The rules as written work perfectly well. The point you never seem to touch on at all is a bit of GM responsibility in this whole process. The whole argument you've been making predicates on the concept that the GM is not putting their group into situations where they have to make these difficult choices. But if the Morality system is so key to the whole experience of F&D as you say, and I am not saying it is or is not, then the GM should also be making this system a big part of their game session planning. Present the players with situations that play off their strengths and weaknesses, give them difficult choices where they either have to take a harder route or they have to perform an action that will lead to conflict.

If the GM is not incorporating the system into their sessions then 1) You are only half using the system. 2) Perhaps the GM is saying they don't feel it is such an important, integral part of their game.

IIRC it actually is stated in the final rules that no Morality roll is made if a session passes without even the opportunity to gain Conflict. That is not the same thing as a session where no Conflict is actually gained (since the player and character can, in nearly every case, choose to take action that avoids Conflict) but does at least make clear that sessions spent shopping or whatever wouldn't count.

The fact that Morality trends upward unless one does very bad things is a known element of the system, and presumably an intended one, as I can't see how the designers would have wound up there by accident.

The argument could also be made that you're placing the Force users on a pedestal FFG made a well needed point of knocking them off of.

How?

What pedestal are you talking about?

The "Once the force gets involved everything becomes so much more powerful, useful, and important, to a level that nothing else compares" pedestal. You're freaking out over Morality, but saying nothing of Duty or Obligation.

Mechanically speaking Morality is only slightly different from Obligation and Duty. You haven't made any claims about Duty or Obligation not working, even though they can have similar implementation challenges to what Morality has. Why?

The benefits/penalties of all three systems is comparable. Activating all three generates comparable results. Taking the various starting options also gets you in similar ballparks. And activating all three is supposed to have B-plot injection type effects targeting the character with the activated mechanic.

The Morality mechanic is a little skewed toward giving the player light points... but that just means that a player can just play a more complex character without having to worry about the Darkside banhammer of previous systems. This system allows for things like Darth Razer, the darksider that realized he's got to give these silly Jedi a hand if he wants the galaxy to still be around to conquer later. Or Master House, A-hole Jedi that begrudgingly does good despite the universes constant attempts to show him why it doesn't deserve his help.

The mechanics are about the same, do about the same, and allow for characters that previous systems preferred to kick in the meevoks. But it's not the be-all-end-all of a force using character. It's just another Duty, another Obligation, another mechanic that allows a player and GM to collaborate and develop a more complex personal story.

Morality/Duty/Obligation all require the GM to implement them into the story in order to be effective. A GM who completely ignores his player's Obligations, allow the players to gain benefits without the penalties, the same way as a GM who doesn't add situations which could potentially give Conflict and lets the player roll his way to 100+ Morality without any effort.

I have been playing a Force user since a month after the beta was released using this Conflict system and it works great. He's a relatively good person, but his Morality score is currently a 54, and that's after having played ~3 sessions a month. The GM provides excellent morally ambiguous choices, extremely tempting darkside choices, and so on that really can be fun to explore what my character would do in those situations. The Morality Strength/Weakness is an excellent guideline to use to decide how you would have your character act in a given situation. Add in the constant temptation that all I have to do is flip a Destiny Point, and I can pass that failed check by using those Darkside Points, and it makes for some of the most compelling role-playing experiences I've ever had.

Also the randomness of the 1d10 roll is one of it's greatest strengths. I can't go through our sessions knowing that all I have to do is make one more good choice than I do bad and my Morality will increase. Sometimes I'll lose points even after taking only 2 conflict. After a string of sessions where I rolled 1's and 2's I got down to 34, had it continued to fall, it would have been a lot of fun for me to role-play that fall, and possibly redemption story as well. (Edit: Keep in mind this is playing a relatively good guy.)

But all of these systems take effort by both the Player and GM. The GM implements opportunities (based on a check or whatever) to see who's Duty/Obligation/Morality is triggered and then needs to implement it. The players need to try to recognize those opportunities to role-play to their system. Rebel sympathizers need to keep their eyes open to give aid where they can. A Smuggler needs to be sure he allocates some of his funds to pay his debts on time or that enforcer could be lurking just around the corner to break his legs.

These are great role-playing tools for a role-playing game.

First off, I want to say that I kinda agree with signoftheserpent on spirit of what he's saying: Morality seems to have a definite upward trend with little effort on the part of the player.

And that I think that's problematic.

