I have been running a Force and Destiny game for a few months now and I am finding that given the way my players are channeling the Jedi way, they are rocketing up in Morality. I have given out Conflict when they do something which is questionable, they gain most when they use Dark side pips. Even so, they have all become Lightside Paragons and this comes down to a number of things including several sessions when they gained no Conflict at all. As a result I am looking at alternative ways to work this system. I intend to suggest a few options to them but I thought I would mention them on here first and see what you guys think.

Option 1: This is based off of the suggested system mentioned in another post. Roll a number of green dice dependent on your Morality (two if between 41 and 70 Morality, one if not) plus one purple per conflict gained. Plus 1 Morality per success, minus 1 per failure. Two Advantage or Threat will increase or decrease Morality as well. These checks cannot be upgraded.

Option 2: Roll Force dice equal to conflict plus Force Rating, the light and dark pips cancel each other out with the overall result increasing or decreasing Morality.

Option 3: Roll Force dice equal to conflict, the light and dark pips cancel each other out with the overall result increasing or decreasing Morality. If no Conflict was generated the characters Morality is increased or decreased by an amount equal to the characters Force Rating (Players choice)

The final choice will be made by our group, but I would welcome your thoughts as to possible improvements to any one of these above choices.

Well, if you use options 2 or 3, the Morality increase or decrease will be totally random. Rolling more dice for conflict just increases the amount by which you can randomly go up or down. That doesn't sound like what you want.

I find it surprising that there were sessions that NO conflict was gained. I mean really surprising.

Adventures should always have conflict generating dilemmas. And not just one choice conflict the other no conflict. More like conflict or less conflict. Save the slaves or let them go? Letting people suffer in slavery, when you could do something; Conflict. Save the slave via violence; Conflict though not as much as doing nothing.

The idea isn't to railroad a Dark Side fall, but to make the ascension to Paragon status meaningful. They should have to work to rise and it should be easy to fall.

Thanks for your responses guys, I appreciate your feedback.

@FuriousGuy

To be honest my two main issues are:

1. When no conflict is gained in a session the odds are good for a massive gain, this is whether the group did any major amount of activity or whether they only did general background stuff.
2. With the system as stands it almost feels like I should pass out conflict like Setback dice. This doesn't feel right, I can accept coming up with reasons for giving out conflict, but not conflict as I feel it should be based on their activities. I do try preparing points in my games for potential conflict gain but they don't always stick to the plan lol.

@Tear44

Not every session is going to be high drama with my group. There are sessions where they focused on repairing the Dawn Temple, building their Lightsabers, etc. Not every session is an 'adventure', my group tend toward a continual story rather than jumping to the next 'encounter'. Also, there are a number of occasions where the group don't follow my intended plotline and instead sidestep and do something else (not every Pc choice provides situations for Conflict). Since you roll your conflict resolution every session.......

@Tear44

Not every session is going to be high drama with my group. There are sessions where they focused on repairing the Dawn Temple, building their Lightsabers, etc. Not every session is an 'adventure', my group tend toward a continual story rather than jumping to the next 'encounter'. Also, there are a number of occasions where the group don't follow my intended plotline and instead sidestep and do something else (not every Pc choice provides situations for Conflict). Since you roll your conflict resolution every session.......

2 options:

1) "Session" is often used interchangeably with "adventure" in FFG materials. If you find yourself running multi-session adventures where you'll have sessions with low opportunity for conflict then stretch out XP, Conflict, and so on to be rewarded by-adventure instead of by-session.

2) The Core itself says if a player can't take action in relation to conflict (player being not present, character is unconscious the whole session, ect) then they earn no conflict and you don't' check it. While this is targeted toward avoiding a situation where Steve can't make a session and comes back to find he's fallen to the darkside. It's probably not a stretch to say if you spend the session shopping, attending a mission briefing, and taking care of odds and ends, with little to no chance to even earn conflict, you also don't' check conflict.

Both from the book and the devs, a character has to have been in a moral dilemma with the chance to gain conflict before they can affect their morality. So of you spend a session doing slice of life stuff, no morality change.

Eldath, that is cool. I agree that not every game needs to be a razor's edge of moral conflict, but the system is based around Morality changing due to said conflict.

If they face no challenges to their moral philosophy, than they shouldn't test at the end of their session.

This is also known as, "You cannot sleepwalk your way to Paragon status."

Again, thanks everyone for your comments.

2 options:

1) "Session" is often used interchangeably with "adventure" in FFG materials. If you find yourself running adventures where you'll have sessions with low opportunity for conflict then stretch out XP, Conflict, and so on to be rewarded by-adventure instead of by-session.

