Noobmaster 6027 here again!

So...if i'm playing a Darksider outright or if i'm a Jedi that's fallen..what happens to my conflict once i'm at max? Am I just happily evil now and used to it? Is it more a narrative/RP choice at that point?

2 minutes ago, Luahk said:

Noobmaster 6027 here again!

So...if i'm playing a Darksider outright or if i'm a Jedi that's fallen..what happens to my conflict once i'm at max? Am I just happily evil now and used to it? Is it more a narrative/RP choice at that point?

What do you mean by "At max"? do you mean a Morality of 0 ? No matter what, you still gain Conflict for any use of the Dark Side or evil actions, so your Morality score can still drop. Also, there is still the opportunity for you to raise your Morality back up, and, if you can get it up to 71 (Light Side Paragon), that redeems the Dark Sider.

There is no "max conflict". You gain conflict when you do questionable things, when you call upon the Dark Side, or when you do bad things. Then you roll against your conflict score to see if your Morality changes.

Once your Morality gets to 0, that's it. Nothing more changes, no more dropping for you. You're as Evil as you can be!

Ok cool. Cheers for the quick answer.

I house rule it as you become an NPC, the Dark Side has full control over you now.

Blech, phooey. I was never a fan of that Dark Side = NPC nonsense in the WEG engine and I wouldn't be a fan of it here. The central theme of Star Wars is redemption (at least when Lucas was telling the story). Taking that away from the player is a load of crapola. Right now, my current character - a solder from the separatist army, a real two fisted, hard boiled SOB who found a Bad Holochron, just discovered he has the force, and will be taking all kinds of hits to the morality simply because he doesn't know any better. That would suck to take my character away just when his story was getting interesting.

Fair enough. I guess it depends on the maturity of the gaming table and what is it that drives a party. If it is a party designed to creating their own traidition after the fall of the order; then having someone fall to depravity makes them more likely to be a future nemesis, and a good player should roleplay into that. For example my PC has obcession, so when he is conflicted, he is often in the grasp of that particular motion, described as spending hours planning and putting people at risk for the end goal of killing every surviving member of the inquisition in the empire, so that his son can have a peaceful life.

Like I had one table where a player had fallen to the dark side but the character, on witnessing what it did to other people and the changes within himself got a grip on himself on the edge of the abyss, cut himself off from the force and began to try and lead a less bitter life. This was a AOR campaign where the big mean sith and many inquisitors, so simply falling to the dark side didn't mean you were the biggest fish in the pond, many were bigger and those that became uncooperative was disposed of. Or fled. There was a lot of fleeing that made one particular PC very determined not to have it happen again, even if it meant bringing back just a body bag.

Which brings up another good point. What is the campaign? That will dictate what happens best. A good GM and player should have an answer to that early on, even if they don't 100% intend to fall. Usually evil characters don't work because the player usually has objectives that are two small, put in a threat that the two must work together to survive and it creates a beautiful tension, though it's usually more interesting to have a conflicted player and a full paragon together.

The trouble with that vis a vis the way conflict works in this system is that you don't need to do anything evil or even particularly unpleasant to end up dark side. As written, you can end up there just by fibbing too often or because you're one of those people who just can't resist taking the mini soap bars from your hotel room, and it's a little hard to see someone going full-on Darth Sudsius just from that.

14 hours ago, Garran said:

The trouble with that vis a vis the way conflict works in this system is that you don't need to do anything evil or even particularly unpleasant to end up dark side. As written, you can end up there just by fibbing too often or because you're one of those people who just can't resist taking the mini soap bars from your hotel room, and it's a little hard to see someone going full-on Darth Sudsius just from that.

It depends. Lying might be worth conflict for the one incident if it disadvantages them. A lie to soften the truth ("Your son died a great man" for example, or lying to save someone the blame from a rigious cause) shouldn't really gain conflict. It has to be something that significantly gives the person a disadvantage or leaves them worse off.

Likewise, stealing soap seems a bit silly. Even if say, you gain 1 conflict from stealing an item that has no baring on the instillation as a first. Pc's generally gain conflict for the event, not for each incident, so even following this example all the way to the end, you would have to steal soap from 5 separate hotel rooms before you even risk slipping. The conflict gained for offenses would likely be for something more significant, like stealing the TV and the bed covers to sell on, or stealing the keys or a lot of money, and do it really regularly, especially with the force.

