So, I recall doing this sort of spur of the moment when I ran an F&D game a while back, and was curious if anyone else had adopted it independently, or if not, what others thought about it.

Basically, I had a few situations, where one of my players, in a particularly Forcey session, really shined as always taking the Light path. Even in some very tough situations, where that choice was a hard one, and caused extra difficulty. Also, some excellent roleplaying on his part as well. So, I decided at the end, to reward him with a +1-2 bit of Morality on his Conflict roll. To reflect the "above and beyond the line of duty" kind of behavior he showed that session.

Sadly, due to the randomness of the dice roll, he ended up breaking even I think, or only getting a +1 net gain, but I mollified him by pointing out that the bonus meant he didn't slip at all, and made at least some progress.

So what do you guys think about this? The books don't mention (at least not in the books I own) options for providing bonuses to this roll, only ways to provide negatives to it. Do you think it's fitting, based on player behavior and results, to provide a bit of a boost on that Conflict roll at the end?

Personally I like the idea that your morality goes up when you go out of your way to do something good, where some kind of personal sacrifice is involved. The morality system sometimes just feels like it's all stick no carrot, and you start thinking of morality as a currency you gain at 1d10 per session and can spend on extra force points and questionable acts to enrich your character. Being able to actually gain morality probably makes being a moral character feel more rewarding.

I forget if this is RAW or if it's just me taking from the Darkside Redemption process, but as GM I require a player to do something (or many smaller somethings) "particularly Lightside-like" to get the benefits of Paragon. Even if they weren't formerly DS.

So, I would chalk something like this up to that process, but I see no need from my gameplay experience to give bonus Morality.

Maybe I'd consider flipping a Destiny Point from Dark to Light for it?

This has come up before, and generally falls apart because you tend to wind up with players that try to "game the system" by deliberately doing good deeds as a means to offset high-Conflict actions. Having played Star Wars RPGs for well over two decades, I've sadly seen a lot of this type of meta-gaming, with the worst I feel being in WotC's Saga Edition; there were a number of instances were players would "dump" any remaining Force points they had when it came time to level up into reducing their dark side score, thus enabling them to still make use of dark side powers without as much risk of falling to the dark side.

Thus probably why FFG opted for the random die roll, to help cut down on players trying to "game the system" so they can micro-manage their Conflict and thus figure out how many dark side acts they can perform without risking their Morality score going down. With a random d10, it's much harder to meta-game, and while it does result in instances of PCs that earned minimal Conflict not having much of an increase at times, it generally ensures that those PCs who did earn a lot of Conflict tend to have their Morality score drop.

If you implement a "good deeds earn you good karma to offset Conflict points," then you're opening up the game to that sort of meta-gaming where you'll have PCs that aren't doing good deeds just for the sake of doing them, but instead doing good deeds with the express intent of getting an in-game reward.

3 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

snip

Just as a counterpoint, seeing as OP is talking about a dice modifier and not "anti-Conflict" points, it would still be harder to game than good points and bad points. I could see how this could work, as long as any GM keeps the numbers small, and awards the points out only in relation to good roleplaying.

51 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

snip

39 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Just as a counterpoint, seeing as OP is talking about a dice modifier and not "anti-Conflict" points, it would still be harder to game than good points and bad points. I could see how this could work, as long as any GM keeps the numbers small, and awards the points out only in relation to good roleplaying.

Basically this yes. Obviously, if someone murders a group of orphans, and then tries to offset that with a good action, in the hopes of getting a +1, then the appropriate action for the GM is to laugh in his face and hand him his red lightsaber. But yes, I'm just talking about a modifier on the roll. And it's only when there is very obvious effort put in on the players part, to actually be heroic and Good, above the standard effort most players exhibit. I only ended up using it the one time that I recall, but I felt in that one session, it was warranted, based on the players actions.

