Specifically 'Theft' vs 'Looting Spoils'

I've been pondering this since acquiring FaD as I intend to use Morality and Conflict with my group, especially with a Force using Marauder PC. This character has the money based Motivation, pure merc, and I have been keeping the group poor and hungry. This has led to much looting by said Marauder from dispatched enemies to sell on.

Now, I understand stealing will gain 2 Conflict, 3 if from those who are in need, and obviously murdering someone for their stuff will warrant a ton more Conflict (depending on nature and circumstances of murder).

But looting corpses (even from those who were the aggressors, and combat was the only solution) feels like it should also cause Conflict, I was thinking 1 point instead of the usual 2. Unless the items are desperately needed by others and 'donated' instead of just sold for profit.

Please let me know what your thoughts.

At this point, I really think any force-user should be using the morality/conflict rules, regardless of the campaign type. At least where possible. Any systems used prior to F&D were really just tacked-on place holders until the intended system really showed up.

That's my opinion.

Additionally, F&D provides good instruction on how to use the other character depth systems (Obligation & Duty) in the "Cross-Game Line Compatibility" (F&D Core, pp 338-9).

As far as specifics, I'd say do whatever works for your table, so discuss it with your players and/or GM and then be reasonably consistent.

Let me get this straight... You have a player whose character's overriding goal is to make money. You've provided barely enough money through the course of their missions to cover costs -- not allowing them any additional to save for large upgrades such as new ships, cybernetics or expensive equipment. Your player's response to this is to take whatever equipment is available from the bodies of their foes. Your response to this is to implement a morality system that punishes him for this transgression... Is this about the size of it?

Perhaps rather than establishing a new system of morality that punishes players for actions consistent with the world in which they find themselves and the motivations of their characters, you might want to have a discussion with them about differing outlooks and expectations within the game?

Further, what is amoral about depriving ones enemies of the necessary equipment and supplies to continue to oppose you? The final disposition of this equipment is really irrelevant -- sold or saved, it's out of the hands of the enemy.

I myself only worry about Morality if the character is using careers/specs from FaD.

To be honest, trying to use a mechanic to stop someone from doing something in an RPG always seems like a bad idea to me. If your players are looting, that is a problem with your setting and your game, and no amount of mechanics can stop them. If they want to loot, they will. And so what if they do? Like are they really going to find someone willing to pay any real amount of actual credits for used junk? Have you ever been to a real pawn shop? They pay pennies on the dollar value.

Hey, man, I have this old beat comlink...that? Oh, that's not blood, that's old hydraulic fluid, I'll take 50 credits for it. Oh, you don't want to buy it? Why not!? This blaster? You'll only give me 10 credits for it!? What the book says 200!? What do you mean you won't buy stolen Imperial guns and armor!?!?!? What, uh, hey, who are you calling???

Looting problems have been and for ages, and it will not take a game mechanic to curb it, it will take the game style to curb it. Also, after a firefight, don't let them hang ar no, have cops show up, or others groups or scavengers show up willing to fight for the goods. Also, as far as game mechanics go, Obligation could be used if people see them scavenging from the dead, so no need to introduce a new mechanic.

I do not agree with Lethal that any Force user should be using Morality, I feel it it best suited for FaD characters, but hey, whatever floats your guys' boats, do way at you think is best. But I don't think a game mechanic is the best option to curb looting.

If he's taking needed resources, then no. If he's "Looting and Pillaging" then sure.

While "kill things, take their stuff" is certainly a thing in RPGs, it's so much a thing that sometimes it's not really given the thought it needs. When the player starts looting, close your eyes and imagine the scene. Is he grabbing the rifles for some much needed firepower? Or is he also taking watches, wallets, and wedding rings?

While I'm hesitant to outright agree with Braen, I do think he asks a good question. You need to make sure that the character in question is being provided appropriate legit rewards before you slap him with this. By extension you need to make sure he's got enough expenses and wants to balance out those rewards. Players will find ways to spend money, your only concern is they don't buy something you're not ready to handle.

