Hi!

I've an idea for an alternative conflict rules, and I like to hear your thought.

Premise:
The current system is, in my opinion, bad design. The core idea is good, but the application is not. Long story short, the player is no encouraged to "struggle" with conflict, the Master must do all the work to make situazion conflict-worth and in a mixed group that's not always easy to do. In other rule system (Fate, Numenera) you can get a bonus (Fate point, Xp) by putting your pg in trouble. Here, you can take a malus (little, ok) for choosing the easy way.

So, we have a punitive system. Ok, is a very light punisment, but still. I'd prefer a rewarding system, with the player that actively try to create conflict situation.

So, my ideas:

Each session you start with 3/5 conflict token.

Every time you use a black pip on force dice you take a conflict token and strain as usual, but you do not flip a destiny point.

The player can, if situation arise, give up a conflict token, to create a situation conflict worth. For example, the party is fleeing from a trooper squad, the player can give up a conflict point saying "while running I see that the trooper start firing, hitting innocent people. This is inacceptable, and I stand my ground to protect those poor souls". Of course the Master have the last word is something is worth a conflict token. If is worth, but for some reason the Master wish not to go with the scene, he can flip a destiny point to negate the change.

Likewise, if the Master wish, can offer a player to lose one of more conflict point taking a difficult, but more moral route, and the player can flip a destiny point to negate this.

As usual, act the player can take conflict token with his actions, or, if he does something really good can lose some.

At the end of the session you roll a D10 e subtract the total of conflict token, adjusting your balance accordingly.

Pro (at least seems to me )

Player should actively create situation conflict worth, easing the master's work.
Since you can lose conflict token you can use a little more freely the dark pip on the force dice.
If you do nothing conflict worth in a session your total will probably remain more or less the same.

Thank you for reading, let me know!

I like it

question: why do not flip Destiny while using black pip on Force Die?

another pro of this system is: if Jedi does nothing, he could still lose morality (with 40% if starting with 5 points, with 20% if starting with 3)

viceversa, if GM is heavy on "morally challenging situation" who can punt Jedi on gaining conflict, starting with 3-5 conflict could be heavy taxing so the GM should let the Player create situation more often

Honestly this seems like a lot more effort than it's worth, and frankly encourages the PCs to metagame their "conflict" even more so than the existing system.

The two actual "problems" with the Conflict system is GMs that treat the chart of suggested Conflict penalties as an exclusive list, and that Force user PCs are worried about using the black pips on their Force dice out of fear that their character will instantly fall to the dark side if they do.

The GM issue isn't so bad, unless you've got players that try to weasel their way out of earning Conflict by engaging in moral gymnastics to justify their actions and thus avoid Conflict penalties entirely. To which I stick by the guideline I adopted back when I was running d6 Star Wars, "the harder the player tries to justify their actions, the more they deserve that dark side point." Same applies to Conflict, even though Conflict is far more forgiving than the dark side point mechanics of the prior Star Wars RPGs.

Regarding black pips, we've got 40+ years of Star Wars media telling us over and over that the dark side is bad and if you want to be a proper Jedi, should generally be avoided. Problem here is that while it's been outright said in both the book and by the designers that F&D PCs are not Jedi, a lot of players still view a F&D character as being some form of Jedi, and thus go with the "dark side = bad" mindset that the Jedi espouse. As someone that's played Jedi PCs for close to 30 years (starting in WEG's d6 system), even I've got a hard time breaking that mindset and playing a Force user PC that doesn't in some form or another follow in the Jedi mindset.

And to an extent, that same mindset carries over to Conflict, which is viewed in a similar light as the Force die's black pips for much the same reason, even if the design intent was that most PCs are going to earn at least a few points of Conflict each session. This becomes especially true if the GM warns the players "you do that and you get X amount of Conflict" like the rules suggest. Personally, I've thrown that out as I game with mature adults who understand that certain courses of action are "evil" or at the very least "not good" and that if they do them, their characters will get Conflict, with no backtracking once they commit that action either. Also helps to have a copy of the Common Conflict Penalties table on hand so that the GM can very quickly reference that to see where on the spectrum a PC's course of action falls.

