We recently have begun playing, and found the morality system (and the mechanics of using force powers) to be rather sub par and not at all in line with setting. Oddly enough as long as you gain 5 or less conflict every game session you gain morality over the long haul. It winds up being in a player's best interest to steal someone's wallet or punch a kid in the face if no big sources of conflict occur that session.

Wait, what? Earning 0 Conflict is still better than earning 1 or 2. Even if you find the system lacking, why would players go out of their way to earn a small amount of Conflict instead of none at all?

I haven't found any mechanical issues in Force powers at all, so I don't see what your complaint is. Is that not what the dice are for?

We recently have begun playing, and found the morality system (and the mechanics of using force powers) to be rather sub par and not at all in line with setting. Oddly enough as long as you gain 5 or less conflict every game session you gain morality over the long haul. It winds up being in a player's best interest to steal someone's wallet or punch a kid in the face if no big sources of conflict occur that session.

The more we play the more clunky and random the system feels. It didn't seem this bad in the Edge of the Empire game, though the core system could probably use a revision or two to make it a little more cinematic (seriously 30+ skills is ridiculous). When playing FaD it doesn't feel like a group of emerging heroes, but rather some mildly competent people who in theory have some powers, but can never use them. The entire system seems rigged to strong arm force users to either take conflict or fail in using their abilities, but then someone saw that the mechanics were broken so instead of fixing them, made getting conflict not really matter short of characters torturing kittens and ended up making both mechanics crappy as a result. Many of the players feel cheated that they spent a hefty amount of XP on character options that they cannot use or whose use is dependent on pure luck. It seems odd to have Willpower, Cool, and Discipline but to have emotional reactions when using the force left up to the dice.

Sorry for the mini-rant.

tl;dr: Need to address the mechanical issues in using force powers to fully resolve the problems with the moraility system.

I think there are some fundamental both system and character concept issues at play here causing some of these difficulties.

Firstly, as has been mentioned, there is no need to gain conflict to use the morality system. So it is definitely better to not gain conflict if one wants to be a paragon. This is not to be confused with the idea that many present, that you do not perform the morality roll at the end of a session where there was no opportunity for conflict gain. The idea here is if nothing of significant importance occurred during the session then there is no need to make the roll for Morality gain. This does not mean that the character needs to gain conflict but more that you probably don't need to make morality gain rolls after planning sessions or mission briefings, etc.. save it for when the characters are out in the world actually making choices with substance to them.

Secondly, the force powers of starting level characters aren't meant to be 100% reliable. Starting level characters in this system aren't Jedi.. they're not even at the level of a Padawan for the most part. They are largely untrained force sensitives that are new to their powers and how to control them. If you want to reflect better trained, prepared and practiced force-users then you would be better off looking to Knight Level play. Additionally, this potential for failure is present in most aspects of most RPG systems. A gunshot can miss, a swing with the lightsaber can be blocked, you can fail to activate your force power, wizards can miss with their fireball, a thief can fail to pick a lock, etc... it's hardly surprising that the force powers aren't guaranteed effects.

Oddly enough as long as you gain 5 or less conflict every game session you gain morality over the long haul. It winds up being in a player's best interest to steal someone's wallet or punch a kid in the face if no big sources of conflict occur that session.

Regardless of the mechanics, that whole "player's best interest" thing is pure dark side. It's simply calculated and cynical evil. It seems to me the simple solution, if you want to keep using the Morality mechanic, is to apply more Conflict for those kinds of calculated-evil actions so their Morality can't go anywhere but down.

Oddly enough as long as you gain 5 or less conflict every game session you gain morality over the long haul. It winds up being in a player's best interest to steal someone's wallet or punch a kid in the face if no big sources of conflict occur that session.

Regardless of the mechanics, that whole "player's best interest" thing is pure dark side. It's simply calculated and cynical evil. It seems to me the simple solution, if you want to keep using the Morality mechanic, is to apply more Conflict for those kinds of calculated-evil actions so their Morality can't go anywhere but down.

I actually think it's rather elegant that the designers had the 'easy' aspects of Morality such as this example, lead to the dark side. It reflects the dark side as being easier even from a meta standpoint.

It winds up being in a player's best interest to steal someone's wallet or punch a kid in the face if no big sources of conflict occur that session.

The best thing to remember is that any mechanic can be gamed by a shrewd enough player. Someone who is carefully gaming their Conflict in an effort to continue the climb to paragon while regularly and willfully committing Dark Side acts needs the GM to start playing the part of the Dark Side by upping the stakes: double the conflict without warning. If the character is thinking "Hey, I haven't been evil for a while, I can treat myself to an electrocuted orphan," then you need to give our conflict not just for the action, but the callous, cold mentality behind the action.

