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.

I think you're misunderstanding what I've said.

I'm not saying characters shouldn't get Conflict. If they act in such a way then they should get it. But not every action accrues Conflict, nor should it otherwise it would lose all meaning and become tedious. If the players are constantly having to add more points all the time it will lose all meaning.

I think you're misunderstanding what I've said.

I'm not saying characters shouldn't get Conflict. If they act in such a way then they should get it. But not every action accrues Conflict, nor should it otherwise it would lose all meaning and become tedious. If the players are constantly having to add more points all the time it will lose all meaning.

You seem to be missing the point. If for whatever reason, the player didn't have any reasonable chance to gain Conflict, then they don't get to roll Morality. Short of the player not showing up for the session or the character being incapacitated, these situations will likely be few and far in-between, but if it ends up being that type of session, then there's no morality roll, and so they don't get anything for doing nothing that'd have moral consequences, which means they're not just adding points all the time.

I think you're misunderstanding what I've said.

I'm not saying characters shouldn't get Conflict. If they act in such a way then they should get it. But not every action accrues Conflict, nor should it otherwise it would lose all meaning and become tedious. If the players are constantly having to add more points all the time it will lose all meaning.

Right, however, if the GM implements the Morality system then s/he should understand that it's his/her responsibility to ensure that there are actions that should have the possibility to give conflict throughout each session to justify using the morality system. It's why the system is completely optional. If the GM can't or chooses not to present such actions and the characters are constantly gaining little or no conflict then it's time to consider not rolling for that session or not using the morality system at all.

The system isn't presented as optional, one aspect is.

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!

You make some great points and I suppose it is possible for it to be pretty wonky.

The system isn't presented as optional, one aspect is.

Correct. Although in reality if a system doesn't work for a Gm and their group then it can be optional anyway. That does nothing to further the discussion however.

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!"

No, you're missing my meaning. The way I'd describing it, "negative conflict" would be tracked seperately from conflict, and the total increase in in your morality COULD NOT EXCEED the total negative conflict gained, i.e. you wouldn't get 1d10 - net conflict added to your morality. You would get lose morality, or *maybe* go up a bit because you actually acted like a good person instead not being a bad person.

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.

No one is debating this and if you think that's what the dicussion about you've completely missed the point. Thank you for pointing out that you don't understand what's being discussed.

The point is if the character isn't exposed to a bunch choices, then they haven't earned anything and still get the morality increase. There's no system for accounting for how frequently the characters are exposed to temptation.

That's the problem.

And thank you for applying the simple and ignorant label "anti-Morality posters" that doesn't even accurately resemble our position.

The point is if the character isn't exposed to a bunch choices, then they haven't earned anything and still get the morality increase. There's no system for accounting for how frequently the characters are exposed to temptation.

Although generally players will resolve their characters' Morality at the end of each session, there are some cases when they should not do so.

If a player was not present for a session, his character's Morality should not have a chance to increase. Similarly, if a character had no chance to do anything in a sessio n or spent an entire session incapacitated, then his Morality should not increase. This may be the case if a character spends the entire session healing in a bacta tank or stuck in a coma, for example. These cases are likely to be very rare, but a good overall guideline should be that Player Characters should have a chance to earn Conflict (even if they don't take it) if their Morality will have a chance to change .

P. 52, emphasis mine. Thank Tear44. So if a PC isn't exposed to a bunch of choices, or does not take actions and rides the coattails of everyone else, then they should not roll 1d10 and gain morality at the end of a session.

Isn't this pretty much just "If the characters don't do anything all session, they still get session xp, OMG!" ?

Yes, if the GM is just messing around, the system won't work. But this is the case with *every* system in an RPG...

P. 52, emphasis mine. Thank Tear44. So if a PC isn't exposed to a bunch of choices, or does not take actions and rides the coattails of everyone else, then they should not roll 1d10 and gain morality at the end of a session.

That doesn't even come close to solving accounting for frequency.

Did the player have one opportunity to resist temptation, or 12? The player frequently exposed to temptation, or that goes out of their way to be good, should earn more morality than a player that is rarely exposed to temptation and puts in to effort.

It's still 1d10 - conflict. The problem is the static 1d10 roll. There is no accounting for frequency. There's no difference between one chance for temptation and 20.

I mean, is that clear yet?

Does it make a difference? Does doing good things have some kind of tally system where doing more good things than somebody else make the first person better or invalidate the second because they did less good things? Should it? If one character's only chance to gain conflict is rescuing somebody from drowning (where willing inaction will gain conflict), while another character multiple times refuses to lash out and choke a b----, does the second mean its better if only because it happens more times?