Finally: Make sure Morality will actually work. People tend to assume that low morality is a kind of punishment effect... yeah, not really. It's totally possible the player will look at the mechanic and say "Huh... more WT, easier access to force powers... and all I exchange it for is some strain and a D-point... sign me up!"

I agree mostly with R2builder... especially on the way NPCs are reacting to the players looting.

My mostly part comes from the Force and Destiny versus Edge Force users. I will say, thanks though, because I hadn't clarified my thinking on this. My first reaction was "everyone should have Morality if they use the Force", but you're right. That was not in place originally, but at some point, if they want to progress they will have to take it on. I'm ok with making it so that if they want to add a specialization from Force and Destiny as an Edge character, they will then acquire Morality (at 50 ... welcome to the Gray).

I agree with LethalDose on Force Users and Morality. Additionally I think it's reasonable to add Conflict for looting bodies for financial gain. It's okay if the PC needs an item(s) but if it's just for financial gain a point or two is reasonable.

I think one issue is the PC's Motivation. Acquiring money isn't really enough of a motivation in my opinion, it may be listed but I feel it's too generic, have the Player add some depth to it like: Acquiring money too achieve some goal. Next make sure you are using the Encumbrance RAW, it can eliminate some of the over the top looting as PCs need to actually cart the stuff out to sell it, then make sure you add reasonable limitations on what can and can't be sold. Buying and selling Imperial gear is a very risky business for a fence.

Finally, don't make having money that important in the story. Have anything worth getting part of an adventure not just easily picked up at Ye Old Mag... Equipment Shoppe. Want a military grade Hyperdrive? Can't buy one, but you hear a rumour of a downed Imperial fast picket out in the Dune Sea...

Star Wars is an adventure not a trip to WalMart.

Unless you release Velociraptors while they are in Walmart!

Oh... wait, I mean a flock of Rancors! Yeah... rollback prices indeed!

I still stand by what I said above: Do whatever works for your table. I think that should be a guiding principle and please keep that in mind as you read what I've written below.

I think FuriousGreg makes some good points, esp re: Adventure vs trip to Walmart. Looting *really* isn't the point of this game (at least how I see it). I admit I completely missed the "Money obligation" section of the OP (Braendig's post confused the #3!! out of me), but on reading it and mulling it over a bit, I came up with a few ideas that you may like. I think I can sum it up with a simple qustion:

Is that motivation intended to represent pinching pennies or amassing wealth?

They're not the same. For example, I know people that wash out and re-use plastic baggies (and as someone who studies public health, it drives me nuts). This practice saves you money, but it's not gonna make you rich. I see looting the same way, it saves you some cash, but it's not gonna make you rich. If I had a character (either playing as or GM'ing for) who qualified as a "pure merc," I think looting bodies would be pretty low on their list of priorities. That's chump change, or at least I'd *make* it chump change. This is pretty easy to do; Just rule that the gear on the bodies crappy (underworld scum), too hot to move (Imperial gear), or just not in demand (generic gear, e.g. comlinks). Start attaching Obligation to those sales of looted goods (esp. for Imperial gear) and it should lose appeal real fast.

Instead, you could make pursuit of the motivation more interesting (debatably this is point of the motivation) by tempting him with *really* big targets. Does the party have a mission to break into a Hutt's compound to release some hostages? Does that Hutt also have a limited edition mint-in-box Jedi Bob and Sith Crusade Action figure in this collection? Or a did that Hutt just receive a crate of blaster rifles that you know your Alliance contacts could pay good money for? Well, the Marauder just got a side quest to pursue that cash!

The problem is, this approach kinda runs head-long into the player-vs-party problems, also known as the chaotic d*****-bag dilemma, since the PC is likely to screw over the rest of the party to make the money. If that's a dynamic you're interesting in having at your table, have at it. If that's *not* the behavior you want at your table, you could make the rewards less tangible, e.g. not raw credits. He could gain stock (or a partnership) in a weapons manufacturing group, or in an arms trading business. Or since he's a mercenary, maybe the wealth could come for scoring his a BIG contract for himself with a wealthy employer. Or he could build his own mercenary corps and collect profits from their mission. Or the profits go back into improving the company's gear, training, capabilities, etc, and control of the company can then be sold to someone else at the end of the campaign.