2) The Core itself says if a player can't take action in relation to conflict (player being not present, character is unconscious the whole session, ect) then they earn no conflict and you don't' check it. While this is targeted toward avoiding a situation where Steve can't make a session and comes back to find he's fallen to the darkside. It's probably not a stretch to say if you spend the session shopping, attending a mission briefing, and taking care of odds and ends, with little to no chance to even earn conflict, you also don't' check conflict.

I can see where you are coming from, I am not sure my group would agree though. With the first option it smacks to me as being too easy to be seen as not allowing conflict resolution until a sufficient amount of conflict is earned. My 'adventures', tend to be long and rambling meaning that the group would drop in Morality too quickly since potentially they would not be allowed to check conflict for three, four or even five sessions.

I have mooted the second option previously and the general consensus was that it made no sense that way. Mainly as only rolling Conflict resolution when a character has done something questionable means that Mother Teresa or similar would not have high Morality.

I will also be mentioning your comments to my group, hopefully we can come up with a work around acceptable to the group.

It's not only doing something questionable, necessarily, but encountering a situation where they must make a choice to do something. Moral dilemmas.

Mother Teresa wan't the great person she was for avoiding Moral Conflict. Doing something to help people living in some of the worst living conditions is fraught with tough choices. She is a great example. A person has to do good (light side oriented) actions to be a better (ascend to paragon status) person.

Being good isn't just about not doing wrong.

Mother Teresa wan't the great person she was for avoiding Moral Conflict. Doing something to help people living in some of the worst living conditions is fraught with tough choices. She is a great example. A person has to do good (light side oriented) actions to be a better (ascend to paragon status) person.

Being good isn't just about not doing wrong.

That is the thing, by the not rolling for non-conflict sessions, you are not becoming a better person by doing good. As written, the system doesn't say not to roll for those sessions, you don't gain Morality (or 'anti-conflict') for doing good actions.

Also, most of the Morality gained by my group is because it is not always easy to throw in Conflict worthy choices, especially when the group have the reins and control the direction they go to a large extent. There have only really been a few sessions that I can think of where no Conflict was gained. I just have difficulty pushing Conflict onto them for the sake of giving them Conflict. This is one of the reasons I am looking at tweaking the rules to match our play style.

I'm not sure yet because I haven't run a Morality based campaign, but I think I wouldn't allow a crossover to paragon unless the PC did something completely selfless. Simply refraining from using dark pips isn't enough. They can roll all they want and keep bumping up against that 70 mark, but until they put their life on the line or do something epic they can't cross over.

Interesting idea, a little late for my group hehe, but I can see that working reasonably well for some groups.

This is an artificial game mechanic we a talking about in reference to a very intangible concept, so bear with me.

Every time Mother Teresa would face a choice in her amazing work; "do I help more or sleep?" "do I stay for another year or go home and spread the word? "do we spend money on food or medicine? she was dealing with a conflict situation. Her good work wasn't about doing bad vs good. It was doing good A or good B. Help a few a little or many less. Stopping help when her own personal health was an issue. Whom to accept funding from. All moral choices, all potentially conflict generating.

She was faced with many conflict choices and rolling on a regular basis.

(And now I feel really weird by using such a good person for such a trivial thing as game mechanic example. )

Conflict isn't just about bad vs good. It is about action vs inaction. Empathy vs stoicism. Conviction vs compromise.

It is complex. And should only be engaged when it matters, not just done because the rules say you roll at the end of a session.

2 options:

1) "Session" is often used interchangeably with "adventure" in FFG materials. If you find yourself running adventures where you'll have sessions with low opportunity for conflict then stretch out XP, Conflict, and so on to be rewarded by-adventure instead of by-session.

I can see where you are coming from, I am not sure my group would agree though. With the first option it smacks to me as being too easy to be seen as not allowing conflict resolution until a sufficient amount of conflict is earned. My 'adventures', tend to be long and rambling meaning that the group would drop in Morality too quickly since potentially they would not be allowed to check conflict for three, four or even five sessions.

It's partly just a matter of presentation, and if you're not familiar with Obligation and Duty (Morality's sister mechanics for EotE and AoR) stretching out the mechanic checks works with them too.

Don't go in saying:

"Oh, I'm not checking Morality until the end of an Adventure"

say:

"For play mechanics more consistent with the pacing you see in the films I'm going to try giving XP rewards and check Obligation, Duty, and Morality at Adventure endpoints or major Milestones for a few Adventures and we can see if that works."

Don't just drop the hammer on the players, make it an option you're trying out that can be reevaluated after some time with it. The players will mostly just be fussy that after the first session of doing it this way they get no XP, but then when they finish the Adventure or Act and get a huge pile (really just the amount you would have awarded by-session anyway) they'll be fine with it.

