Dev Diary on the Morality system is up

[vilainn6 306]

If I was your Gm, you would have received conflict points for that, not because you did something bad but because your character should be haunted by the fact he let a friend die because of an old jedi code. Conflict is also that. Doing what you think is  good no matter the price versus following the jedi philosophie.

[Angelalex242 101]

Well... That does kinda put you in the position of saying 'I know better then Yoda.'

 

Someone has to be a reliable authority on what tough call to make. If not Yoda, who?

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

I have not been part of the FnD beta, but wanted to ask a morality question:

 

if a Force user with Morality does nothing while the rest of the party do bad deeds, does the Force User gain conflict?

 

i ask because for a mixed party with Edge and Age PC's this could make the Morality mechanic much more interesting than a party of Force using Paladins who all do "the Right thing"

 

 

I'll say I avoid conflict the plague, and the price I typically pay for it is that I won't use Dark Pips.

 

Your friend is falling down a cliff roll Move to save him.

 

*rolls 3 dice, rolls 3 dark pips*

 

...Sorry, bro, but it looks like it's your time to become one with the Force.

 

"You seriously let my character die."

 

'Fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side. Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Miss them do not. Mourn them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed that is. I am therefore letting go of everything I fear to lose.'

 

"...I don't care if it's G-Canon, d*** move bro."

 

 

I would have thought that letting a good friend die when drawing on the Dark Side could have saved them would cause a lot of future personal anguish and torment. i understand that Yoda said that, but isn't it more about being unable to prevent some loss and not mourning the ones you can not save. I would think there is a very big difference between being unable to prevent a loss and being in a position to prevent a death.

 

 

edit.

not that i dont respect your and your GM's decision (dont know if the other player liked it though!)

Edited July 11, 2015 by Richardbuxton

[MTaylor 138]

Problem as I see it is there's little incentive for players to play up their 'dark' motivation.  In fact, there's a disincentive because they will be 'punished' for it by getting DS points.

 

In the case in the devs diary, there's little reason a player would try and show their 'reckless' side if they were working towards being a LS paragon, because they would quite literally get penalised for role-playing. 

 

Yes, some players will role-play anyway, mechanics be damned, but it feels somehow wrong to penalise these people for it.

 

Also, I don't like the random rolls; morality conflicts should come up when it's appropriate to the story, not when the dice say so.   

 

Add to the fact that you can sleepwalk your way to LS paragon just by doing nothing, and the Morality system seems the weakest of the three.  

 

That's before we even get into 'oh, you blew up the Death Star? That's a billion conflict points  for murdering millions of sentient beings'.

Edited July 11, 2015 by MTaylor

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

I'm still wondering if "Doing nothing" can be the wrong thing to do?

If you have a PC who is just sleepwalking to LSP, then could a GM throw a seriously bad situation at them where there is no good way to resolve the situation, and it becomes a case of choosing the lesser of 2 evils? This is where encounter design based on the PC morality would be important even if it's difficult.

Edit:

I have no answer to the blowing up the Death Star issue either

Edited July 11, 2015 by Richardbuxton

[Angelalex242 101]

Well, for us, we ask 'who's the most logical authority on what the Code is?'

 

You could ask Wookiepedia about the Jedi Code....

 

And you get...

 

Emotion, yet Peace

Ignorance, yet Knowledge

Passion, yet Serenity

Chaos, yet Harmony

Death, yet the Force

 

Sometimes translated as 'there is no X, there is Y.'

 

Now...

 

Say my character is using Compassion/Hatred

 

Mechanically, every light side pip that comes up represents compassionate feelings, and every dark side pip that comes up represents hatred.

 

So if, on my 3 Force Dice, I roll 3 Dark Side Pips (entirely possible) that means, in that moment, I am full of so much Hatred I cannot help but do something dark should I use the Force just then.

 

'But isn't it compassionate to save this guy?'

 

On the surface, perhaps. But if all I rolled are DS pips, then I'm full of Hatred in that moment. I may hate my friend for falling, may hate the rocks that slipped, maybe I think he's a moron, etc. At any rate, I'm in no condition to be using the Force.

 

So I play something like, "Vader pushes Han off a cliff with the Force. Luke goes to save him with Move. But at that particular point, he's full of Hate that his dad would do such a thing and dares not use the Force. Han goes splat while Luke ends up meditating on 'there is no Death, there is the Force.' Vader curses, he was SURE his son would fall for that and he'd be able to overthrow the Emperor with his son at his side..."