Also discuss *why* money is this character's motivation. Maybe the marauder has a daughter and he wants to make sure she'll be comfortable and cared for even if the worst should happen to him, so he's amassing wealth into a trust fund to ensure her care/comfort/education.

The point is, I think there's lots of ways to both allow him to pursue the $$$ obligation if you broaden what you consider money (specifically to a more general "wealth" concept) and still keep the party hungry. The non-tangible wealth or credits-into-trust can also effectively explain why he's not spending the money in the party.

Additionally, all of these strategies can be tailored and tweaked to get the morality/obligation/style/economy balance you're going for in your game

tl;dr You've got gobs of options to allow this PC to make credi credi coin, y'all* that aren't looting. Just do what you need to discourage the looting, and find a good reason to keep the generated wealth from being spent immediately by the party.

*a play on "dolla dolla bill, y'all"... it sounded better in my head.

My two cents, and as this is a complex issue i will attempt to give it the amount of detail it diserves...

First off, since Force and Destiny is a thing now, once you have a Force Rating, I strongly agree that Morality and Conflict are the "free gifts with purchase." in the case of someone who started out with either Duty or Obligation, it doesn't replace those, just adds another plate to keep spinning.

Now that I've said that, there are basically three cultural tacks that could be taken with regards to looting the corpses in terms of the big scary taboos which may give looting corpses that evil feel. Fair warning, I will be basing parts of this on real world cultures and religions in general and with no names named or suggestion of what is correct, and if that bothers you you may wish to skip ahead a bit to the next paragraph. Cultures that have some form of belief in a bodily afterlife usually have some sort of "you can take it with you when you go" in there somewhere and also view stealing from the dead as a heinous crime. Cultures that have some form of belief in a less than physical afterlife usually have some sort of "you can't take it with you when you go" in there, and as such would probably prefer to distribute worldly goods to friends and family over their killers, but bad things happen. The third option is for a culture to not believe in an afterlife, and by default that puts them in the "Can't take it with you" camp as there is nowhere to go. Again, this probably leaves them preferentially distributing things to friends and family to have something to remember the dead. Looking at Jedi lore, whether adherents of the Cosmic or Living Force, neither of them think you get to keep your body forever, so both clearly fall into some variation "can't take it with you" camp, but respect for what used to be a living thing and respect for the grief of their friends and relatives should show up pretty quickly in a Jedi.

All that being said, we now move on to the question of kill vs. KO. In my current game, all of whom are F&D Jedi, we have a couple of different viewpoints on the Empire, ranging from "evil" to "MOST EVIL EVAR!!!" The beauty of this being a space opera morality play is anyone who is an Imperial minion can be fairly assumed to buy into the evil, Imperial rivals probably have, but really, only Imperial nemesis are three dimensional enough to have motivations or a conscience that may way on them. This is a game abstraction, but kind of a necessary one. Stormies that announce their intention to initiate combat (because no one is beating the Jedi Ninja on initiative without Forsee, a pile of force rating, and Rapid Reactions to boot) are fair game for kill or KO, as are their officers. Interestingly enough, though, I still have about half the group that prefers to just KO the poor fellas, while the Ninja takes the kill shots. As long as he isn't torturing people or killing the ones that others have KO'd, he is vigorously opposing a great evil and is still in the clear. The more three dimensional Imperial nemesis, however... that can be reasoned with. Out of the 4 inquisitor team, 1 has been redeemed and joined the party, 1 is no longer a guest/hostage but isn't drinking the "Dark Side is Bad" Kool-aid yet, and two are very, very dead. No attempts made to rehabilitate them, both struck down in anger and for revenge, and much conflict was handed out that session.

Now, to the subject of "Shoot and Loot."

