serve the story role of the wise mentor that guides the hero on the path to their destiny.

We don't know if Yoda was a Paragon for the entirety of his stay on Dagobah, it is possibly that the dark side places affected him for a time, with him resurfacing strengthened in the end.

And even though I'm being very pessimistic, there is a chance that Disney will make a movie about that. Why? Because Disney. I'm scared when Mr. Disney CEO finds the old Endor movies

My issue with constantly challenging the players with moral choices is that after a while it seems like trolling. "Look, another Imperial holding another blind orphan at gun point while his stormtroopers burn down the hospital. Oh no."

This is the moral issue that is easy to choose what to do. You need to be creative in giving them a choice. The Rebel Alliance wants to make good with the Crime Lord. Crime Lord wants to disappear from Imperial sight, and has a plan to have the players take a clone of Crime Lord on a "botched" smuggling run, make sure clone is killed, leave body for Imperials to find and declare dead. Crime Lord rewards party/Alliance with large shipment of weaponry.

Now, does the force user go along and get conflict for killing (allowing to be killed) an innocent sentient? Who is grown for that purpose? Or does he refuse and anger both the Crime Lord and the Alliance?

This is the Edge of the Empire; we're not troubled by moral concerns.

Wow some serious nonsense here. No inaction will not cause conflict. Otherwise yoda and the jedi counsel would all be sith masters by now. Punishing players for "not doing anything" how absurd. Punish yourself for not making your game fun. Most likely the players are doing something that doesn't fit in with the adventure you wrote and you are being hurt about it. I doubt very much your game literally is just people sitting in silence for hours.

Not generating conflict is what the players are trying to do (good guys anyways) forcing them to rely on the darkside to survive randomly can generate conflict but players who make narriatively GOOD choices or Avoid making a choice should not gain conflict, but may have consequences for the story.

As a story teller you should be tempting the characters with gear, personal gain, power, control constantly and if they take it bam conflict, but they get that advantage and you keep trying to get them to walk down that lonely road.

This is the moral issue that is easy to choose what to do. You need to be creative in giving them a choice. The Rebel Alliance wants to make good with the Crime Lord. Crime Lord wants to disappear from Imperial sight, and has a plan to have the players take a clone of Crime Lord on a "botched" smuggling run, make sure clone is killed, leave body for Imperials to find and declare dead. Crime Lord rewards party/Alliance with large shipment of weaponry.

Now, does the force user go along and get conflict for killing (allowing to be killed) an innocent sentient? Who is grown for that purpose? Or does he refuse and anger both the Crime Lord and the Alliance?

If it's made a more general challenge - there has to be a convincing-looking 'death' - you'd be in better shape, since there are ways (with or without the use of a clone) to make it look like someone has died and even leave material evidence behind that this has happened (including remains, even an entire 'corpse'). Those would take more doing than just blowing up the clone in front of some Imperial mooks (although even that could be faked: if they never get close enough and the explosion is big enough, a dummy and a bit of DNA might be sufficient), so it'll require getting more creative - but that's going to make the situation more interesting for all of the players than creating a Devil's Bargain scenario for one of them.

Wow some serious nonsense here. No inaction will not cause conflict. Otherwise yoda and the jedi counsel would all be sith masters by now.

Yes, this is being inappropriately generalized from 'inaction in the face of something happening right here and right now', which does (or at least can) generate conflict.

Not generating conflict is what the players are trying to do (good guys anyways) forcing them to rely on the darkside to survive randomly can generate conflict but players who make narriatively GOOD choices or Avoid making a choice should not gain conflict, but may have consequences for the story.

That was another thing misplaced earlier in the thread: to make a morality roll, the character 'only' needs to have the opportunity to do something that would result in conflict; they don't actually have to gain it.

This is the moral issue that is easy to choose what to do. You need to be creative in giving them a choice. The Rebel Alliance wants to make good with the Crime Lord. Crime Lord wants to disappear from Imperial sight, and has a plan to have the players take a clone of Crime Lord on a "botched" smuggling run, make sure clone is killed, leave body for Imperials to find and declare dead. Crime Lord rewards party/Alliance with large shipment of weaponry.

Now, does the force user go along and get conflict for killing (allowing to be killed) an innocent sentient? Who is grown for that purpose? Or does he refuse and anger both the Crime Lord and the Alliance?

Its not so much what the choice is, but the constant stream of "Oh no, Another Thing to Make Me Angry Cropped Up Again", this week it's a imperial torching a orphan hospital, last week, the nun was being tortured, the week before that a Hutt burnt down the PC's business, the week before that it's dealing with a crime lord for guns, and the week before that. . . .

Morality moments should be about hitting the high points occasionally, but making them meaningful when you do. In the original six flicks, we had deep and important moments of choice three times - Anakin flipping out on the Sandpeople, Anakin's very bad choice and "I am a jedi like my father before me". Now if it was a constant parade of morality moments, I don't think it would have been as effective.

Morality should be the spice to flavor the dish, not the main course.

The resurrection of this year old thread is poignant for my campaign. I agree that the constant "moral choices" is not only boring, but constrains the breadth of what the SW universe has to offer. Micro-managing a Morality score is a really poor way to do this. I prefer the choices to have in-game story-based consequences. An example from my current campaign, perhaps you will be amused:

Background detail #1: all the PCs are Force Sensitive, with the Exile tree.