Now, I do have to qualify my opinion with the fact that I haven't had a chance to run the system yet, so I really can't say how it feels when the dice hit the table.

From what many people have claimed on the forums, it's not that big of an issue, but that's anecdotal evidence from a group that's probably pretty biased (people that are active on these boards) compared to everyone who's using the system.

Now based information I read in a previous discussion of this, I think this is probably not as severe as I originally thought. But "better" isn't "good", and I'd rather have system that doesn't have the problem. I've explained this before here . In general, this system relies really heavily on players behaving themselves and acting within the nature of the rules. IMO, it relies too heavily on these assumptions that simply aren't met in reality.

@signoftheserpent - Like I said, I agree with you, but man are you making it hard to do that. **** like this:

this is incorrect,

you do not always gain morality during a game, to gain morality in a game you must at some point do something that triggers your strength or weakness, for example if I am compassionate, I must do something reasonably compassionate to trigger my morality, at which point I gain the dice, if I do nothing compassionate then I don't

Actually, it is correct. You make a roll at the end of the session whether or not you triggered your strength or weakness.

F&D Core page 52 Cases When Morality Should Not Increase talks about not changing Morality if the player isn't present for the session, the character is incapacitated for the session or if the character has no chance to do anything.

There is no sleeping your way to Paragon status, by the rules.

that doesnt contradict what ive said.

It may not have contradicted what you said above, but it is contra to this:

Because the RAW (rule as written) has caveats for some of the issues you're talking about. If you want to get through to people, you gotta actually play fair and acknowledge (in this case) that the devs did actually try to write in ways around the problem.

And you're just gonna have to get used to the fact that some forum-goers are going to start frothing at the mouth whenever anyone starts criticizing the system; it essentially is a holy text to them and changes are basically heresy. You current are and in the future will be counter-productive if you go right for the throat when dealing with those individuals.

As far as some of the other arguments on here

Morality vs Obligation/Duty

They're just not comparable, for a couple of reasons. First, mechanically, neither duty or obligation "just go up" based on a dice roll at the end of a session; They are only the result of in-character actions. In fact, it's worth noting that's precisely the source of the OP's problem !!! Second, the OP may not be discussing it because he hasn't played EotE or AoR. Simple as that.

Paragon Benefits

I acknowledge that the mechanical benefit of being a light-side paragon is minor, only 1-2 strain points really. However, if you think that's all that matters about morality, e.g. there is no non-mechanical benefit of high morality, then you're not getting the point of this being a narrative system. High morality means you're playing a light-side character, which is pretty central to narratives of many, many PCs.

GM Responsibility

Yeah, the GM is responsible for making the game run right, but the devs really didn't do the GM any favors with these morality rules. IMO, on the surface the rules just don't seem to be sufficiently robust enough to deal with even moderate player shenanigans. And it's not even close to the first time I've had this problem with FFG's products. GM'ing takes enough effort as it stands, and these rules lean even more heavily on the GM than most. Experience could prove me wrong in the future, I hope it does.

tl; dr : IMO there's a potential problem with the morality system RAW, but I'm not sure how big it is. Both sides of this argument went straight to fighting dirty and nothing productive is gonna happen unless both sides calm down.

If you have a PC not earning any conflict then they're probably worthy of reaching paragon. This is a PC that refuses to use a class feature that allows him to effectively succeed on what would be a failed check (using dark side pips), never resorts to violence except as a last resort, doesn't lie cheat or steal, or even sit idly by while their party members do such.

Compare this to a D&D party and the typical assortment of murder hoboes.

Christ there are even talents that give conflict just for knowing them. I'm not huge on that decision however

No I said there must be conflict, not conflict given. The character must actually engage in the game, he can not sit back and sleep his way to paragon-hood. A character can be faced with all kinds of situations. Sometimes they can be very apparent choices between light and dark, "good" and "evil". Sometimes they can be shades of each. Sometimes he can get through a session and gain no conflict (should be rare in my book) and sometimes only a few points and sometimes so much that his morality will drop for sure. It is the job of the GM to make sure the player and his character faces these choices. If a GM doesn't then he is not doing his job. And if a player actively tries to avoid or just doesn't engage then he is not doing his job.

Again, this is not an issue for most people who play the game as they understand that this a role-playing tool and not a hard and fast game mechanic.

I think you're entertaining a straw man here; of course players must engage the game. If they don't noone has a good time!

But the rules specifically refer to the character being completely out of it in order to avoid earning Conflict. I have no problem with that. Otherwise it would be unfair to penalise someone for their lack of agency.

