I'm having trouble finding Morality situations . My Force Sensitives have Independent and Disciplined for Emotional Strengths and Coldness and Obstinance for Weaknesses. It's really hard to make a moral choice out of those.

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.

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.

Thank you Blackbird888, I very much appreciate your post. I will read your comments in more detail, but I still intend to discuss this with my group.

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.

I will have a think about this and see if my group have any thoughts to improve that.

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.

Actually while neither the players or myself have issues with the characters being Paragons, they have not specifically pushed for Paragon status, nor gamed the system. After a while it seems almost just one more piece of paperwork after a while.

I'm having trouble finding Morality situations . My Force Sensitives have Independent and Disciplined for Emotional Strengths and Coldness and Obstinance for Weaknesses. It's really hard to make a moral choice out of those.

The moral choices don't have to be based on their moral strengths/weakness. However, some examples for your situations could include:

Independent/Coldness

• A situation where the PC could have to take responsibility for someone they just helped, e.g. they don't think anyone should be locked down (their independence applies to everyone), so they free some abused slaves in the desert, but the slaves need food and water and protection to survive (threatening the characters independence). The PC can choose leave them (Coldness, i.e. lack of compassion) or help them (which sacrifices their Independence).

Disciplined/Obstinance

• The characters are part of a plan that requires not getting side-tracked, and maintaining a very strict routine, like impersonating troopers, or performing some task in a very specific way (maybe re-routing power through a very specific set of conduits). However, when it comes time to *actually* perform the task, it becomes clear that some innocents are going to be hurt. Maybe while posing as troopers, they get ordered to run over some protesters with their vehicle or re-routing the power will damage the pumps the slums need to collect clean water.

On the original topic:

Yeah, I think this is kind of a problem with the Morality system. Intentionally tossing out more conflict possibilities is one solution, but I can see how it would be absolutely exhausting. Other thoughts include:

• I don't think you should be rolling for morality for planning sessions.
• You can consolidate rolls for several sessions to allow more conflict to accue
• You can cap the morality gained on a roll to the number of intentionally up-standing or selfless acts performed during the session
• You can roll a d8, d6, or d4 to slow morality gain.

I'm frankly surprised that there aren't more people shouting that you're doing it wrong. Historically, that seems to have been the universal response to threads like this.

I think the most straightforward resolution to this concern is the generally suggested method of don't roll if no opportunity for moral conflict arose. If this was a planning session or a session in which little of consequence occurred, simply hold off on the roll until a later session. No it's not RAW though it does kind of extend upon the suggestion that if a player misses a session or is unconscious throughout the session so doesn't have the opportunity to gain conflict they don't roll. So if no situation is part of the situation then again push off the roll. Similarly they suggest if the session is short to have the roll next session instead, which again shows that there's some flexibility on the GM part if a roll is warranted.

I think a key aspect to having the system work is to use some discretion on when to make those rolls. If the group sat around at the cantina discussing their plans for the up coming rescue of some slaves from the local hutt lord there's no need to make the roll. They haven't done anything of consequence, they haven't tested their morality and shouldn't gain morality for that session just because they didn't decide to randomly start killing everyone in the cantina or some such. Similarly, if they are working their way into the slave camps, do so quietly, avoid violence when possible. Even if there's no major morality dilemas or conflic gained, it's a significant part of the story and worth allowing the rolls.

I might also suggest breaking up your game into specific story chunks when possible. Allowing the roll only when they complete one of the chunks. So in the same example, story chunk #1 might be the rescue of the slaves, but if it takes you 3 sessions to complete that piece of story, then they don't roll until that is done. Then you size these chunks based on the speed of morality gain (and potentially loss) you would like to see in your campaign.

I don't see a need for rewrites of the system in place, different kinds of rolls, etc.. there's a degree of loosely implied flexibility present that can be expanded upon to make the system work for you while keeping the core mechanics as they are.

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.

That might not be RAW, but your house rules aren't RAW either, so I don't get the objection. I think avoiding rolling when there's no point is the simplest and best way to handle the situation, and is better than the options you've described.