Background detail #2: those familiar with TCW season 6 Mace+Jar-jar episodes will remember the crystal orb storing life-essence. I ripped this off wholesale, but put it 3000 years in the past in a long abandoned temple complex on the PC's home planet. Needless to say, most of the conscious entities trapped within the orb are now completely insane, with a few "hard to reach" exceptions.

The really big picture view is that the Emperor has become vaguely "aware" of the existence of the orb, not really as a physical object but more a "disturbance in the Force", something powerful he could potentially use. So he's bending a few resources in that direction.

Background detail #3: the PCs have identified an Imperial undercover agent working in their town. The agent has been tasked with shadowing the archeologist researching the ruins (an NPC friend of the PCs), and the PCs have discovered that the agent is starting to put 2+2 together, connecting the PCs with lots of activities the Imperials have so far been mystified by.

Forward to the action: after dreaming up ways to discredit the agent and drive him out of the community (or drive him mad), which were partially successful and completely amusing, the PCs suddenly decided to take the simple route and just off him. They pretty much took a walk late at night by his house and ..."Hey, you're up late too? Nice night for a walk, yeah, and "...*blam blam blam*

I don't care who the target is, that's murder in my book. First there's the social consequence, turmoil in the town, demonstrated in the next morning's news cycle:

"I will say, your characters did not sleep well, but we will deal with that next session.

The sheriff will be paying a visit, and it could lead to an Imperial investigation, and information from townsfolk will be coloured by the events.

The second consequence is the orb itself, whose residents eagerly clutch at the flow of the dark side. Keep in mind most of the residents of the orb are quite mad after their 3000 year confinement:

"So, after your characters flee the scene, return home and bed down...

So we start the next session with a Discipline check, for which there could be "interesting" consequences. I find this far more useful than keeping track of some arbitrary number.

tl;dr; - the Morality mechanic is a crutch at best.

I regret I have but one like to give.

I always felt like what they should've aimed for with F&D's meta mechanic was something more like what would be called Notoriety. Morality and immorality could be a component, but the whole idea I thought should be flying under the radar of the Inquisition. Whether you're dark or light you really don't want to draw the attention of the Inquisitors as that's your @$$ very likely. That could be going all choppy McChopperson in the cantina with a lightsaber against NPCs that might or might not deserve it, or it might mean something fairly neutral but more pronounced in the Force like reaching out with the Force to track someone across the galaxy or predict the future. The PCs actions might be moral, immoral, or really neither, but they all draw attention to themselves. I don't like the reward/penalty approach to it as it only encourages gaming the system, whereas something like simply trying to not be noticed doesn't get into morality judgments it just is what it is and frankly I think would encourage the kind of play you'd want from PCs.

I regret I have but one like to give.

You're probably the guy to ask, because I've scrounged but can't find a clip from Minority Report where the pre-cog drifts under water saying "Muuuurrrrdddeeeerrrrr..." I wanted to play that at the beginning of the next session...

Oooh, a challenge. I'll give it a shot tonight when I get home from work.

EDIT -

If I cant find Minority Report, will the killer from New Years Evil going "Muuuurr-dur" do as well? (about 26 seconds in)

Hmm, I'm going for a bit more serious vibe...

I always felt like what they should've aimed for with F&D's meta mechanic was something more like what would be called Notoriety. Morality and immorality could be a component, but the whole idea I thought should be flying under the radar of the Inquisition. Whether you're dark or light you really don't want to draw the attention of the Inquisitors as that's your @$$ very likely. That could be going all choppy McChopperson in the cantina with a lightsaber against NPCs that might or might not deserve it, or it might mean something fairly neutral but more pronounced in the Force like reaching out with the Force to track someone across the galaxy or predict the future. The PCs actions might be moral, immoral, or really neither, but they all draw attention to themselves. I don't like the reward/penalty approach to it as it only encourages gaming the system, whereas something like simply trying to not be noticed doesn't get into morality judgments it just is what it is and frankly I think would encourage the kind of play you'd want from PCs.

And it would trigger just like an Obligation? Actually the Force User in my group has just that, au lieu de Morality (It's an Edge campaign - no FaD stuff so far, for Force's sake!); the Obligation "Wanted by the Inquisitorius". Displaying his powers will increase it, lying low or diverting attention will decrease it.

He's more scared of them buggers than he could ever be of falling into the Dark.

Hmm, I'm going for a bit more serious vibe...

Hey, it's what I had off the top of my head! (:

Lord knows I've said my peace on Morality and how I feel it's a narrative dead end. But never one to shy away from shooting off my mouth, let me say this. . . .

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

I'm torn between explaining how my out of context quote is being misconstrued, or wondering why a post from more than a year ago is suddenly worth debate.

Lord knows I've said my peace on Morality and how I feel it's a narrative dead end. But never one to shy away from shooting off my mouth, let me say this. . . .

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

I'm torn between explaining how my out of context quote is being misconstrued, or wondering why a post from more than a year ago is suddenly worth debate.

Bother not! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

Lord knows I've said my peace on Morality and how I feel it's a narrative dead end. But never one to shy away from shooting off my mouth, let me say this. . . .

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

I'm torn between explaining how my out of context quote is being misconstrued, or wondering why a post from more than a year ago is suddenly worth debate.

Can you both play Devil's advocate? In a thread about morality?