The core of the problem is that without GM intervention, the mechanics of the system are skewed to gaining morality even when doing bad things. That just doesn't seem like a good mechanic. It also appears this happens because of the way force pips are generated. It appears that the system assumes the players will have to use a few dark side pips every session and tries to compensate for that with the way conflict is turned into morality. The way the system handles this is clunky, abusable, and not fitting thematically with the setting.

I get the power level the game is to played at. That is part of the appeal. However the mechanics for force powers don't fit well with the core mechanics.

Right now using force powers is a separate mechanic* that is dependent on the roll of the force dice not the character's skill. That in my group's opinion is not good design and does not fit thematically with the setting. Having powers that are reliant on a randomly generated pool of force points that may or may not be evil in origin just doesn't sit right.

(*well it really is more than one mechanic as sometimes you roll and sometimes you commit a die)

We are almost done rewriting the entire set of mechanics for morality and force powers. The goal is to take the overly engineered mechanics in the book and streamline them into something more fitting and hopefully more enjoyable.

We start by mostly removing force dice from the equation. We will use the Discipline skill to use force powers that currently require rolling a force die. The Characteristic used will vary based on the power being used. For example Willpower for Move and Enhance, or Cunning for Sense and Influence. Using the a basic power starts as a hard task, then upgrading the power would add more difficulty dice to the roll. A power cannot be upgraded past formidable. So at most a basic power by a force rank 1 user could do is 2 upgrades (but they would likely fail). Using a force power inflicts 1 strain plus 1 per upgrade plus any strain described by the power.

When a character goes up in force rating, they reduce the difficulty of force rolls by (Force rank -1). So a rank 2 could use a basic power as an average task or add up to three upgrades making it a formidable task.

By using a real dice pool it not only falls in line more with the core mechanics, but we get to do things like add boost and setback dice and create situations where there are good and bad side effects when using powers.

Now we get to tapping into the darkside. Characters can spend morality to dip into the darkside and reduce the difficulty of a force roll . Every 2 points of Morality spent removes one difficulty die from the roll (to a minimum of one) and also removes/negates 1 advantage (if applicable).

The above makes using the force based on skill while keeping what characters can achieve down to a lower power level. It also makes using the darkside feel more like a deliberate choice and a seductive one at that. Removing an advantage makes conditions more important and ups the risk of using the power. Sure you can move the datapad down the long dark hall, but you now risk setting off the alarm or cracking the screen. It would also make using the darkside more tempting as it would make things easier starting out. This also helps us remove the conflict currency from the system.

Talents, Powers and Upgrades.

For powers and talents that require a force die be committed, they now require 2 strain be committed instead. This strain cannot be recovered until it is no longer committed to the power/talent/effect.

For right now we are going with you must have purchased an upgrade to try and up the difficulty to use it. Basically if it says to spend a force pip, you up the difficulty.

Control and mastery are being handled per power, but typically if it says to spend a force pip we are just requiring spending 1 strain.

This isn't a perfect fix, but it is working more or less for now. We will eventually rewrite and reprice the powers if we keep playing.

Now onto Morality.

The big changes are that we are removing the conflict currency and the random factors that go into morality. We are making it about character and character choices more than how the dice roll. We start by nixing the increase/decrease mortality at character creation option. Instead we are going with players and the GM talking it over and deciding where their morality falls.

We are replacing the random roll to see which PC gets triggered and instead instituting that when faced with a moral choice and the player isn't sure what to do, they can roll a percentile. If the result is less than or equal to their morality, then they are inclined to do the right thing/play to their strength. If they roll above their morality they are inclined to do the wrong thing/play to their weakness. This is mostly a tool to help guide decisions, not to force them.

Introducing a way to regain morality where when faced with a conflict and the character does the right thing they gain morality. This is a work in progress. The idea is that morality gain can only come from big story moments or as a reward for multiple games of doing good.

The Common Conflict Penalties have been turned into direct morality point loss. Continue with the general rule that morality is adjusted at the end of session, unless it is dramatically appropriate for it change mid session.

Once a character is down to 1 morality, they cannot spend it. They are consumed by the darkside, but there is still that 1 point of humanity left in there.

Characters at or below the darkside threshold can no longer directly benefit from light side destiny pips. They can however benefit from those spent on the group as a whole. They can directly benefit from darkside pips and can spend them to benefit the group as a whole, but must have a good motivation for doing so. The GM may use light side pips against darkside characters directly and still use darkside pips against neutral or light side characters and the group as a whole. Light side pips cannot be used against neutral or light side characters.

Once a character has fallen to the darkside, the road back is hard. When trying to do the right thing, they must roll a percentile against their morality. If the result is less than or equal to their morality, they can act of their accord. If the result is higher than their morality, they must flip a darkside destiny pip (i.e make it light side) to act of their own accord. Otherwise they cannot overcome the darkness.