I mean I guess I follow that a series of smaller actions can lead to a PC's downfall can occur, but those are usually actions that are worth caring about; stealing a rare artefact from an honest collector, starting a fight with thugs that you know that your superior power can destroy, murdering a person after they have been defeated and colleterial damage that actually means anything beyond a mild inconvenience, as even exceeding wounds only really kills people if the GM deems it logical, and with threats/despairs such examples can come up in the narrative where the PC's must measure their morality against efficacy. Gaining conflict from any little moan or gripe really doesn't seem in the spirit of the system.

Missing from the conflict sink discussion, in my view, is that the Dark Side isn't just some battery or energy drink. It's a corrupting semi-sapient Force (heh) trying to actively make you evil. It's not that you lied: That sucker didn't deserve the truth. Knowledge isn't meant for sheeple. It's not that you stole the soap: You can take whatever you want. You have the might, so you have the right.

16 hours ago, Garran said:

The trouble with that vis a vis the way conflict works in this system is that you don't need to do anything evil or even particularly unpleasant to end up dark side. As written, you can end up there just by fibbing too often or because you're one of those people who just can't resist taking the mini soap bars from your hotel room, and it's a little hard to see someone going full-on Darth Sudsius just from that.

2 hours ago, LordBritish said:

It depends. Lying might be worth conflict for the one incident if it disadvantages them. A lie to soften the truth ("Your son died a great man" for example, or lying to save someone the blame from a rigious cause) shouldn't really gain conflict. It has to be something that significantly gives the person a disadvantage or leaves them worse off.

Likewise, stealing soap seems a bit silly. Even if say, you gain 1 conflict from stealing an item that has no baring on the instillation as a first. Pc's generally gain conflict for the event, not for each incident, so even following this example all the way to the end, you would have to steal soap from 5 separate hotel rooms before you even risk slipping. The conflict gained for offenses would likely be for something more significant, like stealing the TV and the bed covers to sell on, or stealing the keys or a lot of money, and do it really regularly, especially with the force.

I mean I guess I follow that a series of smaller actions can lead to a PC's downfall can occur, but those are usually actions that are worth caring about; stealing a rare artefact from an honest collector, starting a fight with thugs that you know that your superior power can destroy, murdering a person after they have been defeated and colleterial damage that actually means anything beyond a mild inconvenience, as even exceeding wounds only really kills people if the GM deems it logical, and with threats/despairs such examples can come up in the narrative where the PC's must measure their morality against efficacy. Gaining conflict from any little moan or gripe really doesn't seem in the spirit of the system.

The only time lying results in Conflict is if it is done for personal gain, or to inflict some suffering. If it's done for a selfless reason, such as to protect someone from a painful truth that he or she may not be ready for, there is no Conflict.

Hey, I actually agree with Tramp Graphics on something!

The conflict rules as written work perfectly fine, as long as GMs and players both treat it as what it is: a mechanic that requires engagement from both sides to track morality. The sooner people stop treating Conflict as a punishment, the better.

To answer the actual OP as well: Being a Dark Sider or at 0 Morality has some mechanical effects on your Wound and Strain thresholds and on the destiny pool at each session start. However, the rules do not specify at all if your character's personality shifts at all... Because the narrative of being a fallen force user is up to you and your group. What does that 29 Morality represent? What does 0 Morality represent? That's not for the mechanics to determine, but for your RP. You could cheese the system completely by acting normal and just get your Conflict with some good old-fashioned terror tactics and torture/prisoner executions, but that's where my first point comes in: That's not "engaging the mechanic", that's "gaming the mechanic". Don't be a power-gamer in regards to Conflict, and act how you think someone being corrupted by the dark side would act.

I don't mean to derail this discussion but I have another Conflict/Morality issue that I feel fits into this topic.

My understanding is that at the end of each session a player rolls a D10 and then compares the rolled value to the conflict awarded in that session to see if their morality goes up or down.

Ex. Darth Lightside earned 5 conflict during a session. At the end of the session Darth rolls a D10 and gets a 3. Since 5 - 3 = 2, Darth's morality decreases by 2 points. IF Darth rolled a 7 his morality would actually increase by 2 even though he was sort of a @#$% that session.