So far in my current game, to the best of my recollection, there has been very little "Kill people and take their stuff!" Not that there hasn't been acquisition of goods through conflict, but it's been more in line with salvage operations. After luring an Imperial task force and an evil alien fleet to the same location, the party let the big bads slug it out, jumped the winner in their vulnerable state at the end of said slug fest, declared themselves the victors, rescued a hostage, and then said "Quick! Before Imperial reinforcements show up! Salvage!" And they loaded up their little transport to the brim with weapons they needed, disguises, armor, teams of droids to help the technician, all the bacta they could find, every last byte of data the Empire had on the spooky alien threat, and enough spare parts to keep their little ship running for a while. All of this was stuff they needed to wage a 4 person war on the Empire and spooky aliens, and while they may have lured both sides to their deaths, they only took pot shots at TIE fighters, focusing instead on the big scary alien. They have also evicted a slaver from his store/home and refit it to help the locals he once sold, and I am pretty sure that every single inquisitor that has been disarmed and run off or killed had the lightsaber that was left behind picked up, but those are just dangerous to leave lying around, you know, a kid could find it.

While one of the players does seem to like having a big pile of credits just to have a big pile of credits, no one has ever basically mugged someone for valuable weapons, gear, or pocket change. If they decide they need money, their cover is still being bounty hunters, so they look for a tempting payday that way if someone decides they need to make it rain. No one bothers collecting every dropped blaster, every spare comlink.

All that out of the way, the most important question to ask in these situations is "why are you doing that?" If the purpose of engaging in the combat is to loot the bodies afterwards, at my table, that's armed robbery, possibly murder, and conflict. If the combat is defensive in nature, but leaving that light repeating blaster on the street just means some kid may pick it up and accidentally melt a tour bus full of space nuns, so I'll pick it up for safety reasons... that's fine. Even if they sell it because they have no need for it or just give it away, that's fine. Coming from a culture that thinks "maybe they can take it with them" instantly makes this a bad or at least questionable idea, and then you get into the fun morally ambiguous places of "is it worse to steal from the dead, or worse to endanger potentially innocent people by leaving military hardware in the middle of the street?" In the case of someone who says to me "I need those credits because a couple sessions ago I got pretty much one shot by a big bad and clearly my armor isn't up to snuff, and I'm 1200 credits short of an upgrade I feel I need..." well, I would prefer we not loot the dead, and if I had known they were concerned for their continued survival l would adjust things accordingly to make them work for the gear they want but give them more tasteful options. If the party decides they really need some piece of gear that roving pack of minions has, I would be fine with them trying to negotiate for it, trying to buy it, or in the case of Imperials who probably aren't going to respond well to friendly overtures from people wanted for treason, I'd even be ok with the players jumping the stormies as long as they didn't kill people for the express purpose of taking that do-hickey. Knock them out, swipe the key card, and hope they don't wake up and radio in it's theft before you have finished whatever you are doing at the imperial base.

TL;DR -

While the ends don't always justify the means, knowing what the ends are can help you as the GM help players reach those without resorting to sketchy behavior by way of offering carrots as opposed to the whuppin' stick.

As an aside to LethalDose , I am soooooo stealing that Jedi Bob and the Sith Crusade action figure idea. It's just too good.

My personal preferences are well recorded w/r/t looting. This is a discussion that has come up several times in the past ( https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/135311-wealth-obsessed-players/?hl=looting https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/135749-looting-the-dead-criminal-obligation-gains/?hl=looting and https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/138388-more-scavenging-of-the-dead-and-more/?hl=looting).

In short, while it's your table and you can implement things however you want, the course of action least likely to cause conflict between players and the GM is to sit down and discuss things. If the player's character is so wealth obsessed that he has to loot and sell every ration pack he comes across, an adjustment might be in order. Conversely, if he's looking to purchase a Golan Space Station as a long-term goal, avenues of massive credit acquisition need to be incorporated into the campaign. Find out what he wants to do, why it's so important to the character, and give him an avenue to do it that doesn't inherently piss you off or slow down the game. Also make sure you get buy-in from the players (all of them) before implementing a rule like this into the Morality system. Nothing ticks a player off more than thinking they understand the rules of the world only to run into a House Rule that wasn't listed anywhere which penalizes them harshly for actions they thought to be legal.

I aggressively agree with Braening on this whole post.