But engaging doesn't always mean an act worthy of earning Conflict or an act of tangible morality. Most people in life (probably even in the SW universe) don't do things that are tangibly moral. In fact if everything a PC did was moral the system would collapse instantly and the bookeeping would drown out the fun element.

IIRC it actually is stated in the final rules that no Morality roll is made if a session passes without even the opportunity to gain Conflict. That is not the same thing as a session where no Conflict is actually gained (since the player and character can, in nearly every case, choose to take action that avoids Conflict) but does at least make clear that sessions spent shopping or whatever wouldn't count.

The fact that Morality trends upward unless one does very bad things is a known element of the system, and presumably an intended one, as I can't see how the designers would have wound up there by accident.

Do you have a page reference?

Recent example:

Iaco (the Jedi in training) in my game was fleeing Dorin, alone. When he got to his hangar, his rival bounty hunter (Spike from Cowboy Bebop ) was waiting for him. Spike was giving him a chance to surrender but Iaco's instinct was to gun him down ala Han Solo style. So I told him doing so would earn him conflict. He instead changed his action to using influence to try to mind trick him. He failed however and Spike attacked! Thus Iaco avoided gaining conflict for the session.

After the session, I was mulling over whether or not to have him roll. Since he didn't actually gain any conflict he shouldn't roll. However, I decided to have him roll for it since the situation actually presented itself and he chose a different course, thus he should earn the chance to improve his Morality.

Now, should the chance to earn conflict never come up in a session, or should he never face situations such as this in a session, then I would have no qualms about not allowing a roll at the end of a session.

IIRC it actually is stated in the final rules that no Morality roll is made if a session passes without even the opportunity to gain Conflict. That is not the same thing as a session where no Conflict is actually gained (since the player and character can, in nearly every case, choose to take action that avoids Conflict) but does at least make clear that sessions spent shopping or whatever wouldn't count.

The fact that Morality trends upward unless one does very bad things is a known element of the system, and presumably an intended one, as I can't see how the designers would have wound up there by accident.

Do you have a page reference?

I believe it is a side bar in the core book in the Morality section or GM section, but I can confirm it is there. Just AFB at the moment.

If you have a PC not earning any conflict then they're probably worthy of reaching paragon. This is a PC that refuses to use a class feature that allows him to effectively succeed on what would be a failed check (using dark side pips), never resorts to violence except as a last resort, doesn't lie cheat or steal, or even sit idly by while their party members do such.

Compare this to a D&D party and the typical assortment of murder hoboes.

But they earn moral by default. They don't necessarily earn it because they are doing things that are moral. These rules do not hand out morality as some kind of xp reward for doing certain actions (and conversely you don't lose it by doing bad actions - you just earn Conflict). You simply earn morality either in spite of your actions (which is rather weird) or you simply gain it as a function of merely living! So it's possible to punch a youngling in the face, earn, say, 5 Conflict, make a morality roll and become closer to being a paragon of the light! Alternatively you can not punch anyone in the face, go about your business, move along, and gain 10 Morality!

Do you see how this is somewhat skewed? I understand what they are trying to do, but I'm not sure it works.

Maybe the roll should either cost morality for failing, or earn/lose nothing. What they are trying to say is that, upon reflection of your experience (of youngling assault), you attain to a higher standard, but that's not really how it plays out.

With respect to the murder hobo paradigm: that implies each time a stormtrooper or imperial is defeated or killed or whatever, the character gains Conflict. Is that how you want to run it? If so Ezra Bridger is heading for trouble!

Dan Clark gave me some great advice on Conflict in my twitter feed.

My advice is to treat it like Conflict, not like Evil Cookies. Anything that makes you upset = conflict.

Fail a Fear check? Disappoint dad? See a friend in pain? Lose a pod race? Endure trauma? Break up with lover? All worth Conflict.

I've been trying this in my own games since then. Seems to work pretty well. Most PCs in my "F&D Group" are ending up with between 2-5 Conflict each per session, just by going through the course of the adventure doing "PC Things".

Dan Clark gave me some great advice on Conflict in my twitter feed.

My advice is to treat it like Conflict, not like Evil Cookies. Anything that makes you upset = conflict.

Fail a Fear check? Disappoint dad? See a friend in pain? Lose a pod race? Endure trauma? Break up with lover? All worth Conflict.

I've been trying this in my own games since then. Seems to work pretty well. Most PCs in my "F&D Group" are ending up with between 2-5 Conflict each per session, just by going through the course of the adventure doing "PC Things".

