Of course players are going to try to apply some common-sense moral judgement to the questions. Many fans and the RPG systems posit a bizarro orange-and-blue morality that has nothing to do with anything resembling actual morals or ethics -- a morality that originates from equal parts Lucas's original bad 70s pop-syncretism, EU writers going off in silly directions, and fank-wankery.

Never mind that morality and ethics can't be reduced to a set of simple platitudes and a numerical scale.

But of course, when you try to point out that morality might be a bit more complicated, someone will respond by presenting a false dichotomy between strict adherence to the same Jedi code that lead them to attempt genocide against the Sith species multiple times and prefers letting others suffer to risking one's own "spiritual purity" on one hand, and being wackadoodle "murderhobos" on the other hand.

Who crapped in your cereal? Donovan is right - when you're playing in a setting that has set rules regarding this sort of thing, it should be expected that you adhere to it if your GM is playing that way. It's like playing The One Ring and trying to say it's not fair that you got a Shadow point for not coming to the aid of your companions and let them die because 'it was their own fault', when Tolkien also has a pretty clear line of "good vs. evil" in the TOR setting.

Some fictional settings have predetermined moral rules to them. Who knew?

Except of course for the fact that what we see in the movies themselves, or the two animated series, doesn't even begin to jibe with the way the games and more than a few fans try to depict this supposed "universal morality" of Star Wars. Never mind that the OT, PT, and other canon sources can't even seem to agree on morality OR the whole Light/Dark thing.

And to answer your first question, anyone who tries to establish a false dichotomy between fully embracing the morality mechanic of F&D, or wanting to ignore moral/ethical content entirely in favor of being "murderhobos". Every time this comes up, certain posters will try to depict anyone who doesn't embrace a silly morality mechanic as wanting to play the most vile characters possible.

Stun setting or not, shooting someone is still shooting someone, so Conflict would be awarded unless you were directly acting in self-defense.

I'm going to disagree here. It's more like the difference between punching someone in the gut with your fist v. stabbing them in the gut with a knife. The much larger degree of harm that comes from the latter should certainly be worth more Conflict.

A lot of the issue is that Jedi morality is heavily based on the philosophical roots of Buddhism (enough so that one can often pass a class on Buddhism talking just about the Force). So the ideas of attachment being bad and death not so much are a little weird to people with more western-based philosophical backgrounds.

A lot of the issue is that Jedi morality is heavily based on the philosophical roots of Buddhism (enough so that one can often pass a class on Buddhism talking just about the Force). So the ideas of attachment being bad and death not so much are a little weird to people with more western-based philosophical backgrounds.

The problem is that Lucas and subsequent contributors have tried to map this concept directly onto two other mutually perpendicular sorts of duality

1) the good-evil duality that has its roots in the ancient Near East

2) the yin-yang duality of the Tao, et al.

If this had been done as a 3-dimentional set of axes, that would be one thing, but instead the three were conflated and mashed onto a single linear axis (throwing in some knightly chivalric concepts and whatnot), creating a bizzaro blue-orange morality where we're told that motive and outcome matter less than one's emotional state...

That makes sense when your emotional state changes what you're using. In a weird metaphor, when one is angry, upset or otherwise agitated they drive in a manner that uses more fuel-per-mile than when one is calm and relaxed. Alternately one can walk on coals just fine with no damage, but if one were to run or stomp it would cause burns.

To use the Force while angry or frightful is to grab the giant Pattern of Life tightly in your fist and pull on it violently to cause an effect you desire. When one is calm they gently shift the great weave to the necessary position.

Stun setting or not, shooting someone is still shooting someone, so Conflict would be awarded unless you were directly acting in self-defense.

I'm going to disagree here. It's more like the difference between punching someone in the gut with your fist v. stabbing them in the gut with a knife. The much larger degree of harm that comes from the latter should certainly be worth more Conflict.

So did you bother reading what I said after that sentence?

I don't disagree that there's a difference between punching someone in the gut or stabbing them with a knife, or shooting them with blaster set on stun vs. shooting them with a blaster on its default setting. But the point remains that the PC resorted to violence as their first action, which in this system means you gain Conflict. Stun setting or gut punch would only get you a small amount (1, 2 points a most) while using lethal force is going to probably get you more.