That might not be RAW, but your house rules aren't RAW either, so I don't get the objection. I think avoiding rolling when there's no point is the simplest and best way to handle the situation, and is better than the options you've described.

To be honest my objection is that my question related to potentially altered rules and not my understanding of the RAW, since it seemed that many of the comments focused more on my understanding of the official rules and ignored the fact that both my group and I didn't agree with not rolling for resolution of Conflict (despite it not being RAW).

I dont make my players roll when they don't gain conflict but they do nothing that deserve a morality increase. That has solve the problem at my table.

I dont make my players roll when they do nothing that deserve a morality increase. That has solve the problem "No conflict gained during the session because they do nothing interresting" at my table.

Please see my above comment.

To be honest my objection is that my question related to potentially altered rules and not my understanding of the RAW, since it seemed that many of the comments focused more on my understanding of the official rules and ignored the fact that both my group and I didn't agree with not rolling for resolution of Conflict (despite it not being RAW).

Yes, I got that you and your group doesn't agree, but ... I think most people would strongly urge you and your group to reconsider.

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.

Social interaction encounters would allow for conflict generation in many cases.

If you're say interviewing a witness of a crime then you'll need to do some encounter design. Keep facts hidden, and provide options to allow conflict generating options to produce results that might be more difficult or impossible to get through more gentle means. The overall adventure would have to allow for both edgey and goodytwoshoes results, but the path to get there need not be the same.

Discussing plans for next mission though begs the question if that's even really a "Session?" I mean a planning session may include everyone, but it doesn't generate quest rewards until the plan is executed. Obligation and Duty wouldn't really come into play any more then Morality during a planning session. XP rewards wouldn't really be appropriate to give for sitting around a holotank discussing moves...

It would appear that my original question and my groups preferences, are being ignored in this thread. So, thank you all for your comments and feedback but I will now be signing off of this thread. I look forward to chatting with you all in other threads.

I'm guessing part of the question/problem you have is not a lot conflict being generated in your game, and part of your reasoning as to why this happens is you run an open world campaign, or at least, that's the gist I get. So your players inclined to do what they fancy, and it's harded on you to introduce some of the complex moral dilemmas because you don't know what they'll do from one encounter to the next. It also seems you're kind of running a Colonist style game, with the Dawn Temple playing a major centerpiece to the game? Correct me if I'm wrong, on either point.

If that is the problem, though, maybe try experimenting with a few things before making any major house rules. Ghost's suggestion is a house rule, but maybe try it a little to see how it works. There's no changing of mechanics, just changing of when you roll and award. The first thing I would try is to remember and utilize to the fact that you are the corrupted god of your own little universe, and the only thing you cannot affect is what the PCs do. Prepare ahead of time, develope some general modular encounters that can be fit in a wide range of situations that you can pull out of your sleeves when you have to, then use them. Players want to stick around the Dawn Temple? A plague hits the village in the valley, now what do they do? Going for some starhopping? They run into a pirate attacking a civilian shuttle. In those cases, they can do nothing at all, and they would gain conflict. Or they could help, put themselves at risk, gain no conflict, but they are better people for it. They have reaped the consequences of their actions, for good or bad. Try that.

At this point, it seems the general sentiment is that there's not a problem with the mechanic itself but it's implementation. Some suggestions have been made on dealing with this.. one primarily to be fair.. that you simply roll less often. As in, when something of consequence has occurred. You've decided this doesn't work for your needs. Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to find a lot of feedback on your proposed solutions as they are clunky, more difficult, and in some situations can result in gaining MORE morality for having incurred larger amounts of conflict.. which really seems counter intuitive to the intent of the system as a whole.

As for the belief that some people were questioning your understanding of the RAW, I think that's a further misunderstanding. A suggestion was made, you construed it to be that you only make the roll when conflict is actually gained and people tried to clarify this. No, it is not the rule as written but it may be the rules as intended.