Some merit in that. One thing I like very much in the "Lure of the Lost" module (which hasn't been brought up in the forum AFAICT) is the sidebars for examples where a PC has the opportunity to reduce their Conflict totals for taking noble and/or heartwarming actions. This "negative Conflict" is definitely something to think about for GMs and module authors going forward.

IIRC it actually is stated in the final rules that no Morality roll is made if a session passes without even the opportunity to gain Conflict. That is not the same thing as a session where no Conflict is actually gained (since the player and character can, in nearly every case, choose to take action that avoids Conflict) but does at least make clear that sessions spent shopping or whatever wouldn't count.

The fact that Morality trends upward unless one does very bad things is a known element of the system, and presumably an intended one, as I can't see how the designers would have wound up there by accident.

Honestly, I think it's pretty easy the designers could get there unintentionally. The design relies really heavily on "doing it right" (by their definitions), and if you've ever read Jay Little's (Lead designer on EotE, I can't remember if he's still lead on F&D) writings about dice, it's not too hard to imagine they don't really get it sometimes.

But they earn moral by default. They don't necessarily earn it because they are doing things that are moral. These rules do not hand out morality as some kind of xp reward for doing certain actions (and conversely you don't lose it by doing bad actions - you just earn Conflict). You simply earn morality either in spite of your actions (which is rather weird) or you simply gain it as a function of merely living! So it's possible to punch a youngling in the face, earn, say, 5 Conflict, make a morality roll and become closer to being a paragon of the light! Alternatively you can not punch anyone in the face, go about your business, move along, and gain 10 Morality!

Do you see how this is somewhat skewed? I understand what they are trying to do, but I'm not sure it works.

Maybe the roll should either cost morality for failing, or earn/lose nothing. What they are trying to say is that, upon reflection of your experience (of youngling assault), you attain to a higher standard, but that's not really how it plays out.

Maybe I can chime in for just a moment...

What everyone has been trying to point out to you is that going a whole session without gaining conflict OR making the conscious choice to avoid an action that would cause such is, with a good GM, impossible.

There should always be choices and those choices should often be important to the story and relate to the character's motivations and obligation/duty/morality in some way. This isn't a choose your own adventure book, it's a roleplaying game in which the characters should fit the story and the story should involve the characters. Failure of such coming up is not on the mechanics, it's on the GM.

Likewise there are times in which conflict may be earned regardless of choice. Hearing about the death of a loved one for example could cause conflict (as well as strain) for your character. This could even tie nicely into a Family Obligation triggering. Is it that your character is falling? No, but some of the light he has seen in the galaxy has been snuffed out and it's a mechanical representation of such.

This is not to say the system is perfect. It's not, nor will it ever be. However I disagree with most of your points as you seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing.

This entire topic is nothing but, "I don't like the system. Wait, how come everyone's not agreeing?! Well, now I have to defend my beliefs!"

With respect to the murder hobo paradigm: that implies each time a stormtrooper or imperial is defeated or killed or whatever, the character gains Conflict. Is that how you want to run it? If so Ezra Bridger is heading for trouble!

You misunderstand the point...

There is a big difference between...

A) We're under heavy fire, quick take out the gunner. (no conflict)

and

B) Look, imperial troopers over there. Should we sneak past? Naw, blast them! (conflict)

followed by...

A) They are surrendering, we did it! Let's hurry and secure them before they change their minds. (no conflict)

and

B) Surrendering? Probably just a ploy, mow'em down boys! (conflict)

Earlier editions of D&D had the whole "Good killing Evil is never bad" thing going for it. Newer editions have changed in that killing when there is a choice to not kill is Evil no matter the life you take unless that creature is from another plane.

If you recall in episode 3, killing Dooku, an obviously evil character, was an evil act that lead Anakin further to the dark side because he was given an opportunity to end the conflict without loss of life and did it anyways. That is the kind of story driven character CONFLICT that the FFG morality system tries to capture without making things complicated. the trend is to go purposely upwards so that the player's don't feel like they are being punished for not being goody goody.

TL;DR version:

Those of us who use the Morality system and like it will continue to use it.

Those who don't, should not use it.

There is no point in arguing.

EDIT:

Forgot to point out that I have had Morality implemented for roughly 10 sessions or so and only one of my characters have reached Paragon level. The others are still around the middle except for two that have just dipped under 40 morality. It's not hard to present the characters with tough choices and implemented right, the players have been having a lot of fun with it so far.