My personal preferences are well recorded w/r/t looting. This is a discussion that has come up several times in the past ( https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/135311-wealth-obsessed-players/?hl=looting https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/135749-looting-the-dead-criminal-obligation-gains/?hl=looting and https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/138388-more-scavenging-of-the-dead-and-more/?hl=looting).

In short, while it's your table and you can implement things however you want, the course of action least likely to cause conflict between players and the GM is to sit down and discuss things. If the player's character is so wealth obsessed that he has to loot and sell every ration pack he comes across, an adjustment might be in order. Conversely, if he's looking to purchase a Golan Space Station as a long-term goal, avenues of massive credit acquisition need to be incorporated into the campaign. Find out what he wants to do, why it's so important to the character, and give him an avenue to do it that doesn't inherently piss you off or slow down the game. Also make sure you get buy-in from the players (all of them) before implementing a rule like this into the Morality system. Nothing ticks a player off more than thinking they understand the rules of the world only to run into a House Rule that wasn't listed anywhere which penalizes them harshly for actions they thought to be legal.

I would like it multiple times if I could, but, alas...

Some important highlights are:

• "the course of action least likely to cause conflict between players and the GM is to sit down and discuss things."
• "Find out what he wants to do, why it's so important to the character, and give him an avenue to do it that doesn't inherently piss you off or slow down the game."
• "Nothing ticks a player off more than thinking they understand the rules of the world only to run into a House Rule that wasn't listed anywhere which penalizes them harshly for actions they thought to be legal."

Every one of those points is hugely important.

I would personnaly not apply a morality score to a player not using a FaD career, or the character has not been trained or instructed in the way of the force.

Nothing ticks a player off more than thinking they understand the rules of the world only to run into a House Rule that wasn't listed anywhere which penalizes them harshly for actions they thought to be legal.

I really have to comment on this bit because I couldn't agree more. ESPECIALLY if any of the players are just learning the system too. My wife and I played in a group locally for awhile after a recent move. The group was full of great people and overall was a lot of fun and they were very welcoming. Unfortunately, they had been playing together for a long time and had a certain feel they wanted for their games and had developed their own house rules to assist in getting that feel.

However, you begin getting quite frustrated after a number of events like: Me: I heal party member A the tank while standing behind him, against opponents without reach. GM: The enemy gets an attack of opportunity. You take 4 damage. Me: Wait what? GM: Oh, that is one of our houserules.

At this point, I really think any force-user should be using the morality/conflict rules, regardless of the campaign type.

Nah.. As much as I love Morality, I`d say it really depends on what kind of campaign you want and how much focus you want to have on the Force. And some might want to use one CRB only, as it`s a complete game within itself.

I'm ok with letting someone that is an Edge or Age player not have Morality for the Universal specialization(s), but the moment they want to include a specialization that will let them increase their Force Rating, it will come with a little bow and some giftwrap! YMMV...

At this point, I really think any force-user should be using the morality/conflict rules, regardless of the campaign type.

Nah.. As much as I love Morality, I`d say it really depends on what kind of campaign you want and how much focus you want to have on the Force. And some might want to use one CRB only, as it`s a complete game within itself.

Re: use of multiple core books, the sentence immediately following what you quoted states "where possible," which intended to directly address this issue: It's obviously not possible to do when the GM can't afford F&D.

I trust it wasn't your intent, but I kinda feel like editing out that part of my response doesn't really represent the sentiment originally expressed by the cited section. As a result your response to my original post feels somewhat disingenuous. Eh, that came across too strong. Just note that the sentence after the cited one is intended to make that statement MUCH less absolute.

Re: Campaign focus, I acknowledge that some modifications may need to be made to the Morality system to work in a mixed game line campaign, but neither Duty or Obligation do a sufficient job to track dark-side force use, and, at least in my opinion, the mechanisms described in the respective systems to track dark-side force use over-time are woefully inadequate (they're basically a stern finger wagging).

Yep, if I'm an Edge character through and through, and I have a universal Force talent, Morality does little good, or harm. To just throw it on to a charcater as a form of leash or control mechanism screams Summer's Eve feminine hygiene product to me.

