Does Move do too much damage?

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

Gotcha, I was a little tired when I posted #70:

 

If I had a player that didn't care whether his PC fell to the dark side, and his Morality ended up dropping to below 30, I would disallow the player from playing his character anymore until he came up with something really good that detailed the PC's ultimate fall to the dark side, and then we roleplayed it. That kind of stuff usually works to get players invested in the narrative: when they actually take part in creating it, they value it inherently. 

 

So I can see how one might take this to mean I take his character away. The key word is "until," and also key is the assumption that I'm not a jerk  But "disallow" is a strong term that was probably too succinct for my intent. 

 

Here's how I'd see such a situation panning out.

 

Bill is playing Jacen, a Human Mystic with a few hundred XP under his belt, and has started just going off the deep end in terms of evil actions. When we started the session, he was down at 32 Morality. I tell him that he's gained so much Conflict this session that he's going to have to consider how his character turns to the dark side very soon. He surprises me with a negative response, telling me that he "shouldn't have to do that," because he's "not interested in the Morality mechanic," and he is still a "good guy." I am taken aback, because he's been playing a Force & Destiny Character, accepting Conflict, and writing the Morality down every session, and I've explained the lure of the dark side and falling to the dark side at least a handful of times to the group. His character sheet says "bad guy," but he still want to play a "good guy." This is weird, not to mention the suspension of disbelief pretty much evaporates if this happens.

 

So I pull him aside about the session. "Hey man, let's have a talk. You made some mention in the game tonight that Jacen doesn't see the universe in black and white and for that reason you don't think you should have to fall to the dark side, even though your Morality is now at 5 with that last spate of murders. Problem is, you are still using the Force like nobody's business and pretending that you're a good guy, but now you're actually going to be using the dark side to fuel your powers, and any Jedi around you are eventually going to be able to tell. 

"So unless you are willing to play this fall to the dark side out, we need to take a different direction. For next session, if you're not willing to embrace the Morality mechanic and work out how Jacen is falling to the dark side, we can either 1) redesign your character or 2) just build a new character. If you really dislike the Morality mechanic, we can use Obligation instead of Morality, and if you are bored with this character, then we can make him go away: either relegate him to NPC status or just tuck him away for a future date where you can bring him back as a PC. And then we can build you a new character with an equivalent XP."

 

My main point was that it's the GMs job to make make sure that players have every opportunity to invest themselves in the story, but if a character is flat out ignoring something like Morality then that's kind of weird, and probably points to a missed opportunity to get invested in that aspect of his character. (I'm abashed that we got here from talking about the Move power and damage  )

Also, I agree that it's the players responsibility to actually get involved, but if the GM is being a good leader, he won't just leave the players in the dust of his narration and presumptions. 

 

So in the imaginative situation above, Jacen chooses to take on the mantle of Sith Lord, and he decides he still wants to play the character for now (although he ultimately wants to give him up as a Nemesis and play a non-Force-sensitive hero). So I design a session that focuses on the character's fall. Luckily, it turns out that one of our other players is bored with her character, and wants to play something different, so we set up a little betrayal/murder/cover-up that Jacen enacts against that poor PC. And now he can start down the path of becoming a Sith Lord, complete with a new Motivation (Galactic Domination) and wardrobe (all black). 

 

Not to say that "You can't play your character anymore!" But rather, "You don't seem to want to play this character anymore. What's up, and how can I help?"

Edited July 23, 2015 by awayputurwpn

[Jereru 171]

Off-topic: How is it that, recently, all threads seem to offtopic into the dark/light roleplaying discussion?

[knasserII 2,557]

Off-topic: How is it that, recently, all threads seem to offtopic into the dark/light roleplaying discussion?