Sometimes -- in the sorts of situations Star wars characters find themselves in -- violence is the least-bad option, and you only make things worse by avoiding it out of misguided principle.

I remember reading in a previous game that once a Jedi decides that violence is the answer their duty is to end the fight as quickly as possible. Basically once that lightsaber HAS to be ignited, you should go for the fast and efficient kill, anything less is just toying with your opponent.

I remember reading in a previous game that once a Jedi decides that violence is the answer their duty is to end the fight as quickly as possible. Basically once that lightsaber HAS to be ignited, you should go for the fast and efficient kill, anything less is just toying with your opponent.

There are ways to defeat a foe physically that stop well short of killing them. Consider how often we see Jedi maim their opponents rather than just kill them outright.

I remember reading in a previous game that once a Jedi decides that violence is the answer their duty is to end the fight as quickly as possible. Basically once that lightsaber HAS to be ignited, you should go for the fast and efficient kill, anything less is just toying with your opponent.

There are ways to defeat a foe physically that stop well short of killing them. Consider how often we see Jedi maim their opponents rather than just kill them outright.

Almost all violence carries some risk of death occuring. There's a reason that the companies that make "less-lethal" weapons are for the most part very careful to not use the popular term "non-lethal".

I remember reading in a previous game that once a Jedi decides that violence is the answer their duty is to end the fight as quickly as possible. Basically once that lightsaber HAS to be ignited, you should go for the fast and efficient kill, anything less is just toying with your opponent.

There are ways to defeat a foe physically that stop well short of killing them. Consider how often we see Jedi maim their opponents rather than just kill them outright.

And in this system, if you opted for violence as the first response, that's going to net you Conflict. Lethal or non-lethal, violence is violence.

Yes, there are plenty of options to resolve a situation, and even a violent one is the "best" or most efficient method of dealing with, that doesn't mean it's the right choice to make. Or, if someone is aspiring to follow the general Jedi mindset (i.e. being a LS Paragon), then violence shouldn't be their first choice, but instead be the option of last resort. In fact, it's very much deliberate that if you want to be a good little Jedi, then violence is your last response to situation. Part of what caused the Jedi Order to fall from grace during the Clone Wars is they by and large tossed non-violent solutions completely out the window when they accepted commissions in the GAR, with Yoda even saying as much in Rebels, which was a hefty contradiction in their teachings.

Though it may no longer be canon, the Jedi Path book is a pretty good look at what the core teachings of the Jedi Order were prior to the Clone Wars; a bit outdated perhaps by that time-frame (with Yoda even noting a couple points as such), but still has the same general core of how a Jedi should behave, and a lot of it lines up with not doing things that would generate Conflict under FaD's Morality system.

It's been said elsewhere a number of times,but it probably bears repeating that the Morality system is deliberately designed so that 1) it's NOT easy to avoid earning Conflict, and that 2) earning a few points of Conflict every session isn't going to doom your character to the dark side. I'm sure the math diehards can tell you the exact odds, but unless you're doing things to earn more than 4 Conflict each and every session, generally speaking your Morality score is going to go up at the end of a session.

But for the scenario of getting past a guard, if stealth either failed or wasn't an option, you could always use Deception or Coercion rather than punching them out or blasting them with a stun bolt. Since Coercion is based on Willpower, most Force users are going to have a pretty good dice pool in Coercion by default. The Shii-Cho Knight that I play in a friend's AoR game has made decent use of Deception (3 in Cunning) to talk his way out of a bad situation (and actually had it work a couple of times, giving him a better track record than Han in the films), as well as using Coercion (and freely accepting a point of Conflict for doing so) in order to get some local ruffians to back down from a fight they weren't going to win. And that's not delving into Force powers like Influence or Misdirect, which can add plenty of options to resolve a situation without resorting to violence.

But if violence, be it heavily restrained or full-out mayhem is your first choice before trying anything else, then you're going to earn Conflict. It may not be fair to a FaD PC that their allies from EotE and AoR can do that sort of thing without too much worry, but again that's part of the price you pay for being connected to the living energy of the cosmos. And if a player absolutely can't handle that, then they probably shouldn't be playing a Force user in this system.