If it was talked about before the game; GM, "hey anyone picking up any Force stuff will start using Morality" is one thing, but to just start using when people are doing stuff you don't like is bad mojo.

I let my players know that if they ever pick up stuff from FaD, then they will track Morality, not the universal force talents though.

But again, people need to do what they feel is best. I don't see a need to track Morality for the universal talents, but if other people do, great, I just hope they let the players know before hand.

Also, people act like Conflict is something bad, or a punishment, which is the furthest from the truth. Conflict should never be a "punishment" for a player/character doing something a GM does not like. It is mechanic to help show the actual conflict that a charcater is having. In this system going to the dark side is not like in other systems where it was horrible and you then give your character sheet to the GM to play as a NPC.

To the OP, I think you really need to go back and reread the the section on morality and conflict in FaD. I think you are missing the point of the whole system.

So the problems in your game can be fixed, but not by using a mechanical system to try to control behavior of your players. That leads to the player vs GM game, which I have never seen a good one. First, talk to the player. Then, about everyone here on this thread has given great advice, so I need to repeat them. Just follow the advice that has been given.

Well, good luck in your game, and I hope you find a good fix for this, I'm sure you will though!

At this point, I really think any force-user should be using the morality/conflict rules, regardless of the campaign type.

Nah.. As much as I love Morality, I`d say it really depends on what kind of campaign you want and how much focus you want to have on the Force. And some might want to use one CRB only, as it`s a complete game within itself.

Re: use of multiple core books, the sentence immediately following what you quoted states "where possible," which intended to directly address this issue: It's obviously not possible to do when the GM can't afford F&D.

I trust it wasn't your intent, but I kinda feel like editing out that part of my response doesn't really represent the sentiment originally expressed by the cited section. As a result your response to my original post feels somewhat disingenuous.

Re: Campaign focus, I acknowledge that some modifications may need to be made to the Morality system to work in a mixed game line campaign, but neither Duty or Obligation do a sufficient job to track dark-side force use, and, at least in my opinion, the mechanisms described in the respective systems to track dark-side force use over-time are woefully inadequate (they're basically a stern finger wagging).

No, that wasn`t my intention. I own all the published books of all the three games thus far, but sometimes I want to run a game with a strong focus on one of the three games if my players are fine with it.

Ok.. just going to throw this out there.. but, how does having someone playing in an EotE focused game using a F&D career and specialization but not using Morality actually negatively impact the game at all?

• The benefits and detriments of Lightside and Darkside paragon are relatively small in my opinion.
• Having to gain conflict on the use of dark side pips is certainly a factor but they would still have to flip a destiny point and gain strain for the effort so there's still a cost.
• As a mechanic to track if someone is falling to the darkside it is certainly useful but a GM can easily just use their own discretion for that too.

Maybe it's just me but I fail to see the problem with removing Morality when it is not a focus of the game being played. Now, if the players are wanting to become Jedi-like and restore the fallen Jedi Order that is a different matter and has change things so that Morality is very much a focus of the game.

Ok.. just going to throw this out there.. but, how does having someone playing in an EotE focused game using a F&D career and specialization but not using Morality actually negatively impact the game at all?

• The benefits and detriments of Lightside and Darkside paragon are relatively small in my opinion.
• Having to gain conflict on the use of dark side pips is certainly a factor but they would still have to flip a destiny point and gain strain for the effort so there's still a cost.
• As a mechanic to track if someone is falling to the darkside it is certainly useful but a GM can easily just use their own discretion for that too.

Maybe it's just me but I fail to see the problem with removing Morality when it is not a focus of the game being played. Now, if the players are wanting to become Jedi-like and restore the fallen Jedi Order that is a different matter and has change things so that Morality is very much a focus of the game.

Actually... none of those is my primary reason for wanting them to use Morality. Their Emotional Strength and Weakness are what I am mostly interested in. It is the Motivation behind the Morality that I am concerned with. Morality and Conflict are just numbers. The Emotion is where the Force comes to play inside the Character and how they handle it which determines how the Character develops.