To Donovan:
And I'm not talking about giving it out for things like "helping an old lady across the street". I'm talking like "intentionally take an attack for an innocent, even though they are already low health, and end up suffering a high crit result in the process. Losing a limb, defending the line while a group of innocents are escaping (single handedly holding off badguys so others can escape). Forgoing a deep, personal vendetta (Inigo Montoya letting the 6 Fingered Man escape, because Prince Humperdink is about to set an entire village on fire), because to do so would cause someone to come to harm. Giving up a starship so that others can escape a terrible situation, and dealing with being trapped for a while. You know, big stuff. I don't really consider that "gaming the system". I mean, if you think the +1-2 on a single Conflict roll at the end of a session, is the equivalent of a 60,000 credit ship, or a limb (thus forcing them to pay for a replacement, or suffer the permanent handicap), etc etc, then ok. But I don't really consider those equivalent exchanges there

Dice modifier or "anti-Conflict points," it boils down to the same thing: a way for players to game the Morality system so that they can ensure that their Morality score either increases or simply doesn't go down while still being able to get away with performing questionable acts. Maybe not get away with outright murder, but certainly to be able to get away with resorting to combat as the first response, freely using intimidation tactics, or telling outright lies simply because it's more convenient for the PC than telling the truth. Or even just calling on those dark side pips more often when they might otherwise shy away from doing so.

Obviously it's your game and you're free to do whatever the bloody slagging hell you like, but I'd suggest that if you are going to go this route, then do it sparingly, only for acts that are well and truly both heroic and selfless (i.e. the PC has little or nothing to gain by doing it other than it being the right thing to do), and most importantly that you dole out these bonuses very sparingly . Just be ready for your players to pester you with attempts to earn those Morality bonuses, especially if they're in a hurry to reach LS Paragon or want an excuse to misbehave a little more than the current rules allow.

4 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

This has come up before, and generally falls apart because you tend to wind up with players that try to "game the system" by deliberately doing good deeds as a means to offset high-Conflict actions.

I feel like that's already happening by just "spending" your morality when you can get a fat payday out of taking a bit of conflict or you need the pips.

When you play strictly to a benevolent character's motivations you don't really need a morality system to tell you to be good anyways.

13 hours ago, Aetrion said:

I feel like that's already happening by just "spending" your morality when you can get a fat payday out of taking a bit of conflict or you need the pips.

When you play strictly to a benevolent character's motivations you don't really need a morality system to tell you to be good anyways.

Perhaps, but adding any form of "anti-Conflict system" just makes the system even easier to manipulate for those players that want to indulge in being "dark" without having to pay the piper's full price.

With just the random d10 roll, it becomes much harder to metagame how much Conflict you can really gain and not suffer a loss of Morality. After all, I'm sure there are players that have consistently rolled 1s and 2s for multiple sessions in a row, thus bucking the law of averages, just as there have been players that routinely roll 8+ on the die at the end of each session.

On 4/11/2017 at 9:48 AM, Donovan Morningfire said:

This has come up before, and generally falls apart because you tend to wind up with players that try to "game the system" by deliberately doing good deeds as a means to offset high-Conflict actions. Having played Star Wars RPGs for well over two decades, I've sadly seen a lot of this type of meta-gaming, with the worst I feel being in WotC's Saga Edition; there were a number of instances were players would "dump" any remaining Force points they had when it came time to level up into reducing their dark side score, thus enabling them to still make use of dark side powers without as much risk of falling to the dark side.

Thus probably why FFG opted for the random die roll, to help cut down on players trying to "game the system" so they can micro-manage their Conflict and thus figure out how many dark side acts they can perform without risking their Morality score going down. With a random d10, it's much harder to meta-game, and while it does result in instances of PCs that earned minimal Conflict not having much of an increase at times, it generally ensures that those PCs who did earn a lot of Conflict tend to have their Morality score drop.

If you implement a "good deeds earn you good karma to offset Conflict points," then you're opening up the game to that sort of meta-gaming where you'll have PCs that aren't doing good deeds just for the sake of doing them, but instead doing good deeds with the express intent of getting an in-game reward.

Gaming the system only works if you allow it to happen.

You as a GM can put a stop by simply going nope no gain for that, because you aren't doing it for the right reasons.

I personally love the give credits to the homeless person and expect some kind of gain to morality, because no its not happening.

Honestly random die roll does nothing to stop the gaming of the system except now its by rolling your way to paragon...

Also the random dice have an annoying tendency to force players to be all darkside evil, because the force dice decided they are.

13 hours ago, Decorus said:

You as a GM can put a stop by simply going nope no gain for that, because you aren't doing it for the right reasons.