Does it make a difference? Does doing good things have some kind of tally system where doing more good things than somebody else make the first person better or invalidate the second because they did less good things? Should it? If one character's only chance to gain conflict is rescuing somebody from drowning (where willing inaction will gain conflict), while another character multiple times refuses to lash out and choke a b----, does the second mean its better if only because it happens more times?

I seriously do not understand this question for several reasons including what you mean by "better", and the massive difference in opportunities provided (letting some die or smacking someone). It stinks of being a loaded question and I really can't answer it. Besides, this example seems to insinuate that I'm arguing that one characters morality should decrease another player's morality, which is ludicrous.

Just answer this simple question: Who do you think deserves a larger morality boost

A) Someone who has 1 chance to lash out and smack someone, and doesn't one time.

B) Someone who has 12 chances to lash out and smack somone, and doesn't twelve times.

I think B earn deserves a bigger reward. The current morality system can't tell a difference. There's my problem.

.

P. 52, emphasis mine. Thank Tear44. So if a PC isn't exposed to a bunch of choices, or does not take actions and rides the coattails of everyone else, then they should not roll 1d10 and gain morality at the end of a session.

That's not what it says.

The cases for not making a roll only refer to players not present and characters that could not participate for the entire session.

It doesn't say that characters who earned no Conflict make no roll at all.

So a character that killed an innocent and then got knocked unconscious for the remainder of the session, no matter how long, would still have to roll if all that took place during the session.

I have found nowhere that says you do not roll morality if you didn't earn Conflict other than from claims made in this discussion. If that's how people want to run their game, that's their prerogative, but we are discussing the rules as written.

Isn't this pretty much just "If the characters don't do anything all session, they still get session xp, OMG!" ?

Yes, if the GM is just messing around, the system won't work. But this is the case with *every* system in an RPG...

Well not quite; xp is something entirely different from morality.

Does it make a difference? Does doing good things have some kind of tally system where doing more good things than somebody else make the first person better or invalidate the second because they did less good things? Should it? If one character's only chance to gain conflict is rescuing somebody from drowning (where willing inaction will gain conflict), while another character multiple times refuses to lash out and choke a b----, does the second mean its better if only because it happens more times?

A character who rescues someone from drowning has no more chance of earning morality, or earning more morality, than someone who doesn't, all other things being equal.

No, you're missing my meaning. The way I'd describing it, "negative conflict" would be tracked seperately from conflict, and the total increase in in your morality COULD NOT EXCEED the total negative conflict gained, i.e. you wouldn't get 1d10 - net conflict added to your morality. You would get lose morality, or *maybe* go up a bit because you actually acted like a good person instead not being a bad person.

...yup, I'm missing your meaning.

Can you give an example?

I think part of the flaws of the morality system is that it's based around a theme found in the movies that does not necessarily fit with the theme of all campaigns. That theme being that bad people are the ones that give into temptation and good people do not. If this isn't the theme to your game, you're likely to get less mileage out of morality. It's not totally broken, but it's flaws show more

No, you're missing my meaning. The way I'd describing it, "negative conflict" would be tracked seperately from conflict, and the total increase in in your morality COULD NOT EXCEED the total negative conflict gained, i.e. you wouldn't get 1d10 - net conflict added to your morality. You would get lose morality, or *maybe* go up a bit because you actually acted like a good person instead not being a bad person.

...yup, I'm missing your meaning.

Can you give an example?

The context for this is that I think players should consciously need to put in effort to improve their morality in all cases. Basically, I think that 1d10 roll should be able to reduce morality due to conflict generated, but I don't think it should increase morality.

In the RAW, we use equation 1 to determine their morality improvement.

I = X - (C - G) (Eq1)

where I is morality improvement for the session, X is the result of 1d10 roll, C is conflict generated, and G is "negative morality" described. I would strongly prefer that the player not be able to improve their score beyond G for any session. Effectively, morality would be calcuated using equation 2

I = min(X - C, 0) + G (Eq2)

Example 1.

Lets say a player does 2 "good" things (G = 2), generates 5 conflict (C = 5). The conflict roll at the end of the game is an 8 (X = 8). In the RAW, the player gets 8 - (5 - 2) = 5 morality.

I would prefer the result to be 2. The player avoids the loss of morality because 8 (1d10 roll) - 5 (conflict) > 0, but I think always giving a player

Example 2.

Lets this player doesn't really make any effort to find ways to be more moral (G = 0), and generates 3 conflict (C = 3), and then rolls an 5 on the 1d10.

Eq1 (RAW): player increases morality by 2. Eq2: player gets 0 morality.

This player put forth no effort and still gets a morality improvement by RAW, and I don't think they should.

The way the morality rules are current written, it feels like the GM is *supposed* to write in Paragon/Renegade (see Mass Effect) dialog options to offset the 1d10 morality gain. There's NO PLAYER EFFORT!!! I'm of the opinion that players that *want* to improve their morality should put in effort to find ways to do it, instead of waiting for the GM to offer something for them to refuse.