 

Note Anakin would happily have saved his friend every time. Look where it got him...

Edited July 11, 2015 by Angelalex242

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

Interesting, and I like your explanation. Your grasp of Lore of The Force is much greater than mine, so I'll concede your probably correct, and I guess I'm destined to fall to the dark side!

I think my understanding is probably based on not finding the Light Side Paragon an interesting path (although Yoda is cool) I much prefer either exploring the grey areas of a bit of light a bit of dark, or telling a redemption story.

An interesting story for me would be a paragon being given the situation of save 1 of 2 friends while saving themselves.

[LightningFox 36]

I'll start off with that I wasn't in Beta and respect the decision that the GM.  However, given what I've seen on the many discussions on morality, I'm going to be an interesting GM for this.  Or the GM straight from hell.  It's one of those two.

 

In a situation like what happened, I could see you getting conflict regardless of your actions.  Saved your friend?  You just used the dark side to save someone's life.  That should cause some mental anguish.  Let your friend die?  You just let someone die when you could have done something.  That will cause some mental anguish.  A jedi master or someone with a very strict teacher, I could see them accepting the loss of the friend and avoid conflict, but fallout should happen somewhere.  I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of "every man is guilty of all the good he did not do."  Maybe that can derail the sleep train to a degree.

 

Another issue that has been pointed out many times is the lack of incentive to the player to give in to the dark side.  I'll say it again that most of what I know comes either from here or a similar source, but has anyone tried small xp boosts for dark side use?  After all, how many sources say it's the quick path to power?  From a player viewpoint, that can be a pretty good incentive to flirt with the dark side more often and makes losing morality less painful.  If their morality would increase, give them a penalty to their xp until they've "paid off their debt."  I understand this would involve a lot of secondary bookkeeping on the part of the GM.

 

Again, I know nothing about this.  Just throwing in my two cents on this for others to consider.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

The crux of the Conflict/Morality mechanic is that the PC has to be faced with situations that have the potential to earn them Conflict points in the first place, and not just those from making use of dark side pips on their Force dice when activating powers.

 

Frankly it's up to the GM to give the players difficult situations where the easier paths to solve a dilemma will generate Conflict points, because they are the "quick and easy" solution.  If the GM doesn't do that, then yes a player will be able to rise to Light Side Paragon status pretty easily, because there hasn't been anything to challenge that progression.  It's pretty easy for the average person to walk a quarter mile when it's a flat, even surface, the weather is bright, sunny, and pleasantly warm, and you're properly feed.  It's a whole 'nother story to walk a quarter mile when it's the middle of a winter night in a freezing downpour in an area you don't know with uneven terrain and there's bear traps scattered between you and your destination.

 

Resorting to violence as the first response to a problem is worth Conflict, because you didn't explore any alternatives to fighting and went straight to kicking your current opponent's hindquarters.  There might be some leeway if the opponents attacked you directly before you could explore an alternate option, but even if your first response is "grab my weapon and start blasting/slicing," that's probably worth a point of Conflict.  You could fully attempt to scare off a lesser threat, like a pack of street toughs thru a Coercion check, and while that's probably worth a point of Conflict itself, it's certainly more merciful than chopping them up with a lightsaber simply for crossing your path at a bad time.  A GM could potentially award Conflict for using lethal force instead of stun damage if the option's available, but I'd not suggest doing this on a recurring basis; after all, a weapon's a weapon, and part of the reason the classic Jedi carried only a inherently lethal lightsaber was to reinforce that a Jedi's first response shouldn't be "draw my lightsaber."

 

If you need to get through a door, and your first response is to rip it out of its moorings via the Force without seeing if there's other means to get through the door, namely picking/slicing the lock or seeking another way in, that's worth a substantial amount of Conflict because your first response was unnecessary property damage.  Qui-Gon in TPM probably got a few Conflict points for trying to carve his way through the doors to the bridge of the Trade Federation ship, but the player accepted that it needed to be done and figured that as long as he doesn't make a routine habit of that kind of behavior he should be okay in terms of him remaining a Light Side Paragon.

 

Torture, both mental and especially physical, is going to generate lots of Conflict because you're inflicting unnecessary harm on somebody that's pretty much at your mercy.  Same will killing an opponent you've already defeated, since they're no longer a threat to you.