E: forum hiccup double-post

The Jedi saying something is so, does not automatically make it objectively true. We have seen repeatedly that the Jedi as a whole are just as capable of self-deception, cognitive dissonance, and personal bias as anyone else.

What doesn't help in these discussions is that there has been a past tendency on the part of some people to view the Jedi as The Good Guys, and the Sith as The Bad Guys, in a very faerie-tale / melodrama sort of way, so that anything the Jedi do or say is right, and good, and justified, and correct.

The Jedi saying something is so, does not automatically make it objectively true. We have seen repeatedly that the Jedi as a whole are just as capable of self-deception, cognitive dissonance, and personal bias as anyone else.

What doesn't help in these discussions is that there has been a past tendency on the part of some people to view the Jedi as The Good Guys, and the Sith as The Bad Guys, in a very faerie-tale / melodrama sort of way, so that anything the Jedi do or say is right, and good, and justified, and correct.

Yes, but it is true if they are talking about their own philosophical beliefs, and Yoda was pretty much the modern day expert. Furthermore, he admitted the Jedi were all of those things and more during the Clone Wars.

Of course the Jedi aren't perfect or infallible, but to your second point, they are the good guys in the universe, as a whole. They have nuance and difficulties with being truthful and correct, but in the end, their morality is the pinnacle of good morality within Star Wars. It's why the 'heroes' of most stories within the universe are allied with the Jedi, especially in the canon.

When has that ever not been true in the canon? It's simple.

Jedi = Good.

Sith = Evil.

I remember reading in a previous game that once a Jedi decides that violence is the answer their duty is to end the fight as quickly as possible. Basically once that lightsaber HAS to be ignited, you should go for the fast and efficient kill, anything less is just toying with your opponent.

There are ways to defeat a foe physically that stop well short of killing them. Consider how often we see Jedi maim their opponents rather than just kill them outright.

And in this system, if you opted for violence as the first response, that's going to net you Conflict. Lethal or non-lethal, violence is violence.

Yes, there are plenty of options to resolve a situation, and even a violent one is the "best" or most efficient method of dealing with, that doesn't mean it's the right choice to make. Or, if someone is aspiring to follow the general Jedi mindset (i.e. being a LS Paragon), then violence shouldn't be their first choice, but instead be the option of last resort. In fact, it's very much deliberate that if you want to be a good little Jedi, then violence is your last response to situation. Part of what caused the Jedi Order to fall from grace during the Clone Wars is they by and large tossed non-violent solutions completely out the window when they accepted commissions in the GAR, with Yoda even saying as much in Rebels, which was a hefty contradiction in their teachings.

Though it may no longer be canon, the Jedi Path book is a pretty good look at what the core teachings of the Jedi Order were prior to the Clone Wars; a bit outdated perhaps by that time-frame (with Yoda even noting a couple points as such), but still has the same general core of how a Jedi should behave, and a lot of it lines up with not doing things that would generate Conflict under FaD's Morality system.

It's been said elsewhere a number of times,but it probably bears repeating that the Morality system is deliberately designed so that 1) it's NOT easy to avoid earning Conflict, and that 2) earning a few points of Conflict every session isn't going to doom your character to the dark side. I'm sure the math diehards can tell you the exact odds, but unless you're doing things to earn more than 4 Conflict each and every session, generally speaking your Morality score is going to go up at the end of a session.

But for the scenario of getting past a guard, if stealth either failed or wasn't an option, you could always use Deception or Coercion rather than punching them out or blasting them with a stun bolt. Since Coercion is based on Willpower, most Force users are going to have a pretty good dice pool in Coercion by default. The Shii-Cho Knight that I play in a friend's AoR game has made decent use of Deception (3 in Cunning) to talk his way out of a bad situation (and actually had it work a couple of times, giving him a better track record than Han in the films), as well as using Coercion (and freely accepting a point of Conflict for doing so) in order to get some local ruffians to back down from a fight they weren't going to win. And that's not delving into Force powers like Influence or Misdirect, which can add plenty of options to resolve a situation without resorting to violence.