Also don't get too hung up on Morality and Paragon. It's a big sounding word, but the rewards are about the same as Duty and Obligation (some might even argue the other two are better in some situations) it's just slanted toward paragon so players don't get Darkside slapped for everything.

2 options:

1) "Session" is often used interchangeably with "adventure" in FFG materials. If you find yourself running adventures where you'll have sessions with low opportunity for conflict then stretch out XP, Conflict, and so on to be rewarded by-adventure instead of by-session.

I can see where you are coming from, I am not sure my group would agree though. With the first option it smacks to me as being too easy to be seen as not allowing conflict resolution until a sufficient amount of conflict is earned. My 'adventures', tend to be long and rambling meaning that the group would drop in Morality too quickly since potentially they would not be allowed to check conflict for three, four or even five sessions.

It's partly just a matter of presentation, and if you're not familiar with Obligation and Duty (Morality's sister mechanics for EotE and AoR) stretching out the mechanic checks works with them too.

Don't go in saying:

"Oh, I'm not checking Morality until the end of an Adventure"

say:

"For play mechanics more consistent with the pacing you see in the films I'm going to try giving XP rewards and check Obligation, Duty, and Morality at Adventure endpoints or major Milestones for a few Adventures and we can see if that works."

Don't just drop the hammer on the players, make it an option you're trying out that can be reevaluated after some time with it. The players will mostly just be fussy that after the first session of doing it this way they get no XP, but then when they finish the Adventure or Act and get a huge pile (really just the amount you would have awarded by-session anyway) they'll be fine with it.

Also don't get too hung up on Morality and Paragon. It's a big sounding word, but the rewards are about the same as Duty and Obligation (some might even argue the other two are better in some situations) it's just slanted toward paragon so players don't get Darkside slapped for everything.

I have run Edge of the Empire before so I am familiar with Obligation, and have run a Stargate conversion of Age of Rebellion and have a familiarity with Duty. I think Morality has more in common with Duty than with Obligation but even Duty will only increase if the Duty is triggered and the GM works a relevant encounter and the character makes a meaningful contribution, whereas Morality fluctuates most if not all sessions.

I have mooted the second option previously and the general consensus was that it made no sense that way. Mainly as only rolling Conflict resolution when a character has done something questionable means that Mother Teresa or similar would not have high Morality.

It's not that you don't roll until Conflict is gained. It's that you don't roll in a session in which nothing of moral consequence occurred. You mention that you spend some sessions on "background stuff"; that would be the kind of session where there would be no Morality roll at the end.

It's not that you don't roll until Conflict is gained. It's that you don't roll in a session in which nothing of moral consequence occurred. You mention that you spend some sessions on "background stuff"; that would be the kind of session where there would be no Morality roll at the end.

RAW that is not what the rules state, and as mentioned the group had issues with that. Page 324 states that no roll is made if a) the player was not able to attend, or b) the character was incapacitated (in a coma/bacta tank) or otherwise unable to act (imprisoned etc.).

Also, not to be picky but my original post was requesting thoughts as to my alternate rules and how to improve them, not disagreements over the RAW. I do have to say though that this thread has not devolved into the heated arguments which I have seen in other threads, so thank you guys for that. It has been a pleasure having a reasoned debate, even if it digressed from my intent.

Personally, if you are concerned with sticking to the original topic, I don't like any of them. You are trying to complicate the system and I'm not seeing anything easy to use that would improve the mechanic involved.

Personally, I think you need to be adding situations that force your players to make decisions. This isn't the easiest thing to do, but it is totally rewarding when you do.

These decisions don't have to be good versus evil. Some can be good versus good. Spock's last words of "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few or the one" is a great example of this. Is it wrong to save someone's life? No. Is it better to save more lives at the cost of one? If they players are not able to choose themselves to make the sacrifice it is even more difficult. Another thing to remember, just as it doesn't have to be good versus evil, it also doesn't have to be life or death.

Take a really good look at your player's character's motivations tied to their force powers. Find ways to invoke these. Hatred is easy... especially in a fight.... with just a few words. Some of the others can be more challenging, but they all have levers you can push or pull on to move their morality.

This system gives you lots of tools. Don't be afraid to use them. Don't be afraid of conflict. If the characters never have difficult decisions to make that will affect their morality, they will never feel like they earned it. There are a lot of areas that play out easy during the session. To me, this is the area I work at the hardest... coming up with meaningful ways to provide stress to characters on their pathway to Light without playing antagonistically against them. Over time I have learned to look at these like story hooks and am getting better at injecting them on the fly, but I still plan ahead a lot to provide a rocky hard scrabble of a climb that is worth it to them in the end.