Don't know. There was the Is the Dark Side Stronger, thread, to which the answer was 'no, it isn't'. Then whafrog started a thread called Hey, The Dark Side Is Stronger on the same topic, to which it was again answered that it wasn't. And then this one just derailed when someone raised the idea of lifting people in the air and dropping them. Which keeps coming up because people seem to think it's some sort of over-powered I Win tactic despite there being a perfectly clean rules compliant way of handling it which is to simply treat it as the same damage you would get from throwing them in any other direction. It's a narrative game - the rules define results (e.g. how much damage is taken), not methods (e.g. when I stab you, I hit your heart). If the rules say you take 8 points of damage from the use of the power, then the description follows from that and perhaps you throw them up and they catch onto something before they get too high, or whatever. Non-narrative games do it the other way around: "you are thrown fifty feet in the air, therefore take 5d12 falling damage" for example. It's a lot easier to preserve game balance in a narrative game for this reason. For example, in TCW we're continually seeing people and droids being pushed backwards by Obi Wan. Rarely, we see them actually thrown up into the air vertically at the same time as laterally, suggesting it's harder. And on very rare occasions, such as Anakin trying to prevent Padmé from falling from the roof of the senate building, we see someone being lifted purely vertically. And it takes him visibly more effort and he accomplishes this visibly more slowly than he's able to fling back droids horizontally. So maybe straight up is just harder than lateral movement. The rules talk about the range distance you can move someone, not the distance straight up that they can be lifted. All we have defined in the rules is that someone moves from Short Distance to Medium, for example. Says nothing about you necessarily being able to hoist them forty feet directly upwards all of a sudden.

But I think the narrative (i.e. results based) nature of the rules passes a lot of people by so people keep honing in on this received wisdom that there's this fatal exploit where you just lift someone straight up and win. Which the correct response to is the one above, but which more typically results in someone saying it shouldn't be done because it counts as Dark Side. Which is debatable (is this worse than shooting someone? Really?) and also leads into the eternal debate on whether or not something being "Dark Side" is sufficient to discourage players from doing it. Which is eternal because it varies from table to table. So pretty much every Move thread goes flying off the tracks like this sooner or later all because of things going up and then coming down.

Edited July 23, 2015 by knasserII

[dougansf 132]

[Decorus 672]

Lets put this in perspective.

Jacen the Jedi's friend just got knocked off a bridge he's falling to his death and Jacen tries to save him from dying by using the force. He's already at the 30 threshold, but he rolls all dark side pips on his force roll. So mechanically he's screwed. He either goes darkside by saving his friend or he goes dark side by allowing someone to die. Mechanically he is being punished for a light side action. His Emotional Strength is Curiousity so there is no mechanical way for him to reduce the conflict.

 

This is where the system fails you. In the story he's totally doing light side stuff, but mechanically it just became dark side due to a lousy roll. The mechanics do not match the actual roleplaying, because all he wants to do is save his friend from dying. In an actual roleplaying game you don't suddenly go evil, because the dice tell you hey your evil now. In a roll playing game thats totally expected. This terribly designed mechanic is entirely a rollplaying mechanic its bad design.

 

You can literally sleep walk your character into being darksided just by rolling badly. Its harder to do then Sleep walking to the lightside, but it can happen. Anytime you roll dice and it determines the morality of your character's action its obviously broken. The fact that people like this is a problem.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Decorus

[Lordbiscuit 566]

Lets put this in perspective.

Jacen the Jedi's friend just got knocked off a bridge he's falling to his death and Jacen tries to save him from dying by using the force. He's already at the 30 threshold, but he rolls all dark side pips on his force roll. So mechanically he's screwed. He either goes darkside by saving his friend or he goes dark side by allowing someone to die. Mechanically he is being punished for a light side action. His Emotional Strength is Curiousity so there is no mechanical way for him to reduce the conflict.

 

This is where the system fails you. In the story he's totally doing light side stuff, but mechanically it just became dark side due to a lousy roll. The mechanics do not match the actual roleplaying, because all he wants to do is save his friend from dying. In an actual roleplaying game you don't suddenly go evil, because the dice tell you hey your evil now. In a roll playing game thats totally expected. This terribly designed mechanic is entirely a rollplaying mechanic its bad design.