Thanks for yours reply!

Kelpie: there are situation when the Drama would benefit from using dark pip, but there are no or few destiny point, this is to encourage players in using dark pip.

Donovan: I'm sorry, but I don't get your point. The effort are more or less the same, just divided between Master and players. I'm not worried about taking conflict, in fact I propose to start every session with some conflict point and try to rid them througt roleplaying. Actually you start a session with 0 conflict, and is entirely on the shoulder of the Master to ending every session with 5+ point... So, I wonder, why not starting with 5 point (for example) and let players and Master to play with them?

The current system, as I said, is a punitive system. The punishment is very light, almost risibile, but a punishment none the less... nobody like be punished (well some do, but I don't judge). I, for example, use regularly black pip, but I wish to have more conflict worth situation not based only on my jedy power. And I find unfair that the Master must do all the work, why can't I work to portrait my character?

I see your point about player "abusing" the system... but frankly, who cares? If players in a group like "abusing" system they will abusing every system, no matter what... Since in this system there are a Master is his right to judge in a player is making an honest try to struggle with conflict, or just abusing the rules... Sadly we talk about "morality", a concept very subjective... But again, I'm no concerned about a little "gray zone", after all if all player are engaged in creating a good story I willgladly pass over some rule stretching

You know what houserule I've found to work well?

Talking to your players and saying;

"Hey guys, one of the themes I would like this game to explore and be about is Force User morality. I'm not gonna use the Morality system to try to push your PC where you don't want them to go, your PCs story will always be yours, but I do plan on using the Morality system, including in times where you rp anger, hate or possibly other strong emotions, and I would encourage you to not shy away from engaging the Morality system yourself."

And as a result my players regularly willingly take Conflict, not only for "by the book" reasons, but just for rp that they've willingly engaged in. Dozens of Conflict by now. Willingly.

And it's made for a freaking fantastic rp-focused campaign that is doing quite well IMO at exploring the themes of Force User morality.

No extra rules or coercion. Just a simple conversation at the beginning of the campaign, and a reminder now and again that I would encourage them to engage the Morality system, cause I'm not gonna use it to punish them or turn their pc into someone they don't want them to be.

Thank you for your reply

I totally agree, talking is fundamental, in fact in our group we talked about conflict and since we find it lacking we wish to try something different. If in your group the base system works just fine it's good, but I don't see how this notion can help me.

Just to be clear, I'm not the Master in my group, I'm a player, the only Jedi in the group. Ad I said I have no problem with taking conflict point or using pip, is just that since our adventures is not only about Jedi and morality we find difficult, for the Master, to create situation conflict worth every time.

We are playing with the base rules for two years now, and I'd like to try something different, a little more engaging for the player (yep, I'm a selfish bastard ).

So please, even if I appreciate that other people thinks the system is good as it is, I will find more useful, for my need, if you could comment about the change I wish to try.

There are some obvious flaws that I missed?

Would you start with 3, 4 or 5 conflict token? Less? More?

There are talents, abilities or carrer/specialization that in this system don't work?

And such

Thank you again for your help!

I read two times your home rule but I still don't understand how it works sorry, maybe it is my english maybe your explanation is weird.. I just noticed you want to add lots of difficulties with more tokens to track etc... sorry but this is not for me, can't help you on that

Lol, probably is my english, I reckon is pretty bad sometimes

Long story short:

You start every session with 5 conflict point. During the session you (player) can cancel a conflict point, to do so you must put your character in a conflict worth situation. Example:

You are in a market, hiding. All is fine. You propose to encounter a slave trader that is whipping his "goods", and block him getting unwanted attention. The Master agree, so you can cancel a conflict point.

Note that all the normal rule still apply, the basic idea here is:

The player start every session with some conflict point, but have the option to get rid of them suggesting good roleplaying scene.

Th ank you!

I don't really see the purpose: you can already do that (the market scenario) without the need for "conflict points" to spend on it.