Personally, if you are concerned with sticking to the original topic, I don't like any of them. You are trying to complicate the system and I'm not seeing anything easy to use that would improve the mechanic involved.

Personally, I think you need to be adding situations that force your players to make decisions. This isn't the easiest thing to do, but it is totally rewarding when you do.

Well, thank you for your honesty, I can appreciate that. I am not trying to complicate anything just to find a system which suits my group. Also, I don't like the idea of forcing my party, that smacks of railroading to me. My feeling is that sometimes a mechanic which works perfectly for most groups doesn't work for others.

But again, thank you for your honesty.

It's not that you don't roll until Conflict is gained. It's that you don't roll in a session in which nothing of moral consequence occurred. You mention that you spend some sessions on "background stuff"; that would be the kind of session where there would be no Morality roll at the end.

RAW that is not what the rules state, and as mentioned the group had issues with that. Page 324 states that no roll is made if a) the player was not able to attend, or b) the character was incapacitated (in a coma/bacta tank) or otherwise unable to act (imprisoned etc.).

Also, not to be picky but my original post was requesting thoughts as to my alternate rules and how to improve them, not disagreements over the RAW. I do have to say though that this thread has not devolved into the heated arguments which I have seen in other threads, so thank you guys for that. It has been a pleasure having a reasoned debate, even if it digressed from my intent.

It can be argued either way (and was... ad nauseam) but since that's your table's take...

It sounds like the solution my be just to avoid unneeded background action. The FFG system is built to allow pretty much anything to be settled with a single check instead of dozens, use that. Assuming you can't just say "OK that happens" and move on the adventuring.

You know, instead of reworking the Morality mechanic try just using the check mechanic to kill all those time consuming conflictless chores that other systems try and turn into a pile of rolls because... reasons?

I am against railroading, but I consider it like my wife saying she would like to go out to dinner. I am perfectly ok with anywhere, where she is fairly picky. If I say, "Anywhere is fine with me, where would you like to go?" we will not go out to eat in the next 20 minutes because she does not like to make an open ended decision like that. If I say, "I think Cotton Patch, Rancho Grande or Clear Springs would be great tonight, is there one you would like to go to?" she will usually decide in less than 10 seconds. I'm not railroading her. I'm providing a choice and narrowing the field of options.

You don't have to railroad your players, but if you provide them with good options for a choice or a decision, they will make the choice and then you move down the road. If you are always waiting for them to make a decision, they have too many options. You're not going to hurt their feelings, because they have buy in on making the decision. They can always suggest a decision you are not providing them with (which will happen more often than you think).

It sounds like the solution my be just to avoid unneeded background action. The FFG system is built to allow pretty much anything to be settled with a single check instead of dozens, use that. Assuming you can't just say "OK that happens" and move on the adventuring.

You know, instead of reworking the Morality mechanic try just using the check mechanic to kill all those time consuming conflictless chores that other systems try and turn into a pile of rolls because... reasons?

I see what you are saying but that is not what my party enjoy. They like the minutia. Additionally, it is not always meaningless stuff, sometimes it is social situations, or discussing their plans for their next 'mission'. I already intended to start upping the tempo of the game as the main plotline starts to crop up, but the intention is to find a system which suits us.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/108101-ffg-developer-answered-questions/?p=1765719

I'll have to say that none of the options would really create a balanced system, and in fact they seem to be biased to lower morality. The current d10 roll is randomized (so no gaming or predicitng the system), but the results can be swayed by player actions. More conflict means a higher chance of falling and lower chance of rising, while low conflict is the opposite. And it keeps it to small numbers, which is easy to track. The way the game is set up, doing good acts or whatever you want to call it doesn't grant anti-conflict, but is the reward itself, as the system is slanted more towards LSers than DSers.

Option one will add more chance for failure by taking conflict, even a relative little, but there is no way for players to modify their own chance of success, except lower it, it seems. If conflict represents the constant threat and lure of the dark, you don't offer a way for players to overcome that easily.

Using Force dice isn't going to help either because DPs cover 7 of 12 surfaces on a Force die, while LPs cover 5 of 12. The Force die represent the stronger/hard path of the Light (less sides, but more doubles), and the easier/weaker path of the Dark (more sides, but less doubles). In theory. So rolling a huge handful will probably result in more single dark pips than white pips, although it's more randomized.

I do have to ask, though, is playing paragons what you players actually want to do, or a result of some kind attempt to game the system and get bonuses? Your game sounds very open world, so maybe doing good things and being good people is just what they want to do.