But if violence, be it heavily restrained or full-out mayhem is your first choice before trying anything else, then you're going to earn Conflict. It may not be fair to a FaD PC that their allies from EotE and AoR can do that sort of thing without too much worry, but again that's part of the price you pay for being connected to the living energy of the cosmos. And if a player absolutely can't handle that, then they probably shouldn't be playing a Force user in this system.

Not replying directly to you, but your post made me think of this, hence why I quoted you.

Bottom line, the system is a very simplified mechanical way to try and track a characters moral choices. No, I take that back, track is a bad word, a way to give a statistical representation to a characters moral conflict on a day to day basis. Some have said in this thread "It's to simplistic" well yes, welcome to gaming. It's ALL simplistic rules. Combat is way more involved than simply adding up a few positive/negative dice, and rolling them, and saying a specific result happens. But that part of the simplified rules is ok, yet the simplified morality system isn't? Simple fact is that all of the rules in this game line, are designed to simplify, and streamline things that are VASTLY more complicated than the system can allow for, and still be manageable. The morality system isn't there to punish the player/character for their actions, but to give a guideline on how they should probably roleplay their reactions to these actions. If you have had a lot of conflict in a session, then this is a good way for you to decide to maybe actually roleplay the characters more complex reaction to mechanics. Maybe he starts drinking to resolve his conflicted feelings on the matter. Maybe he starts making an effort to atone for what HE perceives to have been an error (whether the mechanics say it was or not). The morality is simply a tool, just like every other tool in this game line, to try and help a GM and players have a fun game. If you don't like it, don't use it, but not liking something isn't the same thing as it being broken, or wrong, or flawed. You could easily point that same finger at every other part of the mechanics, and accuse it of simplifying something down to a point of utter absurdity, compared to the reality of the situation at hand.

Yes, morality is complicated, that's obvious, but the system is simplified to try and help, as a tool. Nothing more. It's not a declaration of Evil vs Good cookies, just a guideline for actions that, historically, and narratively usually put a character into emotional conflict with himself. Maybe he comes out of it stronger for it, maybe it breaks them, who knows.

Well said KungFuFerret.

It does seem that a few folks simply can't accept that the Morality system as at essence a tool used to help tell stories in a very specific setting, where good is good, evil is evil, and neither are particularly subtle about being what they are. If anything, the Morality system here is about as close to "nuanced" role-playing in terms of light and dark than any of the prior SWRPGs, since earning a couple points of Conflict is a light tap on the wrist as opposed to the more heavy-handed approach of Dark Side Points, especially WEG where a random die roll could result in your loosing your character. In FaD, you've got to really work at being a violent arsebiscuit if you want to become a dark sider, and if anything it's easier to stay in the middle of the road (between 29 and 71 Morality) if you'd rather play in the "grey" side of the yard.

It was never meant to be any sort of realistic yardstick for real-world morality any more than Legend of the Five Ring's Honor track or Vampire Masquerade's Humanity or even D&D's alignment system were meant to be.

Part of the issue is that I've never watched any of the Star Wars movies or animated series, or played the TOR-era games, and come away with this good is good, evil is evil thing. Or thought of the movies as establishing any kind of great moral scheme... after all, this is the series in which a butcher of billions and arch-traitor is "redeemed" when he saves his own son by throwing a cackling mad space wizard over a railing.

Well, it sounds like it's a SAE* v. SAI** argument.

* Setting as Envisioned (by creator)

** Setting as Presented (through various media)

If anything, the Morality system here is about as close to "nuanced" role-playing in terms of light and dark than any of the prior SWRPGs,

I agree, and that’s actually one of the things I like most about F&D. By RAW, you’re not a ‘Jedi’ or a ‘Sith’, just a random guy with strange mystical powers and a sock drawer full of holocrons and lightsaber hilts. You have to avoid the Empire but otherwise wander around the galaxy looking for more old stuff.

Really, in this setting, ‘what would Yoda or Kenobi do?’ is less relevant. I guess you might have a desire to ‘rebuild the Jedi’ or something, but I think if I was in that setting, I wouldn’t feel inclined to do so, seeing as how they got themselves spectacularly wiped out last time.

