I've been researching this all over the place and every discussion just devolves into "How much do I give for X" and "How does my character act after gaining conflict"

but what does it do? What is the effect of high conflict?

Admittedly I am asking this because I have no clue how to use it as a gm, and then my other campaign I play in, I just created my lightsaber, and through the process we used, I gained a conflict talent from the crystal (If I channel the dark side through my crystal, my lightsaber is vicious 9, up from vicious 3 and I gain 10 conflict when I use this to kill any living thing), and I want to have a good sense of what it does before I tear through it trying to crit Vader to death.

Conflict (and rolling for the effects of conflict) represent your character's feelings towards their actions, whether they can justify them or feel guilt. In most cases, this works out, since the system doesn't try to mess with you if you play a decent person who isn't completely psychopathic. However, there are some cases in which conflict seems to act arbitrarily, such as in the case you described with the lightsaber. I suppose the argument could be made that it's your character struggling mentally with their own brutality, but it really seems to be there to balance the benefits and punish Dark users. Ultimately, if your character has no problem with mowing down organics, then I'd talk to your GM about it and see if they want to hand-wave it or not. After all, the police aren't going to kick down your door if you bend the rules to fit the game a little bit, so long as the GM's on-board.

23 hours ago, Xenophyter said:

I've been researching this all over the place and every discussion just devolves into "How much do I give for X" and "How does my character act after gaining conflict"

but what does it do? What is the effect of high conflict?

Admittedly I am asking this because I have no clue how to use it as a gm, and then my other campaign I play in, I just created my lightsaber, and through the process we used, I gained a conflict talent from the crystal (If I channel the dark side through my crystal, my lightsaber is vicious 9, up from vicious 3 and I gain 10 conflict when I use this to kill any living thing), and I want to have a good sense of what it does before I tear through it trying to crit Vader to death.

Gaining too much Conflict is what will mechanically put you on the path to being a Darkside Force User. Conflict is a part of the Morality mechanic.

Sorry to start this way, but as a GM you need to read about "Morality and Conflict" in Force and Destiny (FnD) starting on page 51.

Basically to figure out if your character is good or evil FFG has developed a measurable metric called Morality under the assumption that the players are going to be good.

Conflict is a temporary numerical rating when a Force Sensitive does something that they shouldn't do such as using dark force points to access force powers, performing narrative actions that are inherently evil (Burning down the proverbial orphanage . . .).

Let me give you a real world example of generating conflict.

So my force sensitive character is negotiating with a local Hutt overlord and is trying to extract information, and the character uses Deception to try to put together a plausible cover story. Since my Force Sensitive Exile (FSX) has Overwhelm Emotions, they can use force dice with their checks.

The Hutt is 'super boss' on their Cool check and my FSX is facing a daunting task. I roll the dice and come up with a near failure but I've rolled two black pips on my force dice.

My character taps into the dark side and I use both black pips and convert them to 1 success and 1 advantage, enabling me to succeed. My character immediately generates 2 "Conflict Points" 1 per pip. The GM may also assign additional conflict because the character is lying through their teeth. But this is a Hutt so no additional conflict is assigned.

And at the end of the session, I roll a d10 - <Generated Conflict Points> to change my Morality score (up or down) depending on how much conflict the character has generated during the session.

Editorially, I don't think the GM is assigning conflict correctly by punishing you for using an advantage inherent with the light saber. You could generate conflict on what your character uses the light saber for.

If you're using your light saber with the "vicious" quality to protect yourself and your friends from several Sith affiliated Inquisitors, then you should receive ZERO conflict.

If you knock off a bank (mmmm!) to raid a Back Sun treasure vault (okay, no conflict yet), and you slice the over zealous security guard in twain (+1 conflict. Seriously, the guy was just doing his job and he had a wife and several kids), and then you set a Kava cart ablaze to cover your escape (+1 Conflict. You just messed up that Kava vendor's whole bottom line for the month you reckless fool). Lastly you whip out your light saber to hold off the squad of troopers as your buddies board the escape ship and fire up the engines. Last you force jump your way onto the ship but come up with a black pip! To survive, you tap into the dark side so that you can make the heroic leap onto the ship (+1 conflict).

So that's 3 conflict points from this series of misadventures. Lets hope you roll a three or better on that d10 at the end of the session . . .

On 4/7/2017 at 0:27 PM, Xenophyter said:

I've been researching this all over the place and every discussion just devolves into "How much do I give for X" and "How does my character act after gaining conflict"

but what does it do? What is the effect of high conflict?