If this I have this correct, then if there were no opportunities to do anything particularly conflict worthy during a campaign, the the PC will eventually become a lightside paragon. If so, how do you handle this? It seems like you would need to award 5 conflict per session just to keep them at the same morality (statistically speaking over the long run). Does this mean that you have to constantly provide sources (encounters) of potential conflict? Does this happen easily or does this take considerable planning? Do you typically see PCs move more easily in one direction than the other?

I have only slightly dabbled with the conflict/morality system in my EotE campaign and am starting a F&D campaign this fall so any advice would be appreciated.

39 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Does this mean that you have to constantly provide sources (encounters) of potential conflict? Does this happen easily or does this take considerable planning?

In an RPG, every NPC is a potential source of Conflict. You have to actively choose not killing them and looting their bodies. Actually, this applies to other PCs too.

41 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I don't mean to derail this discussion but I have another Conflict/Morality issue that I feel fits into this topic.

My understanding is that at the end of each session a player rolls a D10 and then compares the rolled value to the conflict awarded in that session to see if their morality goes up or down.

Ex. Darth Lightside earned 5 conflict during a session. At the end of the session Darth rolls a D10 and gets a 3. Since 5 - 3 = 2, Darth's morality decreases by 2 points. IF Darth rolled a 7 his morality would actually increase by 2 even though he was sort of a @#$% that session.

If this I have this correct, then if there were no opportunities to do anything particularly conflict worthy during a campaign, the the PC will eventually become a lightside paragon. If so, how do you handle this? It seems like you would need to award 5 conflict per session just to keep them at the same morality (statistically speaking over the long run). Does this mean that you have to constantly provide sources (encounters) of potential conflict? Does this happen easily or does this take considerable planning? Do you typically see PCs move more easily in one direction than the other?

I have only slightly dabbled with the conflict/morality system in my EotE campaign and am starting a F&D campaign this fall so any advice would be appreciated.

If they didn't do anything significant that allows for the chance of conflict, then they don't get to roll. It's usually a good idea to throw in various chances to gain conflict, most often in the shape of making sure that doing the right thing leads to trouble. Like lying, using violence without exhausting all other options first, stealing from the people one might have just used violence on and murder of the poor defenseless sap who is going to sell you out to the Empire once his wounds have healed. Doing the right thing should be hard and a difficult thing to do all the time, giving in to temptation should be the easy choice that leads to less problems.

10 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

Doing the right thing should be hard and a difficult thing to do all the time, giving in to temptation should be the easy choice that leads to less problems.

I can't agree with the "all the time" part. Despite my attempt at humor in my previous post, it shouldn't be hard to decide not to use violence on everyone that crosses your path unless you have the emotional maturity of a sociopathic six-year old that pulls the wings off flies for fun.

I also don't agree that the "easy choice" leads to less problems. It almost always leads to bigger problems, but the payoff is in immediate gratification.

35 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

If they didn't do anything significant that allows for the chance of conflict, then they don't get to roll.

AH, I didn't realize this was a thing. That makes sense. Is it RAW? I think that the key (as you state) is that they didn't get an opportunity for conflict, rather than that they weren't awarded with conflict. But yeah, good way to approach this. I didn't like the idea of giving basically free morality after a session where they weren't challenged with a moral decision.

If they have a Conflict talent, they will always roll each session since they gain Conflict. This could be a trick to fly up to paragon if that's the only Conflict they generate in an otherwise Conflict free session.

1 hour ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

AH, I didn't realize this was a thing. That makes sense. Is it RAW? I think that the key (as you state) is that they didn't get an opportunity for conflict, rather than that they weren't awarded with conflict. But yeah, good way to approach this. I didn't like the idea of giving basically free morality after a session where they weren't challenged with a moral decision.

1 hour ago, Darth Revenant said:

If they didn't do anything significant that allows for the chance of conflict, then they don't get to roll. It's usually a good idea to throw in various chances to gain conflict, most often in the shape of making sure that doing the right thing leads to trouble. Like lying, using violence without exhausting all other options first, stealing from the people one might have just used violence on and murder of the poor defenseless sap who is going to sell you out to the Empire once his wounds have healed. Doing the right thing should be hard and a difficult thing to do all the time, giving in to temptation should be the easy choice that leads to less problems.