If you want to rework the morality rolls and mechanics, by all means go for it but your methods seem overly complex and other than option 1 have the drawback I've already mentioned. It seems to me though, if the main problem is the pace at which Morality is gained, simply adjust the frequency of these checks instead of trying to rework the checks themselves.

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.

-- Options --

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.

Maybe we're not understanding enough of the group dynamics to help you out more. Is the objection to being light-side users? Do they feel it is too easy to be Moral and a Paragon? Are there any specifics your group is telling you they do not like about this area or is this your interpretation of the feelings around the table?

To be honest my objection is that my question related to potentially altered rules and not my understanding of the RAW, since it seemed that many of the comments focused more on my understanding of the official rules and ignored the fact that both my group and I didn't agree with not rolling for resolution of Conflict (despite it not being RAW).

Is there a *reason* you disagree with not rolling for conflict resolution when it's not warranted (e.g. no opportunity to gain conflict)?

Also, are you tyring to state that "not rolling for resolution of Conflict [when there was no chance for conflict to be generated]" isn't RAW? I'm pretty sure that hat solution is at least suggested in RAW. I'm not sure what the last sentence is saying.

Regardless, the community as a whole basically dislikes creating house rules in situations where:

1. The house rule addresses a *theoretical* issue, i.e., the house rule addresses an issue that has not been shown to exist in practice
2. The house rule addresses an issue that is the result of misinterpretation of the existing rules
3. The house rule ignores solutions already presented (or suggested or implied) in the text/RAW

The issues here appear to be the second or third. You'll get more productive input if proposed house rules avoid the above criteria.

The way I see it:

You get XP for accomplishing objectives/keeping true to Motivations.

You gain Duty for accomplishing secondary objectives that are in line with your Duty.

You gain Morality for overcoming your emotional weaknesses while staying true to your strengths.

Funny thing is, I'm kind of in a similar boat in that I run a campaign over skype that is mostly text, and very slow moving. We can spend an entire session on a single briefing and planning, and my players love that. They also know that because of how slowly we move I don't give them the standard 10-15 XP every session as RAW suggests. If I did, they'd gain fifty talents and ten skill ranks practically every ingame day. Well, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole, but the at the pace we move at a standard XP rate would make my players feel less like they were being rewarded for their accomplishments and more like they were just getting a set amount no matter what because that's how it works. Similar to how you and your players feel that their light side paragon status isn't really a representation of their actual morality. It's OK to space out the ingame rewards to account for the fact that you guys like a lot of detail in your character interactions.

Regarding your house rules:

1. This is very much biased towards very low conflict. I think a better solution would be to just up the conflict gained from actions if you feel the need instead of reworking the roll itself. If they're coming out with 0 conflict every time, then they'll be gaining morality regardless.

2. This is just complete randomness, it leaves nothing to player choice.

3. This allows for nonsensical results like murdering an entire orphanage, gaining 500 conflict, but generating 5 more light side pips so you gain 5 morality. It again boils down to random chance unless the player has no Conflict, in which case they can choose to go dark side just because. (In which case, why not just start using dark side pips during actual play? Use passion-filled Move to feed your lover space pears or something.)

I think you're not getting answers you like because none of the houserules you've presented really fix your problem of "the Morality system isn't really reflecting our actual Morality." One of them doesn't solve the "no Conflict" problem you mention having, and the other two are just random chance.

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.

Also, if your PCs are good people and aren't earning a lot of conflict, then they deserve to be Paragon.

Also, if your PCs are good people and aren't earning a lot of conflict, then they deserve to be Paragon.

This is true, but you have to take into consideration the pace of the game.

Consider a character that, over the course of a game session (one week in game time) steal some credits for pure selfish gain and abandons some allies in need, and uses some dark side pips to make a Move go off at a critical juncture. The character ends up at 6 conflict for the session, and is thus could well lose some morality since a d10 has even odds of rolling under a 6.

Now imagine that took place over the course of three sessions, where he did the same things.

Session 1 he gets four conflict.

Session 2 he gets one conflict

Session 3 he also gets one conflict

In each one of those sessions, he's very likely to GAIN morality. Heck, it's only possible for him to lose morality in the first session! In the others, at worst his Morality stays the same, or could increase by up to nine. This is why the amount of "ground" you cover in a session matters.