The trouble with this is that the player's reason and the character's reason may be quite different and conflict/morality is supposed to be about the character's internals, not those of the player.

In any case it's just going to lead to a lot of second-guessing about the player's motives and that's ultimately going to lead to the other type of conflict: bad blood within the gaming group.

So what your saying is when the player who just murdered someone in cold blood drops 500 credits into a beggar's bowl you can't tell something is up?

When players go to wacky lengths to try to earn positive karma after doing really bad things intentionally you can pretty much assure they are trying to manipulate the system.

Which of course you tell them explictly before the game begins that it won't fly.

I'm currently running my first campaign where everyone is a Sith acolyte and so are trying to be the "Darkest" they can be. I put in my own rule to encourage that they make more wicked and gruesome deeds each game, or at least are continuously lured into doing so...I feel most people gravitate toward cooperation and kindness without a push. So to emphasize going truly dark I've been giving each player additional XP equal to the amount of dark side points they move on the scale. It appears to be working quite well so far, it has brought out many gruesome deaths and other devious acts. When I invoke morality it really allows for impressive XP gains (50+), and particularly rage heavy murder sprees.

Of course everyone is now bottomed out on the morality scale, but I've been keeping track of the negative values even so. They have a Master and she has been dolling out additional bonuses to the darkest player so as to prime them as her apprentice. It has been a lot of fun and everyone seems to be doing darker and darker deeds because of it. Lots of betrayal too as each player vies to be the Masters apprentice. Definitely need to right type of group to pull it off though.

Sure I can, but anyone who is actually trying to game the system won't be that stupidly obvious about it, and that's where the problems start.

Sadly yes when someone is gaming the system they are stupidly obvious about it.

Characters who are being roleplayed well after a few sessions you can pretty much predict exactly how they would react in a situation.

When a player is gaming the system they will make it extremely obvious by swinging radically between two completely incompatible moral standards when they reach certain levels of conflict.

If that's the case then, to put it bluntly, you've been dealing with some pretty bad system-gamers (and gamers, period).

So I will modify what I said above: anyone who is actually trying to game the system and isn't completely incompetent at doing so won't be that stupidly obvious about it.

We have completely ignored the morality system and we let our characters envolve to the direction they are going to. And have the world itself react to their actions.

This isn't even a house rule. From Chronicles of the Gatekeeper, p. 40:

Quote

If the PCs remain in Quolas to help with the rebuilding... yada yada... t he GM might even increase their Morality directly by one or two points , depending on how much time and effort they dedicate.

I'm in the camp that feels that there shouldn't be a bonus for doing light side things. In my opinion, I think a character who goes above and beyond should be given a pat on the back for good role play. I'd even go as far as giving him extra XP for going above and beyond during a difficult situation. I'd mark it down for later goodness that may logically develop (NPC's hearing about his good deed, maybe some folks offer him and his team a discount, finding an unlikely ally in a tough spot). Hell for something that is truly moment and character defining and shifts the story dramatically I might even directly adjust the PC's Morality score. However, overall I feel that if a PC is doing something that is truly above and beyond and well into the Lightside of things that these things aren't done with the player expecting some kind of reward for it.

To me good deeds are its own rewards.

It depends really on what you (and your group) feel is the most important aspect of roleplaying games (besides stories, heroism and fun): character advancement or character development. Not that those necessarily are mutually exclusive, but one is often mistaken for the other, and they are definitely not the same.

Any mechanic that is detrimental to your game and your fun should be thrown out, but similarly, throwing something out can be even more detrimental to fun and games as it can change the game in a manner that makes it easier to take advantage of by the players. So if removing or tweaking a mechanic, be careful to look at how this may affect other aspects of the game.

The random d10 rolling of conflict is not the greatest idea (but so far better than any earlier iteration of the game or suggestion posted on any of these forums,) it is however (I think) better for character development, as it leaves another aspect of the character up to randomness. This is a good thing if the player is willing to let his or her character develop and advance outside the player's control, even if this is just a small part of it all.

Removing conflict (anti-conflict) or modifying the d10 is one solution, but you could also pick a different die based on circumstances, session length, number of encounters, craziness of bad deeds or the superiority of your selflessness. Generally speaking, I'd pick a solution that works for the group, but it may also be a good idea to consider what method to use each session, depending on what (and how much) you prepared and what happened.