This is my opinion, my preference, and wish the F&D rules were more encouraging of players to be pro-active. I'm not "anti-morality" as some people would like to over-simplify. I just don't think these rules will create a satisfying play experience. And I may still be wrong, but nothing that's been said so far has even come close to convincing me otherwise.

Morality isn't really the right way to represent the Jedi. It's not good vs evil.

Jedi are meant to focus on peace and harmony, while the sith are chaotic and passionate. It's not that the Jedi are all goody goody - the Jedi council initially rejected Anakin as a student because he was too unfocused and too prone to negative emotion.

The way the morality rules are current written, it feels like the GM is *supposed* to write in Paragon/Renegade (see Mass Effect) dialog options to offset the 1d10 morality gain. There's NO PLAYER EFFORT!!! I'm of the opinion that players that *want* to improve their morality should put in effort to find ways to do it, instead of waiting for the GM to offer something for them to refuse.

This is my opinion, my preference, and wish the F&D rules were more encouraging of players to be pro-active. I'm not "anti-morality" as some people would like to over-simplify. I just don't think these rules will create a satisfying play experience. And I may still be wrong, but nothing that's been said so far has even come close to convincing me otherwise.

Which is what makes the lack of involving the weakness/strength traits so puzzling. Why are they not the triggers for morality gain/loss? As it stands they don't really serve any purpose at all. If they are just there for narrative purposes you could have saved yourslef the bother and just asked the players to come up with emotions themselves. You don't need a list and a whole bunch of text for that.

Let me qualify my statement: I do not view one act of good as less deserving than a dozen. "I didn't lash out and kill that guy today!" or "I didn't lash out and kill those twelve guys today!" don't make much a difference to me. The point is that nobody got killed, and that's a good thing. Saving one person or a dozen from drowning doesn't make a difference to me, because both are good and laudable, and thus equal. That's how I look at things, because dying is terrible and saving people from dying is the opposite of that. That's me, personally, and maybe I used the wrong example. Let's drop it before this gets out of hand. And when I said choke I meant Vader's kind of choking somebody.

The problem with the Morality system is: that it is trying to put a simple, easy to grasp mechanic on a subject that is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, complicated in real life, to put it lightly, and that it is, at its heart, a roleplaying mechanic that is more Motivation in design than Obligation or Duty, in that it very much relies on the good faith assumption that every player is going to be heavily involved in the 'roleplaying' part of the game (not all of them are) and that the players are going to be weighing their every action based on the strength/weakness they picked at character creation (they aren't, probably not even the really good roleplayers). It also partially (a big part) relies on the GM in equal parts providing scenarios where the players stand to gain conflict (even if none is gained), encourage all the players to throw their two credits in and be watchful for any player who is trying to game the system or sit on his thumbs hoping to get ahead through inaction.

Morality isn't really the right way to represent the Jedi. It's not good vs evil.

Jedi are meant to focus on peace and harmony, while the sith are chaotic and passionate. It's not that the Jedi are all goody goody - the Jedi council initially rejected Anakin as a student because he was too unfocused and too prone to negative emotion.

But this has actually made the system's lightside schew make more sense to me. If you avoid conflict, you're more likely to find that inner peace, more likely find yourself closer to enlightenment.(represented as the buffs to Strain) That's what a monastery is, a place for monks to go and sit around and avoid the temptations of the world that could give them inner conflict.

It's not perfect but that at least makes sense to me. The Jedi don't do good things to become lightside paragons, they do good things because they are paragons.

The problem with the Morality system is: that it is trying to put a simple, easy to grasp mechanic on a subject that is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, complicated in real life, to put it lightly, and that it is, at its heart, a roleplaying mechanic that is more Motivation in design than Obligation or Duty, in that it very much relies on the good faith assumption that every player is going to be heavily involved in the 'roleplaying' part of the game (not all of them are) and that the players are going to be weighing their every action based on the strength/weakness they picked at character creation (they aren't, probably not even the really good roleplayers). It also partially (a big part) relies on the GM in equal parts providing scenarios where the players stand to gain conflict (even if none is gained), encourage all the players to throw their two credits in and be watchful for any player who is trying to game the system or sit on his thumbs hoping to get ahead through inaction.

I'm beginning to think Morality wasn't the best name and something like Harmony would have fit better. Actually tbh I was holding out for it to be called Destiny, but I suppose that steps on Saga's toes a bit.

Morality isn't really the right way to represent the Jedi. It's not good vs evil.

Jedi are meant to focus on peace and harmony, while the sith are chaotic and passionate. It's not that the Jedi are all goody goody - the Jedi council initially rejected Anakin as a student because he was too unfocused and too prone to negative emotion.

Or... you know.. not.