So really the PCs are on their own, and that lets us look more closely at their personal morality. There’s nobody around to tell them what to do, it’s all up to them. ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’ might be as similar to each other as ‘Enthusiastic’ and ‘Reckless’. It’s not a choice between sainthood and puppy-eating, it’s more personal than that.

But I think some people are stuck in the Hero/Villain paradigm because of the huge glut of SW stories out there over the years. But in actuality we get the chance to look at something more personal here.

(This, as much as anything else, is why we don’t use the Morality rules, because the mechanics seems to punish those wanting to explore the middle areas, only rewarding a rush to the extremes. Not to mention the endless cyclical arguments about whether a given action was ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘reckless’. )

Interestingly, the GM screen talks about other settings than this default, including playing canon (which is actually considered alternative here, as the PCs are not allowed to resurrect the Jedi because the movies didn’t have them doing this), or being a part of a full Jedi order in some time before or after the films.

If anything, the Morality system here is about as close to "nuanced" role-playing in terms of light and dark than any of the prior SWRPGs,

I agree, and that’s actually one of the things I like most about F&D. By RAW, you’re not a ‘Jedi’ or a ‘Sith’, just a random guy with strange mystical powers and a sock drawer full of holocrons and lightsaber hilts. You have to avoid the Empire but otherwise wander around the galaxy looking for more old stuff.

Really, in this setting, ‘what would Yoda or Kenobi do?’ is less relevant. I guess you might have a desire to ‘rebuild the Jedi’ or something, but I think if I was in that setting, I wouldn’t feel inclined to do so, seeing as how they got themselves spectacularly wiped out last time.

So really the PCs are on their own, and that lets us look more closely at their personal morality. There’s nobody around to tell them what to do, it’s all up to them. ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’ might be as similar to each other as ‘Enthusiastic’ and ‘Reckless’. It’s not a choice between sainthood and puppy-eating, it’s more personal than that.

But I think some people are stuck in the Hero/Villain paradigm because of the huge glut of SW stories out there over the years. But in actuality we get the chance to look at something more personal here.

(This, as much as anything else, is why we don’t use the Morality rules, because the mechanics seems to punish those wanting to explore the middle areas, only rewarding a rush to the extremes. Not to mention the endless cyclical arguments about whether a given action was ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘reckless’. )

Interestingly, the GM screen talks about other settings than this default, including playing canon (which is actually considered alternative here, as the PCs are not allowed to resurrect the Jedi because the movies didn’t have them doing this), or being a part of a full Jedi order in some time before or after the films.

And yet that bold part, about the choice -- many of the comments seem predicated on that very dichotomy. "If you don't use the morality rules as written and adhere to the 'Star Wars spirit', then obviously your characters are murder-hobos and that's the kind of game you enjoy."

And yet that bold part, about the choice -- many of the comments seem predicated on that very dichotomy. "If you don't use the morality rules as written and adhere to the 'Star Wars spirit', then obviously your characters are murder-hobos and that's the kind of game you enjoy."

Granted, I haven't read every single post in this thread, but of what I did read, I don't recall anyone accusing people of wanting to play murder hobos if you don't want to use the system. However a lot of players DO want to play morally bankrupt characters. That is independent of the morality system in this game, but it's hardly a new fact that many people play video games, and roleplaying games, to indulge their more negative thoughts/urges. Where else can you play a murderous psychopath and not end up executed/imprisoned ? So sure, some people might've been speaking in hyperbole, or giving polar opposite examples, but that's not the same thing as saying "If you don't use this Morality system, then you clearly want to play a murder hobo" But, seeing as the argument against a morality system almost always seems to boil down to justifying murdering someone, it does seem to imply that the players are looking for free reign to...you know...go murder people without any emotional/psychological repercussions in the game. I've lost count of how many times, not just this thread, but overall, that people have said something along the lines of "Well I don't think this would negatively impact my character, to torture/murder that person." Now maybe that's just because it's the most glaring example of an action that might cause moral problems, so everyone uses it, just like bringing up Hitler is so popular. But it's usually not a hypothetical example. Many times, it's a direct example from actual play, that the player is trying to justify, why his act of murder should be ok.