 

The Conflict/Morality system is no more inherently flawed than Obligation or Duty are, and I've heard of games where the GM never gave his EotE players the opportunity to reduce their Obligations, something the rulebook says the GM should offer, either as an adventure reward in lieu of credits or even as the major reward of an adventure.  And until Andy Fischer made a guest appearance on the Order 66 podcast to suggest the average Duty award per session should be around 5 points, there were a number of GMs that were only handing out 1 or 2 Duty points per session, making for a very anemic progression to the group's next Contribution Rank.

 

If anything, the core "flaw" is that most players who are familiar with the Star Wars universe, when playing Force users if not actual aspiring Jedi, are going to take their cues on how to act from the Jedi we see on the screen, most notably Obi-Wan and RotJ!Luke as general examples of "What Would a Proper Jedi Knight Do?" and will thus act far more noble than they might were they playing a smuggler or bounty hunter.  Thus, they'll see situations that might generate Conflict and try to avoid them simply because "it's what a Jedi would do."  And if the players are going to act like good guys instead of a pack of blood-crazed murder hobos, then I'd say they should receive a benefit for not stooping to their darker urges.  In ANH, before Obi-Wan carves up those two goons in the cantina, he tries to defuse the situation ("come, let me buy you a drink") and only draws his lightsaber when Ponda and Evazan react violently, throwing Luke into a table and drawing a blaster respectively.  In AotC, he only strikes Zam because she's got a blaster drawn and ready to fire at his back, and his strike is purely to negate the threat by literally dis-arming her.  Luke meanwhile did what he could to reach a peaceful resolution with Jabba to free Han, even if he wasn't upset about things having to get violent, and may in fact have been expecting and even looking forward to it as a means to remove a vile and corrupt gangster from the galaxy, but he at least gave Jabba every possible chance to settle things without violence, even right on up to his potential execution.  At that point, Luke's fighting to protect himself and his friends, so no Conflict earned for mowing through Jabba's goons.  Leia might have earned some Conflict (if she had a Force Rating at that point in time even if she didn't know she was Force-sensitive) for strangling Jabba (choking to death is a fairly drawn out and painful process), but not a whole lot since he wasn't completely helpless (probably freaking out due to the situation having spiraled so completely out of his control and thus not able to react rationally to Leia's attack).

 

I'm playing in a Mutants and Masterminds game, where most of the PCs are your four-color hero types... and the guy that was trying to play a 90's anti-hero stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the group, to the point the player was asked to leave since he was causing so much trouble with his character's antics, which included excessive force, unnecessary property damage, and doggedly chasing after bad guys that were trying to flee the scene.  In terms of the Conflict mechanic, that player would be earning Conflict points left and right for those antics, and rightly so, while most of us wouldn't because we're acting more like actual superheroes, doing things like avoiding excess property damage, ensuring the safety of nearby civilians, and using just enough force to defeat the villain as opposed to sending them to the ICU.

 

In an AoR game I'm playing in, my Shii-Cho Knight has been pretty steadily improving his Morality score because I'm making the conscious choice to avoid actions that would generate Conflict for him, and even then I've earned the occasional point for simply launching directly into an attack against what I know is a major threat or using the threat of violence to get less serious threats to back down without having to resort to actual violence.  But the GM (who's still fairly new to being a GM) hasn't really put my character into a situation where he could generate a lot of Conflict.

 

So with Conflict/Morality, the system is built (or at least was in the Beta) so that your PC doesn't have adhere to a rigid code like a pre4e D&D Lawful Good Paladin in order to avoid losing their special abilities; the internet is rife with tales of "Paladin Screw Jobs" where dickish GMs put the player of a Paladin into a situation where the character was going to fall and lose their powers no matter what action they took.  In Force and Destiny, with how Conflict works you can have the occasional "slip up" in terms of tapping the dark side for a much needed power boost (i.e. converting those dark side pips on your Force die) when you feel the situation is dire enough (avoiding your death or especially the death of your allies) or using intimidation to keep a problem from escalating into greater violence, and still not fall head-first into the dark side.

 

In prior Star Wars RPGs, one of the biggest flaws with their Dark Side tracking systems was that for the most part, it was up to GM whimsy as to when a Dark Side point should be assigned, with only the barest of guidelines provided, and I've seen and heard of many a game session coming to a screeching halt as the GM and the player of a Force user got into debate about whether a course of action was worth a Dark Side Point or not.  For Saga Editon at least, Gary Sarli posted a five point checklist in one of the game's Jedi Counseling articles that proved very helpful in determining what degree of dark side transgression an act was and if the player deserved a DSP.  And in the WEG system, you could quite easily "fall to the dark side" and become an NPC on your second DSP if you rolled poorly on your six-sider.