 

You can literally sleep walk your character into being darksided just by rolling badly. Its harder to do then Sleep walking to the lightside, but it can happen. Anytime you roll dice and it determines the morality of your character's action its obviously broken. The fact that people like this is a problem.

Thats a interesting example, but on the flipside the other question would be "what has he actually done up to this point to warrent being so close to falling?" After all, I find even though on the odd occation you can drop morality quite quickly, it's extremely difficult to drop from high to low and visa versa. To sleepwalk from 50 to 30 is practically impossible, unless one took some exceedingly cruel actions and/or was forced to draw on the Darkside extremely heavily that session. Players are the ultimate moderators of their own actions, and should take a degree of responsability over their current morality state.

 

However, even falling to the Darkside isn't strictly the end. Strictly speaking nothing should change aside from the fact that they are now forced to spend darkside pips on a frequent basis, fueling their own anger unless they spend destiny points to draw on the light. Though it is highly recommended that the PC in question changes their roleplay to reflect this. Or alternatively, if it makes absolutely no sense for the character to fall, they should suddenly feel faint and be temperary retired from the session to reflect rehiblitation, do the proper thing and abstain from any force use (spending destiny points to only use the lightside) and spend the rest of their time trying to heal the wound on their soul. The only other alternative is to not use the morality system entirely or retire the character pernimently to reflect this new evil drive.

 

Needless to say, I don't really see a situation where one would skirt the darkside so closely without at least having a plan for what to do if they did. All falling to the darkside means is that they are beginning to lose their grip on their own empathy, no longer treating other people as sentiant creatures and more closely tools to be used in a game of chess.

[Lordbiscuit 566]

To get back to the original point; against minor characters the use of move is perfectly fine. It can change the tides of battle epically, against particlar named force senstives, or even some noteable non-force senstives (because those that are either in a position where they are rarely in the pressence of the PC's, or alternatively they have equipment that allows them to avoid being crushed.)

 

Needless to say, if your going to have any force senstives in your campiagn, one must be prepared for the consquences of that. That means your villians have to step up to the mark and have counter measures for combating force senstives. Be it force senstivity of their own (their next action they use a move object of their own to counteract the movement. Or a displine check to disrupt the force around them.), being skilled (grappling hooks, jetpacks to make the action of crushing them more difficult) or being in a position that the PC's either shouldn't hurt them (no matter how strong people are, they are still only human) or can't (through TV screens, being an imperial officer or crime lord who conducts business away from the scenes)

 

 

needless to say, I've seen hired guns do much more work then what move object can do. Move object isn't really that bad.

[Rakaydos 4,236]

You could totally have the "borderline character" pull an Azen from bleach...

 

"And now you realize, I was dark all along..."

[dougansf 132]

Lets put this in perspective.

Jacen the Jedi's friend just got knocked off a bridge he's falling to his death and Jacen tries to save him from dying by using the force. He's already at the 30 threshold, but he rolls all dark side pips on his force roll. So mechanically he's screwed. He either goes darkside by saving his friend or he goes dark side by allowing someone to die. Mechanically he is being punished for a light side action. His Emotional Strength is Curiousity so there is no mechanical way for him to reduce the conflict.

 

This is where the system fails you. In the story he's totally doing light side stuff, but mechanically it just became dark side due to a lousy roll. The mechanics do not match the actual roleplaying, because all he wants to do is save his friend from dying. In an actual roleplaying game you don't suddenly go evil, because the dice tell you hey your evil now. In a roll playing game thats totally expected. This terribly designed mechanic is entirely a rollplaying mechanic its bad design.

For the record, going over the Conflict chart from the Beta, I would not give Conflict for "allowing someone to die" if the character attempted to save them, but failed.

 

Conflict doesn't affect the Morality score until the end of session. So, if the PC is that close to the edge, they flip the pips to save their buddy's life, and then play it cool. If the d10 comes up in their favor, then the character doesn't fall.