Admittedly I am asking this because I have no clue how to use it as a gm, and then my other campaign I play in, I just created my lightsaber, and through the process we used, I gained a conflict talent from the crystal (If I channel the dark side through my crystal, my lightsaber is vicious 9, up from vicious 3 and I gain 10 conflict when I use this to kill any living thing), and I want to have a good sense of what it does before I tear through it trying to crit Vader to death.

How did you gain a Conflict talent from your crystal? None of the crystals released in any of the books give a character any talents, much less a Conflict Talent.

Hey guys, I really appreciate all your responses!

First, telling me to look it up in the book is fine! Thank you for giving me the page number so I could find it so quickly! Your story example helped a ton with my thought process.

So, we created the lightsaber without a template and this crystal was not earned. I stole it from a client who paid us to smuggle it to him, and it made my Character sick when it was brought aboard the ship. My GM explained repeatedly that this an ancient and evil crystal long before we rolled. My character's emotiomal weakness is that he actually hates killing, and my GM used the roll on building the lightsaber (an impossible difficulty check, whigh we succeeded with 4 success and 5 threat.) To play off my character's weakness and put me into a position where I can choose to end fights in one good roll, if I'm willing to fall to the dark and betray my own morals. This is to represent the crystal's own desire to kill and how the attunement process has a lasting effect on my character. So it's decidedly homebrew but it is very star wars for our group and I love it as this character's saber as he's actually terrible with sabers.

One thing to also mention about Conflict, is it's not a form of "punishment" for bad behavior. As some have described, it's not a Dark Side Cookie, that you get any time you act like a jerk. Conflict, at it's narrative core, is supposed to represent the emotional struggle of your character, based on the actions he's done. You can gain conflict for just about anything, despite the fact that the chart only shows examples of bad actions, that kind of reinforce the "punishment" mindset. This is not the case. Yes, it's there to reflect someone who is going down a dark path, but in theory, you could be awarded conflict for having a breakup with a loved one. You could gain conflict for having a near death experience, that has seriously traumatized you emotionally. I try to look at it more as a measure of the emotional, and spiritual stability of a character. Not if they are "good/bad" so much, though there is a correlation to some degree.

A person with a low Morality, is likely going to be emotionally unstable, prone to lashing out when stressed, and acting on those emotions in an impulsive nature. They will likely not respond well to "advice" from outsiders, and will likely see the input as interference or whatnot. They will likely engage in self-destructive behavior, be incredibly reckless with their own lives and others, and not think about the long term ramifications of their actions. These traits, are very common in representations of people who are Dark Side users in the Star Wars universe. However, they are also, likely familiar to a lot of you, who are familiar with people with mental/emotional instabilities. Not everyone of course, but there is definitely a similarity in how they are depicted in the Star Wars material.

This is supposed to represent, the internal Conflict of the character's emotional/mental state, trying to deal with the feelings they have based on their actions, and the ramifications of those actions. As well as dealing with the internal struggle of how they should proceed. Should they just kill this annoying person in front of them and move on, or should they try and find another solution? That's the Conflict, the struggle. The stereotypical Angel/Devil On the Shoulder kind of situation.

Now, for me, when I'm playing a character who uses Morality, I try and think of one thing (usually tied to the Weakness you pick), that they will do at the expense of just about anything. It might be helpful to ask yourself the following two questions:

1. What thing or viewpoint will my character NEVER ever back down on? "I will always fight slavery, even if it costs my life, I will never knowingly allow someone to be in servitude to another if I can help it."

2. What thing or viewpoint will your character BREAK every rule they hold dear? "No one will ever hurt my sister again. I will burn down the galaxy to protect her if I have to. No body count is too great. I will enslave an entire system to keep her safe" Or, the one I used in a pbp game recently. My character had obsession as his Weakness, and this obsession was tied to Force tradition knowledge. If the situation came up, where he had to choose between gaining lost Force knowledge, and doing something harmful to someone, that would be his struggle. It was the one thing, that he would possibly break all other personal moral rules for.

For me personally, this helps me to map out how my character will possibly react to any situation. So that might help you going forward.

Also, when you roll the Conflict at the end of a session, the result can also reflect how you roleplay going forward. Let's say your character does a few shady things that session. He intimidates several people, and also tortures someone for information. BUT, at the end of the session, you roll well enough that you don't lose any Morality. That doesn't mean your character doesn't feel bad about what they did. Quite the opposite in fact. They regret their actions, they know they were wrong, and they feel bad as a result. This is the GOOD REACTION in my book. To do bad things, and NOT feel bad about it, is the sign of someone slipping down the Morality scale, into sociopathic/psychopathic behavior. A low Morality person doesn't feel regret for the people they knowingly let die, an average/high Morality person DOES feel bad about it.