Oki I see, why not if you think it can enhance the player experience, I am curious to have some feedback after some testing

5 hours ago, Garran said:

I don't really see the purpose: you can already do that (the market scenario) without the need for "conflict points" to spend on it.

I think the "point" is that rather than the GM assigning Conflict for when the PCs sit on their hands during the market scenario, the PCs would get to reduce the amount of automatic Conflict they get at the start of each session by a point if they get involved to help the abused slaves.

It in effect is meant to take the burden of figuring out Conflict penalties off the GM's plate and instead put the burden on the players, in effect preemptively punishing them if they don't act like "good guys" a certain number of times per session. Which is my core problem with this house rule, is that not every character in every session is going to have the opportunity to work off that pre-assigned Conflict, and thus a PC could wind up with several points of Conflict simply because they didn't get a chance to anything "noble" or "heroic" during the course of the session.

Hi!

I think you are spot on the major issue... But, I wonder, isn't it an issue even in the base rules? I mean, you are correct: what if the player cannot get rid of conflict point? This is a very legit question. But, on the other hands, what if the Master cannot create enough conflict worth situation for all the player?

My understanding, but please correct me if I'm wrong, is that at the end of every session you ideally should have 5 conflict point, more or less. So, let's see what happen when player and or master do nothing conflict related:

Standard rule: the player end the session with 0 conflict point. Maybe one or two using dark pip, so in the end morality go up almost automatically, without effort.

Home rule: the player end the session with 5 conflict point. Maybe he take a couple with dark pip, maybe he get rid of that couple with roleplayng... so at the end of the session he can go up, maximun 5 point, or go down, maximun 4 point... It seems, to me, more balanced.

And there is another point:

As I have read multiple time, a single conflict point is not big deal. So, in the same manner, getting rid of a single point should not be a live or death situation... doing charity when finance are scarse, meditation (why not? Jedi are ALWAYS meditating).

I believe that the key, fot this home rules, is giving the right amount of starting conflict point.

Thank you for your hindsight!!

12 hours ago, Zerloon said:

Hi!

I think you are spot on the major issue... But, I wonder, isn't it an issue even in the base rules? I mean, you are correct: what if the player cannot get rid of conflict point? This is a very legit question. But, on the other hands, what if the Master cannot create enough conflict worth situation for all the player?

My understanding, but please correct me if I'm wrong, is that at the end of every session you ideally should have 5 conflict point, more or less. So, let's see what happen when player and or master do nothing conflict related:

Standard rule: the player end the session with 0 conflict point. Maybe one or two using dark pip, so in the end morality go up almost automatically, without effort.

Home rule: the player end the session with 5 conflict point. Maybe he take a couple with dark pip, maybe he get rid of that couple with roleplayng... so at the end of the session he can go up, maximun 5 point, or go down, maximun 4 point... It seems, to me, more balanced.

And there is another point:

As I have read multiple time, a single conflict point is not big deal. So, in the same manner, getting rid of a single point should not be a live or death situation... doing charity when finance are scarse, meditation (why not? Jedi are ALWAYS meditating).

I believe that the key, fot this home rules, is giving the right amount of starting conflict point.

Thank you for your hindsight!!

Yeah , you are wrong in that a PC should "ideally" have 5 or so Conflict points at the end of each session.

If the PC is being (to quote a friend) "a Lawful Good Paladin" and manages to avoid generating Conflict during situations where such things could be warranted (namely, doing what is right rather than taking the quick and easy path), then the player has done well and shouldn't be penalized for staying on the straight and narrow.

It's the designer assumption that on average, most PCs will generate at least a few points of Conflict, with "a few" being somewhere in the range of 3 to 5 points, figuring the occasional usage of black pips on Force dice and not undertaking any majorly dubious actions, i.e. nothing that earns more than 1 or 2 points of Conflict, and even then only doing such things only once or twice per session.

Avoiding earning any amount of Conflict shouldn't be an easy task for the players, especially if the GM is on their toes about when to assign Conflict and doesn't let players try to weasel their way out of having generated Conflict. If you look at the chart, many of the suggested courses of action fall within the purview of standard operating procedures for your average D&D adventuring party.