Like XP, I think there should be a guideline for how much the Morality gain is, depending on the length of the session.  Longer session means more opportunities for Conflict gain.

 

 

You can literally sleep walk your character into being darksided just by rolling badly. Its harder to do then Sleep walking to the lightside, but it can happen. Anytime you roll dice and it determines the morality of your character's action its obviously broken. The fact that people like this is a problem.

I agree that you can sleepwalk into the light. In the current system, starting at 50 Morality, if you do nothing (and thus gain no Conflict) for 2-5 sessions, you're likely a LS Paragon. I have a bit of a problem with the fact that there are no actions that can remove Conflict. But, the automatic Morality gain assumes you are doing good deeds.  It means you can flip 1 pip per session and maintain your Morality, worst case scenario.

Sleepwalking into the dark I don't agree with. Between the automatic Morality gain, and the fact that it's the player's explicit choice to flip pips, and that the GM should warn ahead of time that an action (or inaction) could gain Conflict. With the marked exceptions of no-win scenarios like this one, where you get to choose the lesser evil.  But in every situation, gaining Conflict is a consequence of a choice of the character.

[EldritchFire 499]

dougansf, you're a bit off on your understanding of Morality and Conflict.

Inaction can and does lead to Conflict gain. The first entry in the Commom Conflict Penalties table is Knowing Inaction. You gain conflict if you do nothing when bad things are happening around you. And overly selfish acts grant an additional 1–5 conflict, and not doing good to avoid Conflict is overly selfish in my mind. So letting bad things happen around you at my table is worth at least 3 Conflict.

-EF

[dougansf 132]

You are correct.  And I mentioned inaction in the last paragraph of my reply.  The only thing I see about "selfish acts" is under Lying for Personal Gain.

 

Attempt but failure is not "inaction" in my book.  It's failure.

 

If we took the Move power out of the scenario, and the rescuing character failed an Athletics check to save their falling buddy, would it cause Conflict?

[EldritchFire 499]

You are correct.  And I mentioned inaction in the last paragraph of my reply.  The only thing I see about "selfish acts" is under Lying for Personal Gain.

 

Attempt but failure is not "inaction" in my book.  It's failure.

 

If we took the Move power out of the scenario, and the rescuing character failed an Athletics check to save their falling buddy, would it cause Conflict?

Ah, sorry. Didn't see that you were still talking about the Move example still. My bad!

-EF

[dougansf 132]

 

You are correct.  And I mentioned inaction in the last paragraph of my reply.  The only thing I see about "selfish acts" is under Lying for Personal Gain.

 

Attempt but failure is not "inaction" in my book.  It's failure.

 

If we took the Move power out of the scenario, and the rescuing character failed an Athletics check to save their falling buddy, would it cause Conflict?

Ah, sorry. Didn't see that you were still talking about the Move example still. My bad!

-EF

 

 

No worries.  

 

I'm kinda talking about the whole thing, but centered around the Move example, because it's at least tangentially related to the OP.

 

Speaking of which, that falling dude will definitely take/do 10+Successes damage when he hits bottom.  

[knasserII 2,557]

You are correct.  And I mentioned inaction in the last paragraph of my reply.  The only thing I see about "selfish acts" is under Lying for Personal Gain.

 

Attempt but failure is not "inaction" in my book.  It's failure.

 

If we took the Move power out of the scenario, and the rescuing character failed an Athletics check to save their falling buddy, would it cause Conflict?

To extend the metaphor further, if they failed their Athletics check to save their friend and so decided as a backup to shoot a traveller passing by on a speeder bike so that he could steal the bike and race down to catch his friend before he hit the bottom, would he then gain Conflict? Yes, probably he would. Now the metaphor covers the scenario where he fails and then decides to dip into Dark Side points to cover it, as well.

[Decorus 672]

 

Lets put this in perspective.