The light and dark side threshold benefits are changed as follows:

100 - reduce strain by 3 (to a minimum of 1) when using a force power*

90+ - reduce strain by 2 (to a minimum of 1) when using a force power*

80+ - reduce strain by 1 (to a minimum of 1) when using a force power*

*Does not apply if you spend morality on the power.

21+ – no benefit

<=20 - Reduce difficulty by 1 (to a minimum of 1) and remove 1 advantage (if applicable) when using a force power**

<= 10 - Reduce difficulty by 2 (to a minimum of 1) and remove 2 advantage (if applicable) when using a force power**

1 - Reduce difficulty by 3 (to a minimum of 1) and remove 3 advantage (if applicable) when using a force power**

**Does NOT stack with effects of spending morality

Hopefully the above changes will lead to a better play experience for our group. If they also help anyone else who isn't loving the current set up, great. If people love the way things are in the books that's awesome.

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I am not 100% sure on the morality changes, that will take longer to think over.

Right now using force powers is a separate mechanic* that is dependent on the roll of the force dice not the character's skill. That in my group's opinion is not good design and does not fit thematically with the setting. Having powers that are reliant on a randomly generated pool of force points that may or may not be evil in origin just doesn't sit right.

(*well it really is more than one mechanic as sometimes you roll and sometimes you commit a die)

I like your solution, it's reminiscent of Warhammer 3rd Edition, with the rules for Channelling, etc. If the game had started with those mechanics I'd have been none the wiser and would have appreciated it. I also agree that using dark pips to add Conflict takes the agency away from the character.

However, I confess I really like the Force die and the concept behind it I don't think it's accurate to say that the Force die is not representative of the character's skill...that's why you need a higher Force Rating, that *is* your Force skill. FR1 is an untrained neophyte struggling to comprehend that "larger world", it's only natural that they are bad at it. Learning the Force is difficult. I do think that given the cost differential between learning a skill (Discipline in this case) and gaining a Force rating, you will need to be careful about how easy it will be to do even Formidable tasks fairly quickly.

I get around some of your objections to the dark pips being evil-in-origin with the following: first, the random Conflict mechanic is gone. I don't like that the PC's state-of-mind is determined by a dice roll, and think that Morality should be determined by actions and the narrative, and player + GM discussion.

Second, the dark pips do represent temptation to power, but the PC does not lose Morality for using them so long as they flip the Destiny Point and take Strain. This represents them working to fight the temptation and draw power from the light side...in essence they are converting the dark pips to light pips, but it comes at a cost of greater mental effort. (If anything, spending that Strain should be indicative of restraint and should be *rewarded* by the Morality mechanic...but I digress.) However, the PC can use dark pips without spending DP+Strain, and this results in direct Morality loss.

I like the Morality changes to direct Morality loss. I'm not sure about the dark character using dark DPs, if the rest of the party is light then they gain from this. I'm also not sure about the rolls for the player to decide how to play their character...this seems to revert to taking away player agency and controlling the character's state of mind.

Possible mechanic for gaining Morality: the character would have to do something selfless and/or important, then roll against their current Morality. If their Morality is below 50 they have to roll lower for their Morality to increase; if their Morality is above 50 they have to roll higher for their Morality to increase. (It's hard to climb out of the darkness, and it's hard to sustain being a pinnacle of the light.) If they succeed, their Morality is increased by an amount relative to the good act. Perhaps the amount of Morality increase will provide a bonus to the roll, at GM discretion.

I'm not sure about the dark character using dark DPs, if the rest of the party is light then they gain from this.

Well with the RAW a dark sider flips light side destiny pips to use light side force dots. It doesn't seem fair or thematic for a someone trying not to use the darks side and seeking redmeption to screw over the party. It also doesn't mesh well with an all darkside group.

I'm also not sure about the rolls for the player to decide how to play their character...this seems to revert to taking away player agency and controlling the character's state of mind.

With our changes, the only time a particular cource of action is "forced" is if a character has fallen to the darkside (which already was the result of deliberate choice by the player) and then has no dark side destiny pips to flip.

you will need to be careful about how easy it will be to do even Formidable tasks fairly quickly

Well with the way we are doing it, that formidable task only allows two upgrades to the power. Even then they still need to make it and have already bought the upgrades for that one power from that power's tree. Skills cap at 5 ranks (2 to start, averaging up by 1 every 1-2 game seesions if they are the focus of spending xp) and the odds of a character having a characteristic 5 or higher is pretty low.

If they are burning morality then they won't be able to do it all the time. At a cost of 2 morality per difficulty removed, it makes it a short trip to the darkside, and once they hit 1 morality they can't spend any more. It actually works out really well.