One thing I like very much in the "Lure of the Lost" module (which hasn't been brought up in the forum AFAICT) is the sidebars for examples where a PC has the opportunity to reduce their Conflict totals for taking noble and/or heartwarming actions. This "negative Conflict" is definitely something to think about for GMs and module authors going forward.

I would love to see this implemented, but as a way throttle morality gains, e.g. you can't gain more morality than the "negative conflict" you scored during the mission.

Maybe I can chime in for just a moment...

Oh, I guess you couldn't.

GM Responsibility

Yeah, the GM is responsible for making the game run right, but the devs really didn't do the GM any favors with these morality rules. IMO, on the surface the rules just don't seem to be sufficiently robust enough to deal with even moderate player shenanigans. And it's not even close to the first time I've had this problem with FFG's products. GM'ing takes enough effort as it stands, and these rules lean even more heavily on the GM than most. Experience could prove me wrong in the future, I hope it does.

tl; dr : IMO there's a potential problem with the morality system RAW, but I'm not sure how big it is. Both sides of this argument went straight to fighting dirty and nothing productive is gonna happen unless both sides calm down.

Now that IS a challenge with all three mechanics. FFG did design a lot of the game's odds and ends around conventional adventure and campaign design conventions. The GM is expected to sit down in advance and lay out what the next adventure is all about, how the story progresses, and so on just as if he/she were writing a published module. In this case the GM is expected to sit down as say "Ok, who's Mechanic will do what if it activates?" during that planning. That's the pain of all the Session based mechanics, FFG considers Session to be akin to saying "Adventure" or "Act," Which it certainly can be, but isn't always going to be.

The adventures in the Core and Beta for F&D I blew through in 2 session and 1 long one respectively. Ok cool. Everything worked pretty well.

By comparison, the last Adventure I wrote which was intended to be roughly the same length (2 exploration encounters and only 2-3 combats, thats about it) ended up taking something like 5 sessions, simply because of how the players approached things. Session based mechanics could have gotten out of hand easily, with things like morality and duty getting weird and signature abilities showing up continuously.

And in a more sandbox game I'm a player in the GM isn't always completely sure what's going to happen next session, so planning for our respective mechanics can be even tougher.

One thing I like very much in the "Lure of the Lost" module (which hasn't been brought up in the forum AFAICT) is the sidebars for examples where a PC has the opportunity to reduce their Conflict totals for taking noble and/or heartwarming actions. This "negative Conflict" is definitely something to think about for GMs and module authors going forward.

I would love to see this implemented, but as a way throttle morality gains, e.g. you can't gain more morality than the "negative conflict" you scored during the mission.

Right; it's reducing Conflict earned, and you can't go negative.

I also wouldn't allow you to bank up for later.

"Oh hey, I've been doing all kinds of nice things up until now. I can totally afford to spend those 3 DSPs I just rolled on activating Move and still be at Zero Conflict!"

Now that IS a challenge with all three mechanics . FFG did design a lot of the game's odds and ends around conventional adventure and campaign design conventions. The GM is expected to sit down in advance and lay out what the next adventure is all about, how the story progresses, and so on just as if he/she were writing a published module. In this case the GM is expected to sit down as say "Ok, who's Mechanic will do what if it activates?" during that planning. That's the pain of all the Session based mechanics, FFG considers Session to be akin to saying "Adventure" or "Act," Which it certainly can be, but isn't always going to be.

The adventures in the Core and Beta for F&D I blew through in 2 session and 1 long one respectively. Ok cool. Everything worked pretty well.

By comparison, the last Adventure I wrote which was intended to be roughly the same length (2 exploration encounters and only 2-3 combats, thats about it) ended up taking something like 5 sessions, simply because of how the players approached things. Session based mechanics could have gotten out of hand easily, with things like morality and duty getting weird and signature abilities showing up continuously.

And in a more sandbox game I'm a player in the GM isn't always completely sure what's going to happen next session, so planning for our respective mechanics can be even tougher.

Yes, but again, the d10 conflict roll at the end of the F&D adventures has the potential to make this much worse. That's why the mechanics aren't comparable. You can't say "Well Morality is just like Obligation and Duty" and make changes to it that make it not like obligation and duty.

So characters make a morality roll even when they've gained no conflict? That means they are always gaining morality.