Jacen the Jedi's friend just got knocked off a bridge he's falling to his death and Jacen tries to save him from dying by using the force. He's already at the 30 threshold, but he rolls all dark side pips on his force roll. So mechanically he's screwed. He either goes darkside by saving his friend or he goes dark side by allowing someone to die. Mechanically he is being punished for a light side action. His Emotional Strength is Curiousity so there is no mechanical way for him to reduce the conflict.

 

This is where the system fails you. In the story he's totally doing light side stuff, but mechanically it just became dark side due to a lousy roll. The mechanics do not match the actual roleplaying, because all he wants to do is save his friend from dying. In an actual roleplaying game you don't suddenly go evil, because the dice tell you hey your evil now. In a roll playing game thats totally expected. This terribly designed mechanic is entirely a rollplaying mechanic its bad design.

For the record, going over the Conflict chart from the Beta, I would not give Conflict for "allowing someone to die" if the character attempted to save them, but failed.

 

Conflict doesn't affect the Morality score until the end of session. So, if the PC is that close to the edge, they flip the pips to save their buddy's life, and then play it cool. If the d10 comes up in their favor, then the character doesn't fall.

Like XP, I think there should be a guideline for how much the Morality gain is, depending on the length of the session.  Longer session means more opportunities for Conflict gain.

 

 

You can literally sleep walk your character into being darksided just by rolling badly. Its harder to do then Sleep walking to the lightside, but it can happen. Anytime you roll dice and it determines the morality of your character's action its obviously broken. The fact that people like this is a problem.

I agree that you can sleepwalk into the light. In the current system, starting at 50 Morality, if you do nothing (and thus gain no Conflict) for 2-5 sessions, you're likely a LS Paragon. I have a bit of a problem with the fact that there are no actions that can remove Conflict. But, the automatic Morality gain assumes you are doing good deeds.  It means you can flip 1 pip per session and maintain your Morality, worst case scenario.

Sleepwalking into the dark I don't agree with. Between the automatic Morality gain, and the fact that it's the player's explicit choice to flip pips, and that the GM should warn ahead of time that an action (or inaction) could gain Conflict. With the marked exceptions of no-win scenarios like this one, where you get to choose the lesser evil.  But in every situation, gaining Conflict is a consequence of a choice of the character.

 

 

Lets say you roll average you are more likely to get dark side pips then light side pips.

You are more likely to have to spend destiny and take conflict to use the force then to not.

You can literally poor roll your way to the darkside without ever doing a single thing to deserve it, because you have to earn conflict to activate your force powers. I know a guy who in the course of a game has never rolled a single lightside point when he needs to use his powers in a clutch. He earns 5 or 6 conflict a session just using the force, because he can't roll light when he needs it. Then a few bad morality rolls and he's been sliding to the dark side ever since. Not because he wants to, but because the rng is turning him dark. So the I'm sorry guys I need to just stand here like an idiot while you do all the work, because I can't use my force powers with out going darkside is a load of bantha manure. Its not the player's fault the rng gives him dark side pips nor is it his fault he can't roll above a 5 on his morality rolls. He is literally being rolled out of existence.

[dfn 88]

@awayputurwpn

 

 

I tell him that he's gained so much Conflict this session that he's going to have to consider how his character turns to the dark side very soon. He surprises me with a negative response, telling me that he "shouldn't have to do that," because he's "not interested in the Morality mechanic," and he is still a "good guy." 

 

Pretend he never defined his PC as a good guy. Pretend that from the start, he was using Move to lift people up and let them drop ( ). Pretend he has been consistently doing conflict generating/evil things. Now his morality is below 30. He intends to continue playing the same way. What would you do, if anything?

 

This, to me, would be an example of not being interested in the Morality mechanic. He does what his character WANTS to do. If that means conflict, fine. If not, also fine. If it takes him below 30, fine; he will continue doing what his character wants to do.

 

Oh, for those wondering how we got here:

"move is imba, lift people up and let them drop"

"no it isn't because if you do that...zomg CONFLICT!"