[EldritchFire 499]

I have not been part of the FnD beta, but wanted to ask a morality question:

 

if a Force user with Morality does nothing while the rest of the party do bad deeds, does the Force User gain conflict?

 

i ask because for a mixed party with Edge and Age PC's this could make the Morality mechanic much more interesting than a party of Force using Paladins who all do "the Right thing"

…

Yes, the Force user will gain conflict for inaction. That's actually the first entry in the Conflict table in the beta. Gain 1+ for knowing inaction on behalf of PCs or NPCs. It's normally worth +1 conflict, but "[o]bviously evil or overly selfish acts…should always add from 1 to 5 additional points."

 

Meaning that standing by and doing nothing can net you as much as 6 conflict! A very good incentive to stop your fellow PC from outright killing the big bad when they're helpless.

 

-EF

[Angelalex242 101]

Actually, at a Con I was at, I had a good GM who was trying continually to suggest quick and easy path options to my character.

 

Eventually, he said, "...How does your character KNOW so much about the Light Side?"

 

I told him, "It's a Con. Normally, he'd grow into this knowledge over time, and I could have him make mistakes on the path to this kind of enlightenment, but we haven't got time for that."

 

Still, he said if he ever had me in his game in the future, he'd be comfortable letting me play a full on Jedi, because I was acting like one.

 

In the same game, the guy playing the Wookie lost himself to his anger and did his best to act like Darth Wookiee.

 

And they were on Dagobah at the time. With a little green muppet with a funny speech pattern...

 

Anyways, in the examples above:

 

Qui Gon probably didn't generate conflict for going through the blast door, since the Trade Federation was actively tryng to kill him and Obi Wan. Unless he had to burn a DSP at the time, of course.

 

Leia..presuming she was born Force Sensitive Emergent due to being Anakin's daughter (and very possibly the Force Power Influence) also wouldn't generate any for killing Jabba. She didn't really have another option...choking is a slow death, to be sure, and it's a death the Sith are famous for using, but Leia, using a chain in that skimpy slave outfit, clearly didn't have any other weapons. And she was likewise in mortal danger.

 

On Inaction: Absolutely. Just as a Paladin can fall for letting his companions be murderhobos, so to can the Jedi earn conflict for letting his smuggler blast some Imps for fun.

[paranoyd 47]

Well, for us, we ask 'who's the most logical authority on what the Code is?'

 

You could ask Wookiepedia about the Jedi Code....

 

And you get...

 

Emotion, yet Peace

Ignorance, yet Knowledge

Passion, yet Serenity

Chaos, yet Harmony

Death, yet the Force

 

Sometimes translated as 'there is no X, there is Y.'

 

Now...

 

Say my character is using Compassion/Hatred

 

Mechanically, every light side pip that comes up represents compassionate feelings, and every dark side pip that comes up represents hatred.

 

So if, on my 3 Force Dice, I roll 3 Dark Side Pips (entirely possible) that means, in that moment, I am full of so much Hatred I cannot help but do something dark should I use the Force just then.

 

'But isn't it compassionate to save this guy?'

 

On the surface, perhaps. But if all I rolled are DS pips, then I'm full of Hatred in that moment. I may hate my friend for falling, may hate the rocks that slipped, maybe I think he's a moron, etc. At any rate, I'm in no condition to be using the Force.

 

So I play something like, "Vader pushes Han off a cliff with the Force. Luke goes to save him with Move. But at that particular point, he's full of Hate that his dad would do such a thing and dares not use the Force. Han goes splat while Luke ends up meditating on 'there is no Death, there is the Force.' Vader curses, he was SURE his son would fall for that and he'd be able to overthrow the Emperor with his son at his side..."

 

Note Anakin would happily have saved his friend every time. Look where it got him...

If you'd let a companion die because you didn't want to "give in to momentary hate" (use darkside pips), that would immediately net you at least 7 conflict in my game. That's intentional inaction, selfishness, and essentially helping to murder your companion. 

[I. J. Thompson 770]

On Inaction: Absolutely. Just as a Paladin can fall for letting his companions be murderhobos, so to can the Jedi earn conflict for letting his smuggler blast some Imps for fun.

 

Or some Ewoks who are inconveniencing the party.

 

"Han. Don't. It'll be alright."

[Angelalex242 101]

Yoda'd disagree with you.

 

So...your game is your game, and my game is my game.

 

Luke: So what, I'm supposed to just let them die?

Yoda: If you honor what they fight for, yes.

 

- Empire Strikes Back.