Yes. However, unless you're playing an emotionless automaton, it just takes one moment of anger to screw up your paragon-ness. My Politico princess had her planet invaded by the sith, her sister captured in a coup and nearly everything important to her turned upside down. The dark side pips used to telekinesis the enemy agent over a cliff to extract this intel from him, and that she would have killed him if the other characters hadn't been there to grab him when she let go took her from 89 morality to 60 in one go (thanks to a terrible, terrible roll - I got a 1 against 19 morality).

All of that was reasonable and perfectly in character and appropriately judged on (actually I argued for a slightly higher morality ding). I have no issue with this. So just remember that as you gain morality every session that it takes just a moment for someone to whisper " Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori " in your ear.

Characters should only gain morality if they act, not simply exist.

Furthermore, this system has a lot of leeway in regards to many of its storytelling aspects, presenting them to the GM more as suggestions and tools than hard and fast rules that he and the players must follow, always, with no exceptions, and as tools, they do not always have to be used. You may have a hammer, but you do not always have nails to beat down. In pretty much every scenario regarding the storytelling aspects of the game, what is written in the book is a suggestion and the GM is encouraged to take what works for his group and leave what does not.

One thing the books talk about frequently is constant discussion between all the players (GM included). In regards to a scenario of a player punching somebody in the face, gaining 5 conflict, then at the end of the session making a morality roll and gaining morality: there are a few steps missing, like: "So you just punched somebody in the face. What's the deal with that?" And then discussing the situation with the player, and then you determine how much conflict is gained. If it's just because the character is being a jerk, and is unrepentant about it, they maybe awarding more conflict than what the book suggests is in order. If it's because of a momentary lapse in judgment or loss of control, maybe less is appropriate, especially if the character shows remorse. At the end of the session when the roll is made, then maybe gaining morality makes sense. But this only works if the players are roleplaying, the GM is presenting forks in the highway of morality and is there is plenty of discussion between everybody.

Now if the player had their character punch somebody in the face because he or she thought it would be funny, fetch the lye you might be looking at a bit more complex problem on part of the person, and that's a whole different can of worms.

I'd just like to point out something that some of the more anti-Morality poster(s) seems to forget: If a character is exposed to several Conflict-generating temptations by their (presumably competent) GM and manage to come through it without any Conflict, they've actually earned the following bump in Morality. If you consistently take the narrow but more difficult road to success you deserve to get closer to the Light side. The OP said in one of his posts a page back thatone of his players faced off against a bounty hunter and refused to shoot first or use Dark side pips: this means he should absolutely increase his Morality, because he chose the difficult but good way over the morally ambiguous but easy way.

That's how the system is supposed to work. The GM throws in temptations, and if the players avoid them their Morality increases. Because they did good.

Now that IS a challenge with all three mechanics . FFG did design a lot of the game's odds and ends around conventional adventure and campaign design conventions. The GM is expected to sit down in advance and lay out what the next adventure is all about, how the story progresses, and so on just as if he/she were writing a published module. In this case the GM is expected to sit down as say "Ok, who's Mechanic will do what if it activates?" during that planning. That's the pain of all the Session based mechanics, FFG considers Session to be akin to saying "Adventure" or "Act," Which it certainly can be, but isn't always going to be.

The adventures in the Core and Beta for F&D I blew through in 2 session and 1 long one respectively. Ok cool. Everything worked pretty well.

By comparison, the last Adventure I wrote which was intended to be roughly the same length (2 exploration encounters and only 2-3 combats, thats about it) ended up taking something like 5 sessions, simply because of how the players approached things. Session based mechanics could have gotten out of hand easily, with things like morality and duty getting weird and signature abilities showing up continuously.

And in a more sandbox game I'm a player in the GM isn't always completely sure what's going to happen next session, so planning for our respective mechanics can be even tougher.

Yes, but again, the d10 conflict roll at the end of the F&D adventures has the potential to make this much worse. That's why the mechanics aren't comparable. You can't say "Well Morality is just like Obligation and Duty" and make changes to it that make it not like obligation and duty.

The operation is different but the design requirement is the same. When it goes to Morality the GM is expected to design the adventure and encounters with it in mind and evaluate the players solutions in relation to it. Essentially the GM needs to be looking for ways to challenge the player and apply conflict when necessary.

If the adventure runs on script and schedule, the players will be at least have the opportunity to earn enough conflict to make the D10 check a thing. If it doesn't then it might get weird.

It's not like Duty or Obligation, in that it's effects come from adjustment rather then activation. It is like Duty and Obligation in that the GM is supposed to be factoring it into both the pre and postproduction of his adventures, and linking it to a by-session scaling can generate really strange results.