Now, all that's the narrative stuff (for me anyway) that Conflict adds to a game.

Mechanically, as others have said, it's the metric to gauge if your character is going Dark or Light with their actions.

If your lightsaber will automatically give you 10 Conflict any time you use it to kill someone, then you are pretty much guaranteed to go Dark Side. Just FYI. 10+ Conflict in a session means there is no way (barring some GM assistance or bonuses) that you can break even, or gain Morality. So keep that in mind. If you aren't planning on playing a Dark Sider, you should seriously rethink using that saber, and should probably toss it out the airlock, on a ballistic trajectory towards the nearest star.

Ferret thank you so much for the lovely narrative breakdown, it was well written and a joy to read and answered my question better than I had asked it.

As far as the lightsaber... I only get the conflict if I use the Vicious 9 rating instead of Vicious 3 and they die from the crit (which, considering the total starting roll is 110 thanks to my ranks in lethal blows, is not unlikely). Just on a meta level, I'm not sure I can toss away a weapon with the potential to murder the emperor in a single strike, and in-character this is his first saber. He's used a couple at this point, a golden hilted ceremonial saber from a crypt and Vader's saber for about 10 seconds before vader force ripped his (cybernetic) arm off and took it back. Samatek (the character's name) is a bit of a force fanboy and considers the saber his first real step on becoming a powerful and feared/respected force user, so much so that he purchased a mask with a voice modulator and he plans to put a terrify mod on it as well. I don't intend for him to go fully darkside, it is definitely something he could live with so long as he continues to fulfill his life debt. His motivations right now are basically to save the people who saved him. He has sworn a life-debt to the droid responsible for saving him from his own bad decisions about 5 times by this point, and feels incredibly guilt about trying to murder his mandalorian medic friend when they were forced to fight in an arena, so Sam is doing his best to help the mandomedic fulfill his goals.

I'll definitely keep my eyes open for other crystals and saber schematics though, as a saber that doesn't drive him mad has its own clear bonuses and apparently red bladed sabers face a stigma in the area we operate (We're essentially Shadowrunners in star wars).

I suppose our campaign is more reactive than most... Us players don't really have end game goals for our characters. For instance, initially I worked with the GM to homebrew a star wars style cigar (but made of metal and way worse for you because star wars) that I intended to have him using as a character trait, then he overdosed 3 times in a single dungeon (Once off an ancient designer drug that had decayed beyond its benefits, once off a tranquilizer someone told him would help the cravings, and finally, once off the adrenaline shot administered by the medic pushing all of the poisons back through my system after I passed out) he swore off drugs, because I felt it was something he would do in the situation he was in. Even though it was an entire system the GM and I had worked on together, it no longer felt natural for the character. I guess as a player I am more along for the ride that is this brash and idiotic fanboy of a character and enjoy thinking about how he'd handle a situation instead of the outcome I want.

4 minutes ago, Xenophyter said:

Ferret thank you so much for the lovely narrative breakdown, it was well written and a joy to read and answered my question better than I had asked it.

Np, glad to help.

5 minutes ago, Xenophyter said:

As far as the lightsaber... I only get the conflict if I use the Vicious 9 rating instead of Vicious 3 and they die from the crit (which, considering the total starting roll is 110 thanks to my ranks in lethal blows, is not unlikely). Just on a meta level, I'm not sure I can toss away a weapon with the potential to murder the emperor in a single strike, and in-character this is his first saber.

That's fine, I wasn't saying not become a Dark Sider, if that's your thing then go for it. I was just pointing out about the mechanics of Conflict, in case you guys had overlooked the massive numbers associated with that weapon, and the ramifications of those actions. If you guys are aware that copious use of that saber is likely going to put you on the express lane to DarkSideville, that's fine. Just making sure you knew how that would play out mechanically. Given my personal preference for playing good guys, my reaction to a saber like that, would be to treat it like radioactive biohazardous material, and dispose of it as quickly as possible.

7 minutes ago, Xenophyter said:

I don't intend for him to go fully darkside, it is definitely something he could live with so long as he continues to fulfill his life debt. His motivations right now are basically to save the people who saved him. He has sworn a life-debt to the droid responsible for saving him from his own bad decisions about 5 times by this point, and feels incredibly guilt about trying to murder his mandalorian medic friend when they were forced to fight in an arena, so Sam is doing his best to help the mandomedic fulfill his goals.

That's fine, the road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say And having a story about a person going dark, thinking they are doing good, and then having to claw their way out (assuming you want to play that) is the kind of Redemption Arc story that has been around in storytelling for thousands of years. Or you can just eat all the Dark Side Cookies and be a bad guy too, either way works.