The problem with your proposed house rule is that your players now have a way to ensure that they don't wind up with any Conflict at the end of the session, especially if you permit to "buy off" those Conflict points with generally trivial acts that don't have any significant consequence to the PC. Thus it makes the potential concern of gaining Conflict into a total non-issue, and all but ensures that your players will be able to sleep-walk their way to Light Side Paragon status. Conversely, if you have a player that wants to go dark side, by removing the Conflict penalty mechanic, you've now made it more of a crawl since they don't really have the option of committing any serious transgressions that would earn major Conflict points.

My biggest problem with the conflict and morality system in this game is that players can do horrible, horrible things in one session, and then if they just refrain from doing bad things for the rest of the following sessions, all that conflict drops off. If I murder 3 people in cold blood and get 30 conflict, then spend the next 10 sessions just getting 2-3 conflict per session, but never really doing anything to atone for my crimes, I shouldn't be able to regain all that morality. Star Wars is very much about quick falls, and hard redemption. All it takes is one truly evil act for a character to be turned, and it takes an overwhelming act of self-sacrifice for a character to return to the light. If I slaughter three people with no remorse, I may not even garner enough conflict to actually fall below the Dark Side threshold if I had a high enough morality to begin with. And I may be able to work my way back up in morality by simply not being a jerk for the next ten games.

Granted, this is a pretty extreme example, but my point is that I've never liked the careful balancing of "Dark Side points" and "Light Side points" in previous games, and this conflict and morality system seems equally inadequate. I've completely thrown out the current morality system in the game I've been running, and am trying to homebrew an entirely new system. I don't keep track of morality with numbers, but with actions. I don't have any true "Dark Side" or "Light Side" thresholds. I just make sure to pause the game each time the players are about to do something that would have earned them serious conflict in this morality system, and let them know, "You do realize that what you're talking about doing isn't a good thing, right? This might bring you closer to the Dark Side." And I narrate the pull of the Dark Side when they tap into it while using the Force. Then when a big moment in our game came up, where a player had the option to fully give into their hate and anger to win in a battle, I told the player, "You've been traveling down the Dark path a lot during this game. You've done some questionable things, and have acted on your aggression repeatedly. If you give into your anger and hate here, you will have fully given yourself to the Dark Side. Are you okay with that?" And the player agreed, this was their character's turning point. It was a great narrative moment at my table, and everyone was happy with how it was handled. No need for number crunching, no need for keeping track of conflict points and morality. Just acknowledgement that the character's actions mattered to which side of the Force they were on, and by acting with their darker emotions, they'd given themselves over to the Dark Side.

Now, I admit, this might not work at every table. But my big point is, the core system is flawed, in that it's too forgiving. Your actions don't really stick with you past a few games. The way I've run it in my system, their character's actions essentially stained them, and they had to work toward redemption, or face the risk of falling to the Dark Side. You don't simply move on after committing an evil act, and let your morality rise by just ignoring what you've done. You have to be selfless and work toward redeeming yourself in order to make up for any atrocities you commit.

I plan on coming up with a more solid home-rule for this in future games, something that may or may not include some level of number crunching, but it certainly won't be like the current conflict system where you can reach Light Side paragon after committing horrible crimes by simply not being a jerk in later sessions.

There is a serious flaw in your thinking regarding how "forgiving" the Morality system is, particularly given your example. IF a person murdered three people in cold blood, gaining 30 Conflict. That's a one way ticket to Dark Sider (below 29 Morality). At that point, the character would need to reach 71 Morality to redeem himself, which is not as easy as it sounds, particularly for someone who now has to follow the Dark Side character rules.

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

There is a serious flaw in your thinking regarding how "forgiving" the Morality system is, particularly given your example. IF a person murdered three people in cold blood, gaining 30 Conflict. That's a one way ticket to Dark Sider (below 29 Morality). At that point, the character would need to reach 71 Morality to redeem himself, which is not as easy as it sounds, particularly for someone who now has to follow the Dark Side character rules.

