Morality in F&D

By aurionshidhe, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

I seem to be unable to find the rules telling us how beginning morality can be modified in the rulebook. I know it says you can get bonus XP or cash but how does that affect the character's morality? Is it like in Edge or Age where they must increase or decrease their morality score for the bonuses?

Also, does anyone else have a problem with the conflict system? If you (as a player) can gain just one or two conflict points per session you have a pretty good chance of pumping your morality higher by 4 or 5 points per session just based on average die rolls.

No, unlike the two previous systems the players can choose between EITHER 10 XP OR 2,500 credits OR 5 XP and 1,000 OR plus/minus 21 on the Morality scale. There's no requirement to give up or pay something in return. It's all laid out on page 49 or the F&D core book, bottom right-hand corner.

No, unlike the two previous systems the players can choose between EITHER 10 XP OR 2,500 credits OR 5 XP and 1,000 OR plus/minus 21 on the Morality scale. There's no requirement to give up or pay something in return. It's all laid out on page 49 or the F&D core book, bottom right-hand corner.

Wow. That's pretty potent.

Has anyone run into any issues with the Conflict rules? It seems like my force users are going to rocket to 100 morality pretty quick unless they are just total b@$7ards to everyone and manage to rack up 7+ conflict per session.

Encourage tough choices like chasing the Inquisitor or saving the civilians from certain doom. On one hand they can get rid of your bad guy and earn 3-4 conflict each or the Inquisitor gets away, having consequences for the PCs later, but avoiding the conflict, also, are they trying to negotiate their way out of combat with threatening NPCs that didn't shoot on sight, or are they shooting anybody that threatens progression, that earns conflict.

The Conflict rules aren't bad in my opinion. But they do require the GM to offer them plenty of chances to gain conflict. The only way PC's will rocket to 100 is if the GM isn't really doing a good job of offering up real temptation. They have to be challenged to not take a path that leads to gaining Conflict. If they opt to always do things the hard way though, and never take the easy route, then eeeeeeeh they deserve to be at 100. But it's your job as the GM to make sure that getting to that 100 was hard fought and not easy.

I guess it comes down to what and how you give out conflict for, I agree that just within simple game terms they may get to paragon quicker but don't forget you are they Gm you rule all and everything.

I give my players conflict for breaking tale rules such as using thir phones or being disruptive, most end up with 3-6 conflict per game and this hopefully will help to keep their heads in the game. I know other may be scandalized that I do this but my players are happy with it, for now.

Players can "skyrocket" towards high Morality pretty quickly, but it can also go the other way. Someone who consistently rolls low on the D10 at the end of each session will more pretty slowly upwards, especially if they've taken a few points of conflict along the way. Over the course of multiple sessions it'll even out.

When I write adventures for my F&D campaign I always make a special point of throwing in lots of moral choices for the PCs. A mechanic like Morality rather depends on the GM being on top of things and making sure there's plenty of opportunity to take on Conflict during play. It's a lot like the whole setback dice issue, where the talents that remove setback dice are worthless unless the GM makes a point of assigning lots of setback dice to the various checks.

I understand and agree with most of your statements. We get together for our game for about 2-3 hours once a week, so it's hard to throw in a "save the kids or stop the Inquisitor" situation every week without turning the sessions into Saturday morning cartoons (Villain of the Week!).

I realize that FFG's intent isn't to track conflict over separate gaming sessions but I may look at tracking it per Act in our campaign. When I design my adventures I try to lay them out more like 3-Act dramas. That way, when we have a short session one week, we aren't looking at characters earning 5+ morality because they only had the opportunity to earn 2 or 3 conflict over two hours (that are often interrupted by families or the like).

thanks for all your feedback, it is appreciated. Cheers!

Yeah I had this same issue as some campaigns just don't have a lot of moral issues without feeling to contrived. This aside I've moved to only a roll once per episode and only if there where a decent amount of moral conflicts to resolve (i.e. Until your morality has truly been tested you don't know what path you follow).

This seems to have slowed down the morality rise yet not punished players if they truly do play a moral character.

With such sort sessions you might want to consider having them roll for morality once every two sessions.

If your players dont encounter at least one situation in a session when they need to make a morality choice, do not make them roll to increase/ decrease their morality score.

To avoid the sudden jumps in Morality, I've been having my PCs roll at the end of each adventure rather than each session. It causes the players to think a bit more carefully about whether or not they want to undertake actions that gain Conflict, since said Conflict is going to hang around a bit longer than it would under RAW.

If your players dont encounter at least one situation in a session when they need to make a morality choice, do not make them roll to increase/ decrease their morality score.

This. By the rules, characters need to have made moral choices during the session in order to roll for Morality. If nothing moraly significant happened and no though choices were made, then you don't roll Morality that session.

All good points. I don't want my players to feel like they have to play their Jedi like "Lawful Stupid" Paladins, but I do want them to have to carefully consider their actions. I think I will have them roll at the end of each adventure act. That seems to be a pretty good rolling point. That would be like having to roll when leaving Tatooine, the escape from the Death Star, and after the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars. I'm no film expert so those may not be the exact acts for the movie, but it's good enough for my amateur mind.

I was toying with the idea of rolling a d8 or d6 instead of a d10. Would this make things a little more interesting?

I was toying with the idea of rolling a d8 or d6 instead of a d10. Would this make things a little more interesting?

Not so much interesting as it'd slow down the Morality increases from session to session, and runs the larger risk of a PC having a drop in Morality even if they only generated 2 or 3 Conflict for a session. Which per the devs, the general idea is that most PCs can get by with a couple of points of Conflict per session and not take a major hit to their Morality.