2 hours ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I don't mean to derail this discussion but I have another Conflict/Morality issue that I feel fits into this topic.

My understanding is that at the end of each session a player rolls a D10 and then compares the rolled value to the conflict awarded in that session to see if their morality goes up or down.

Ex. Darth Lightside earned 5 conflict during a session. At the end of the session Darth rolls a D10 and gets a 3. Since 5 - 3 = 2, Darth's morality decreases by 2 points. IF Darth rolled a 7 his morality would actually increase by 2 even though he was sort of a @#$% that session.

If this I have this correct, then if there were no opportunities to do anything particularly conflict worthy during a campaign, the the PC will eventually become a lightside paragon. If so, how do you handle this? It seems like you would need to award 5 conflict per session just to keep them at the same morality (statistically speaking over the long run). Does this mean that you have to constantly provide sources (encounters) of potential conflict? Does this happen easily or does this take considerable planning? Do you typically see PCs move more easily in one direction than the other?

I have only slightly dabbled with the conflict/morality system in my EotE campaign and am starting a F&D campaign this fall so any advice would be appreciated.

@Darth Revenant is correct here. Examples of a PC not getting opportunities to potentially earn Conflict (whether or not he actually chooses to do anything Conflict worthy) are if the player is not present for that session, the character is bound, unconscious, or otherwise unable to actively participate in the action, or make a moral choice. As long as the character actively participates in the adventure, there will be times where moral choices have to be made. And as such a Morality roll is called for at the end of the session.

Thanks for the help. Follow up question. If you were playing a group of Force users do you think it better to stick to Morality or to use both Morality and Obligation- since Force Users are people too and obligation is a lot of fun?

14 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Thanks for the help. Follow up question. If you were playing a group of Force users do you think it better to stick to Morality or to use both Morality and Obligation- since Force Users are people too and obligation is a lot of fun?

The campaign I play in currently does that, it's been pretty great. Dealing with an obligation also usually gives a lot of chance for extra conflict.

@VadersMarchKazoo , in one of my campaigns I've been using morality and obligation, and in another I've use morality and duty. If it's a mixed party of force users and non force users I use whatever the others are plus morality. The obligation one seems happy with it as it plays on backstory and the fact he's trying to keep his jedi stuff secret. That way they aren't left out. If it's all jedi I'd usually just use morality for convenience.

47 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Thanks for the help. Follow up question. If you were playing a group of Force users do you think it better to stick to Morality or to use both Morality and Obligation- since Force Users are people too and obligation is a lot of fun?

If you’re playing all F&D Force users use Morality. It’s only when you have mixed parties of F&D, AoR, and/or EotE characters all together that you would use some combination of the three mechanics.

On 8/10/2018 at 10:08 AM, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Does this mean that you have to constantly provide sources (encounters)     of potential conflict? Does this happen easily or does this take considerable planning? Do you typically see PCs move more easily in one direction than the other? 

If you want your campaign to have "Jedi morality" themes, then, yes, you really do have to actively try provide such moral choices. The easiest way that I've found to do this is make accomplishing any given mission a choice between "an easy way" and "a hard way". Where the "easy way" is by employing one or more Conflict-worthy actions (coercion, lieing, stealing, initiating combat, murder, etc.). The hard way could involve more steps, take longer, be more expensive, and/or lead to plot complications, and so.

Also, allow the use of the Force to achieve fantastic results. You want the use of Dark Pips to be a temptation, so you have to have the use of the Force be a constant temptation.

If you're not to interested in exploring morality as a big theme of your campaign, then don't worry about it, play your game "as normal" and your PCs will drift to Paragon's, or just ignore the morality scale as a mechanic.

I would also throw it out there that if your sessions are on the shorter side (2-3 hrs?), or if you want your PCs to struggle with the Darkside as the canon might lead us to believe they should, dont roll the d10 at the end of every session, instead do every 2.

In my campaigns, unless someone is actively trying to become a Lightside Paragon or Darksider, it seems like they generally linger around the 50 - 60 area, or they creep up slowly if they are playing the archetypical hero but still using Darkside pips when they want.