Ok.. just going to throw this out there.. but, how does having someone playing in an EotE focused game using a F&D career and specialization but not using Morality actually negatively impact the game at all?

• The benefits and detriments of Lightside and Darkside paragon are relatively small in my opinion.
• Having to gain conflict on the use of dark side pips is certainly a factor but they would still have to flip a destiny point and gain strain for the effort so there's still a cost.
• As a mechanic to track if someone is falling to the darkside it is certainly useful but a GM can easily just use their own discretion for that too.

Maybe it's just me but I fail to see the problem with removing Morality when it is not a focus of the game being played. Now, if the players are wanting to become Jedi-like and restore the fallen Jedi Order that is a different matter and has change things so that Morality is very much a focus of the game.

Not having yet Seen F&D... one thing I could think of is that The powers of a F&D character are greater and the Morality/conflict is part of the balancing factor between F&D characters and the EotE and AOR characters who don't use the force.

Actually... none of those is my primary reason for wanting them to use Morality. Their Emotional Strength and Weakness are what I am mostly interested in. It is the Motivation behind the Morality that I am concerned with. Morality and Conflict are just numbers. The Emotion is where the Force comes to play inside the Character and how they handle it which determines how the Character develops.

That is quite fair, and I can definitely see the benefit of those Emotional Strength and Weakness descriptors for any character really. It's just that from some of the posts I've seen from people they feel that the Morality system itself is somehow key to a force user and I just don't see it. Even the emotional strength and weakness.. I see how you can get some useful insight from what they choose for this but it's not really integral to being a force user. It could be applied to any character for the same insights. It could also be skipped and just gleaned from a sufficiently detailed background.

Ok.. just going to throw this out there.. but, how does having someone playing in an EotE focused game using a F&D career and specialization but not using Morality actually negatively impact the game at all?

• The benefits and detriments of Lightside and Darkside paragon are relatively small in my opinion.
• Having to gain conflict on the use of dark side pips is certainly a factor but they would still have to flip a destiny point and gain strain for the effort so there's still a cost.
• As a mechanic to track if someone is falling to the darkside it is certainly useful but a GM can easily just use their own discretion for that too.

Maybe it's just me but I fail to see the problem with removing Morality when it is not a focus of the game being played. Now, if the players are wanting to become Jedi-like and restore the fallen Jedi Order that is a different matter and has change things so that Morality is very much a focus of the game.

The third point is the one where I think there is an issue, and it's basically the Sorites Paradox formulated as:

"which flipped dark side point causes the character to fall to the darkside?"

Morality handles this explicitly by providing a nice, quantitative method for drawing this line. In absence of this, the GM is using their judgement to call the character dark side after, presumably, a substantial amount of finger-wagging at the offending character.

For me, that's a problem.

If you fail to see it as a problem, then don't use morality in these cases. Do whatever the **** you want, I don't care. Everything I've said above has been qualified, repeatedly, as my opinion, because I'm tired of getting harassed and belittled because of how I'd prefer to run my table.

The third point is the one where I think there is an issue, and it's basically the Sorites Paradox formulated as:

"which flipped dark side point causes the character to fall to the darkside?"

Morality handles this explicitly by providing a nice, quantitative method for drawing this line. In absence of this, the GM is using their judgement to call the character dark side after, presumably, a substantial amount of finger-wagging at the offending character.

For me, that's a problem.

If you fail to see it as a problem, then don't use morality in these cases. Do whatever the **** you want, I don't care. Everything I've said above has been qualified, repeatedly, as my opinion, because I'm tired of getting harassed and belittled because of how I'd prefer to run my table.

I in no way intend to belittle people their choices. I've somehow missed other threads where the reasoning was laid out but I have seen yourself and others mention that you strongly feel anytime force sensitives should all use Morality no questions asked. I agree it works well for the purpose of determining that tipping point.

For me though, it still comes down to what kind of game you want to run. If that light/dark balance isn't really important then I don't see a strong need for it, so I advocate a 'what suits your game' approach. But it was entirely possible I overlooked some major imbalance or issue that might arise if you omit the Morality aspect from force users and was merely looking for insight should that be the case.