Also, if your PCs are good people and aren't earning a lot of conflict, then they deserve to be Paragon.

This is true, but you have to take into consideration the pace of the game.

Consider a character that, over the course of a game session (one week in game time) steal some credits for pure selfish gain and abandons some allies in need, and uses some dark side pips to make a Move go off at a critical juncture. The character ends up at 6 conflict for the session, and is thus could well lose some morality since a d10 has even odds of rolling under a 6.

Now imagine that took place over the course of three sessions, where he did the same things.

Session 1 he gets four conflict.

Session 2 he gets one conflict

Session 3 he also gets one conflict

In each one of those sessions, he's very likely to GAIN morality. Heck, it's only possible for him to lose morality in the first session! In the others, at worst his Morality stays the same, or could increase by up to nine. This is why the amount of "ground" you cover in a session matters.

This is a prime example that illustrates why I dislike the "Session" as the unit of play presented in this set of game lines. I've had major issues with groups of players just being completely unable to stay on task, and it really bugs me that that kind of behavior can be in anyway rewarded.

Needless to say, I replace basically every instance of "Session" with "Adventure" in my games.

Also, if your PCs are good people and aren't earning a lot of conflict, then they deserve to be Paragon.

This is true, but you have to take into consideration the pace of the game.

Consider a character that, over the course of a game session (one week in game time) steal some credits for pure selfish gain and abandons some allies in need, and uses some dark side pips to make a Move go off at a critical juncture. The character ends up at 6 conflict for the session, and is thus could well lose some morality since a d10 has even odds of rolling under a 6.

Now imagine that took place over the course of three sessions, where he did the same things.

Session 1 he gets four conflict.

Session 2 he gets one conflict

Session 3 he also gets one conflict

In each one of those sessions, he's very likely to GAIN morality. Heck, it's only possible for him to lose morality in the first session! In the others, at worst his Morality stays the same, or could increase by up to nine. This is why the amount of "ground" you cover in a session matters.

This is a prime example that illustrates why I dislike the "Session" as the unit of play presented in this set of game lines. I've had major issues with groups of players just being completely unable to stay on task, and it really bugs me that that kind of behavior can be in anyway rewarded.

Needless to say, I replace basically every instance of "Session" with "Adventure" in my games.

That's a good way of doing it. Since it's Star Wars, I favor the term "Episodes", complete with custom crawls at the beginning, but it's the same thing: awarding players based on what they've done in the game, instead of for just showing up to the table.

You know, I wouldn't worry about them being paragons. The biggest thing - well, aside from the role playing aspect - but from a purely mechanical point of view, it's just an extra destiny point and a little bit of strain. Not exactly game breaking qualities here.

You know, I wouldn't worry about them being paragons. The biggest thing - well, aside from the role playing aspect - but from a purely mechanical point of view, it's just an extra destiny point and a little bit of strain. Not exactly game breaking qualities here.

Well, it's an extra destiny point per character isn't it? with 3 or 4 characters, it adds up.

Also, if your PCs are good people and aren't earning a lot of conflict, then they deserve to be Paragon.

This is true, but you have to take into consideration the pace of the game.

Consider a character that, over the course of a game session (one week in game time) steal some credits for pure selfish gain and abandons some allies in need, and uses some dark side pips to make a Move go off at a critical juncture. The character ends up at 6 conflict for the session, and is thus could well lose some morality since a d10 has even odds of rolling under a 6.

Now imagine that took place over the course of three sessions, where he did the same things.

Session 1 he gets four conflict.

Session 2 he gets one conflict

Session 3 he also gets one conflict

In each one of those sessions, he's very likely to GAIN morality. Heck, it's only possible for him to lose morality in the first session! In the others, at worst his Morality stays the same, or could increase by up to nine. This is why the amount of "ground" you cover in a session matters.

This is an interesting point that I haven't actually seen brought up before. One more thing to try and avoid I suppose.

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.