If their morality were 60 or higher, and the only conflict they earned was that 30, then at minimum, they'd land at 31, which is still above the Dark Side threshold. So, not quite the one way ticket you claim it to be. If their Morality were 80 and they killed 2-3 people in cold blood, they'd drop below "Paragon", but still wouldn't actually be on the Dark Side. Which seems counter-intuitive, no?

5 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

Star Wars is very much about quick falls,

All it takes is one truly evil act for a character to be turned,

Not really. The truly evil act is going to be the one that seals the deal, but that truly evil act generally comes at the end of a long chain of poor (or at least questionable) choices and wavering convictions (which the character may or may not acknowledge at the time). It's that process of moral decay that puts them in a position where they're willing to commit that truly evil act at the end. Moreover, morality - and I don't think it was a great choice of name - isn't just an evilometer; it's a mishmash of Star Warsy factors including how much that character is at peace with themselves - and on that account it's quite possible that someone wobbles (paragon -> not paragon ) and recovers ( not paragon -> paragon) their equilibrium rather than losing it completely (paragon -> dark side).

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused now...

Here you say:

On 26/8/2017 at 11:40 PM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Which is my core problem with this house rule, is that not every character in every session is going to have the opportunity to work off that pre-assigned Conflict, and thus a PC could wind up with several points of Conflict simply because they didn't get a chance to anything "noble" or "heroic" during the course of the session.

So you were concerned that a player may accumulate too much conflict...

8 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

The problem with your proposed house rule is that your players now have a way to ensure that they don't wind up with any Conflict at the end of the session, especially if you permit to "buy off" those Conflict points with generally trivial acts that don't have any significant consequence to the PC. Thus it makes the potential concern of gaining Conflict into a total non-issue, and all but ensures that your players will be able to sleep-walk their way to Light Side Paragon status.

Now it seems that you are concerned that the player will drop all conflict point and go straight to paragon...

Just to be clear: the base rule are still in play. Player get conflict point for evil action, as usual.

They have the chance to get rid of point, so to balance they start with some conflict point.

To be a Paragon the player should actively doing good thing, not only limit themselves to not doing evil things...

IMHO of course

19 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

If their morality were 60 or higher, and the only conflict they earned was that 30, then at minimum, they'd land at 31, which is still above the Dark Side threshold. So, not quite the one way ticket you claim it to be. If their Morality were 80 and they killed 2-3 people in cold blood, they'd drop below "Paragon", but still wouldn't actually be on the Dark Side. Which seems counter-intuitive, no?

A Light Side paragon wouldn't kill people in cold blood. It's not in their nature. As @Garran says below:

15 hours ago, Garran said:

Not really. The truly evil act is going to be the one that seals the deal, but that truly evil act generally comes at the end of a long chain of poor (or at least questionable) choices and wavering convictions (which the character may or may not acknowledge at the time). It's that process of moral decay that puts them in a position where they're willing to commit that truly evil act at the end. Moreover, morality - and I don't think it was a great choice of name - isn't just an evilometer; it's a mishmash of Star Warsy factors including how much that character is at peace with themselves - and on that account it's quite possible that someone wobbles (paragon -> not paragon ) and recovers ( not paragon -> paragon) their equilibrium rather than losing it completely (paragon -> dark side).

On 30/8/2017 at 11:55 PM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Avoiding earning any amount of Conflict shouldn't be an easy task for the players, especially if the GM is on their toes about when to assign Conflict and doesn't let players try to weasel their way out of having generated Conflict. If you look at the chart, many of the suggested courses of action fall within the purview of standard operating procedures for your average D&D adventuring party.

I'm a GM and honestly i got SERIOUS problem giving Conflict to the player

main reason probably is because he's a good player and play a good Jedi; probably the fact i'm playing a mixed game with only 1 Jedi and the other from EotE/AoR. Probably is because i feel very "bad" giving a lot of Conflict from something that really does'nt create Conflict, like crossing the road without looking left

What i mean (out of sarcasm), is that if you play a mixed party as the one Zerloon describe it requires a lot of GM work to create several situation when the Jedi could earn Conflict. One time he can cross a slave seller at market. One time he can hear someone asking for help. One time he should face the opportunity to screw the mission for following the Jedi Code
One time he can also face a villain-not-utterly-evil so he should choose if let him live (gain conflict 'cause he will does more villaneous act) or kill him saving utterly innocent (but committing a murder).