 

[paranoyd 47]

Yoda'd disagree with you.

 

So...your game is your game, and my game is my game.

 

Luke: So what, I'm supposed to just let them die?

Yoda: If you honor what they fight for, yes.

 

- Empire Strikes Back.

 

Yoda was not always right.

[Angelalex242 101]

In this instance, with Yoda and Obi Wan both saying it's a terrible idea, somebody took Conflict here alright...but it was Luke, not the old guys.

 

Luke sort of lucked out on the die roll, though, as he happened to roll a 10 which ate the Conflict he received and gave him some points besides. Still lost a hand for his trouble though.

[Desslok 13,571]

Yoda'd disagree with you.

 

So...your game is your game, and my game is my game.

 

Luke: So what, I'm supposed to just let them die?

Yoda: If you honor what they fight for, yes.

 

And that's why the Jedi Order needed to have order 66 dropped on them - broken beliefs like this. Yes, uncontrolled attachment can lead to bad places, but throwing your friends under the bus like that is also wrong. And it's indicative of the many ideological problems that gripped the Jedi before their fall.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Desslok

[paranoyd 47]

I've got a player who is determined to go Sith. She found a Sith holocron in an old hidden temple and kept it, without the rest of the crew knowing. She's currently a light side paragon. I told her each session where she spends a full 24 hours meditating on it she will get 10 conflict as a baseline, regardless whatever else she does. 

I'm hoping there will be some new rules or guidelines for running Sith characters. 

 

[Angelalex242 101]

All problems Grandmaster Luke would fix in the NJO.

 

In general, however, in a game set anywhere from about 700 BBY to 4 ABY (which includes the Dark Times and the Age of Rebellion), Yoda's the authority on right and wrong.

 

In a game set after 4 ABY, Luke(EU/Legends) is the authority on right and wrong.

 

In general, however, most games don't assume the PCs are evil. I mean...it's effectively equivalent to playing Darth Vader in a party with Boba Fett

[paranoyd 47]

In this instance, with Yoda and Obi Wan both saying it's a terrible idea, somebody took Conflict here alright...but it was Luke, not the old guys.

 

Luke sort of lucked out on the die roll, though, as he happened to roll a 10 which ate the Conflict he received and gave him some points besides. Still lost a hand for his trouble though.

 

So, you're saying, Luke was wrong and his friends should have died, which would have been the favorable outcome vs him saving lives from someone evil and losing a hand? True, the NPCs wouldn't have gotten conflict for that, but it would've been minimal for Luke going to save his friends vs maximum for ignoring an obvious threat. It felt more to me like Yoda was gunshy and just being selfish. As Desslok pointed out, this is an ideological problem, IMHO. But it does highlight the morality mechanic in the game. Although I do wish it were a LITTLE more concrete. 

[paranoyd 47]

I think if Luke had stayed on Dagobah and his friends died, he would've likely become disillusioned with the Jedi and their inability to accomplish anything, and he would've joined with Vader. I think there's a point where you have to balance a little dark with a lot of light - For the Greater Good, as it were. Refusing to ever entertain the notion that you might have to get a little dirty when you're cleaning up results in a surface clean with a whole lot of rot underneath, IMHO. 

[Angelalex242 101]

Well...the other things is, on Bespin, did...Luke actually do any good? Looks to me like Leia and Chewie and the droids might well have escaped cleanly without him. There was no saving Han, but Luke's presence or abscence didn't make a difference there.

[Desslok 13,571]

In a game set after 4 ABY, Luke(EU/Legends) is the authority on right and wrong.

 

No, he's not. That's the whole point of Episodes 1-3, showing exactly how broken and dysfunctional that the Jedi Order had become.They were clueless, arrogant, out of touch with the rest of the world, and mired down in rote and ritual to the point of ineffectiveness. Anakin's restoring balance to the Force was not a 1-1 parity of Sith to Jedi, but that he needed to tear down the old order and clear the way for Luke to rebuild it.

 

Yoda himself had an epiphany when fighting Palpatine that he was wrong and the order needed to evolve.

[Angelalex242 101]

If Yoda had an epiphany, he hadn't jumped to broomstick to being in tune with Luke as of 36+ ABY. He was still mostly himself in the OT.

[mouthymerc 4,483]

There is no NJO led by Luke. I will be interested to see the new movie and catch up with these characters. Is Luke a more Yoda-like character? Hiding away from everyone? Are there Jedi? Are there Sith? Or are they just shadows of what used to be?

Edited July 11, 2015 by mouthymerc