On a personal level, I too have an issue with the "deathbed conversion" kind of idea. But it's a pretty staple aspect of narrative storytelling. I think the specific trope name is Redemption Equals Death ? I could be wrong, been a while since I looked at tvtropes. Anyway, this is a universe, where there is an actual mystical force, that influences things around it. It can taint people, and uplift them, depending on their actions. In that context, sacrificing your life, to destroy the absolute vessel of Dark Side evilness currently in the world, which opens the way for his Empire of destruction and oppression to be dismantled, thus freeing bajillions of beings from oppression, yeah, that's got some mystical weight to it in a narrative sense. In the real world, it's waaay more messy than that, sure. I mean, if you just simply reject the idea of a mystical damnation, and mystical redemption flat out, fine. But in Star Wars, it does exist. You have a form of actual Hell (negative Dark Side ghost thingies and basically being in utter misery) and a form of, well if not Heaven, then at least an afterlife (Good force ghosties). And in any theology, that has a mystical ramification for good/bad actions, there are lines you cross, that put you on one side of the mystical line, or the other. You can cross back, but it almost always is shown to be something that requires extreme effort/risk/sacrifice on the part of the person in question, or a major betrayal if they fall. You don't just do a few bad things, you go and murder 30 children to actually push yourself over that edge. You don't just decide to stop serving evil, you kill yourself to destroy the most evil person in the universe.

I feel morality is less about actions and more about empathy. I remembered a game called jade empire that adopted a open palm/closed fist philosophy, with the former being forgiving/selfless and all about enabling personal freedom and the latter being selfish/proactive with a view of self superiority. The lack of empathy in actions is what ultimately leads to the darkside, I expect a lot of the milder force senstivrsc to drift in the grey, as most that are unaware don't act differently, while others that are aware will likely begin to exploit it for their own designs.

I feel morality is less about actions and more about empathy. I remembered a game called jade empire that adopted a open palm/closed fist philosophy, with the former being forgiving/selfless and all about enabling personal freedom and the latter being selfish/proactive with a view of self superiority. The lack of empathy in actions is what ultimately leads to the darkside, I expect a lot of the milder force senstivrsc to drift in the grey, as most that are unaware don't act differently, while others that are aware will likely begin to exploit it for their own designs.

So it's OK to slaughter the innocent as long as you do it "empathically"?

Eh, that probably comes across as more angry that I intended it.

I feel morality is less about actions and more about empathy. I remembered a game called jade empire that adopted a open palm/closed fist philosophy, with the former being forgiving/selfless and all about enabling personal freedom and the latter being selfish/proactive with a view of self superiority. The lack of empathy in actions is what ultimately leads to the darkside, I expect a lot of the milder force senstivrsc to drift in the grey, as most that are unaware don't act differently, while others that are aware will likely begin to exploit it for their own designs.

So it's OK to slaughter the innocent as long as you do it "empathically"?

Eh, that probably comes across as more angry that I intended it.

No, it's not ok to slaughter the innocent, for any reason, and again, the mechanics of this game don't actually encourage that. The chart is pretty darn specific that murdering someone is right up there at the top of the list of "things you shouldn't do if you don't want to be a ******". *edit* Interesting, the word for a feminine hygiene product is considered profanity. Good to know.

I'm not really sure there is much else we can get out of this thread really. You don't like the Morality system in FaD. Fine, don't use it. Or, house rule it to the 3 axis thing you mentioned earlier. If you and your players are fine with it, and it enriches your game, go for it.

But it's pretty obvious that you're not going to change your opinion on the Morality system in the game (which is what this discussion is about, not morality in itself). And I'm confident you're not going to convince us that the system is broken.

So really, why continue this debate? Neither side's going to budge, so at this point we're just circling a topic that isn't going to accomplish anything but have heated back and forths.

IRL, it sounds like we have reasonably similar ideas of morality, but this isn't IRL, this is Star Wars, it's space fantasy, and has it's own operating rules.