But after them? i should squeeze everything in a single session, or Conflict will be too low, and having a suggler and a soldier in group, they can solve some situation without asking for Jedi (so no conflict earned at all). To let the system work i should REALLY create a lot of conflict situation, every single session, for a single party member. And that on top of Duty situation, Obligation situation and, sometime, even let the adventure flow (and that's what honestly i think is more important).

Maybe i'm doing things wrong, maybe i should really give many more Conflict for simple action.
But honestly is a lot of work that feels not really useful for the "fun" part of the game (at least for a mixed game)

I gladly wellcome a system who could me help reducing time on "creating Jedi-only Conflict situation" and still let the Jedi having fun and facing moral dilemma, thus premiating them for good roleplaying in lieu of punishing them for bad roleplaying.
It looks like a "win win" situation...

On 31/8/2017 at 9:05 AM, Zerloon said:

To be a Paragon the player should actively doing good thing, not only limit themselves to not doing evil things...

And not doing anything (neither good nor evil) will still give you conflict (the 3 ones you got at the start), right?
Because the Jedi does'nt know inaction

You don't need to create situations left and right in an attempt to guarantee that the character(s) end up with conflict, and trying to do so would be unnecessarily oppositional. You want to have a few things that present the possibility of gaining conflict, but if the PC(s) choose a path that doesn't grant them any then everything is working as intended just as much as if they choose conflict-granting paths.

It's also okay to accept that some situations or storylines simply aren't likely to involve much conflict. If the party is essentially a bunch of white hats from the outset then no, they probably aren't going to be generating conflict very often, a rapid rise to light side paragon is to be expected, and the character would probably be better off using duty rather than morality.

5 hours ago, kelpie said:

I'm a GM and honestly i got SERIOUS problem giving Conflict to the player

Maybe i'm doing things wrong, maybe i should really give many more Conflict for simple action.

If you're actively looking to engineer scenarios that the Force user PCs are going to gain Conflict, then yeah, you are doing something wrong.

The Morality mechanic is the most difficult of the three (Duty, Obligation, Morality) to implement because it requires buy-in from both the player and the GM to function properly, and that includes generating Conflict. A player that buys in should be working with their GM to say "hey, these are situations that my character should generate Conflict!" as well as not being deathly afraid of the occasional usage of black pips to activate their Force powers, which is probably the single most reliable source of Conflict for Force users given how the dice facings are arranged.

it also means you shouldn't be trying to engineer scenes where the Force user is going to generate substantial (4 or more Conflict) in one go, as those sorts of actions require deliberate intent on the part of the player. Using Move to literally tear apart the scenery for things to hurl could certainly generate large amounts of Conflict due to excessive and unnecessary destruction of property (quite possibly per use), while using Influence to make an NPC do something petty just for amusement could also generate Conflict. And neither of those instances required any in-depth planning from the GM beyond "here's an encounter with some bad guys the PCs have to overcome or evade to move to the next scene," the same that they'd be doing for an strictly EotE or AoR game.

If anything, most of the Conflict being generated should be coming in 1s and 2s from "little things" such as attacking in combat without first employing some other means of deescalating the situation before grabbing weapons, or using threats of violence to get NPCs to act a certain way, or even just the simple theft of taking something off an enemy that doesn't belong to you. If the GM is playing with a mixed group and the Force user tries to push the responsibility of such actions onto another player, then I'd suggest tweaking the Conflict rules so that the Force user is guilty by association, and generates half as much Conflict (minimum of 1 point) as the action would incur if they'd done it themselves.

i also think rewarding conflict is less pressing if the player has brought into a lot of force talents like influence and the like' force powers that actively require the player to use them. Give them plenty of situations where skimming someone's current thoughts is really useful and they might spend those pips to look into the cookie jar.