"So? omgwtfbbq CONFLICT is not a deterrent!"

Edited July 23, 2015 by dfn

[dougansf 132]

Lets say you roll average you are more likely to get dark side pips then light side pips.

You are more likely to have choose to spend destiny and take conflict to use the force then to not.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

You can literally poor roll your way to the darkside without ever doing a single thing to deserve it, because you have to earn conflict to activate your force powers. I know a guy who in the course of a game has never rolled a single lightside point when he needs to use his powers in a clutch. He earns 5 or 6 conflict a session just using the force, because he can't roll light when he needs it. Then a few bad morality rolls and he's been sliding to the dark side ever since. Not because he wants to, but because the rng is turning him dark. So the I'm sorry guys I need to just stand here like an idiot while you do all the work, because I can't use my force powers with out going darkside is a load of bantha manure. Its not the player's fault the rng gives him dark side pips nor is it his fault he can't roll above a 5 on his morality rolls. He is literally being rolled out of existence.

Or the player could try to do something other than use the Force.  Or choose various powers that don't require rolling Force Rating until they have multiple dice to increase their chances.  Sense and Enhance are great powers while on the way to FR 2.

 

I get it, I really do.  Darth GM made us switch from Saga to FFG in the middle of a campaign where I was playing a "Force Wizard."  I used the Force a lot, and I was not playing a character that would tap the dark side to activate powers.  I started with an FR3 and I still had my share of rounds where I refused to flip pips, and thus did nothing that round, and it sucked!  And that was before the Conflict/Morality rules were out.  I look back on that with the Beta rules in mind, and I think I would've flipped some pips because my general Morality level would've been high enough to take the temporary Conflict hits at the end of session.

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

Lets say you roll average you are more likely to get dark side pips then light side pips.

You are more likely to have to spend destiny and take conflict to use the force then to not.

You can literally poor roll your way to the darkside without ever doing a single thing to deserve it, because you have to earn conflict to activate your force powers. I know a guy who in the course of a game has never rolled a single lightside point when he needs to use his powers in a clutch. He earns 5 or 6 conflict a session just using the force, because he can't roll light when he needs it. Then a few bad morality rolls and he's been sliding to the dark side ever since. Not because he wants to, but because the rng is turning him dark. So the I'm sorry guys I need to just stand here like an idiot while you do all the work, because I can't use my force powers with out going darkside is a load of bantha manure. Its not the player's fault the rng gives him dark side pips nor is it his fault he can't roll above a 5 on his morality rolls. He is literally being rolled out of existence.

 

"Rolled out of existence" is hyperbole, I'm assuming...since, all things being equal, you actually get to keep playing your character after their fall to the dark side.

 

The anecdote is valid, of course, and as you note it is possible to just have a string of really poor rolls. I would question when Force powers actually "need" to be used, and what exactly constitutes a "clutch," but for such a red herring situation, a homebrew solution might well be in order. 

 

If that happens to a player, like you just can't win with the dice rolls even though you're trying your best to use Move responsibly and not doing anything selfish, and using the Force only for knowledge and defense, then as a GM I would very likely institute a way for you to rid yourself of Conflict. It would cost something...not sure what exactly...but it would be a temporary homebrewed solution, maybe a plot point in an adventure, where the PC can meditate or do something amazingly selfless or somesuch and get rid of some/all Conflict for the session, or possibly simply raise the Morality score by X amount. 

Edited July 23, 2015 by awayputurwpn

[knasserII 2,557]

Lets say you roll average you are more likely to get dark side pips then light side pips.

You are more likely to have to spend destiny and take conflict to use the force then to not.

You can literally poor roll your way to the darkside without ever doing a single thing to deserve it, because you have to earn conflict to activate your force powers. I know a guy who in the course of a game has never rolled a single lightside point when he needs to use his powers in a clutch. He earns 5 or 6 conflict a session just using the force, because he can't roll light when he needs it. Then a few bad morality rolls and he's been sliding to the dark side ever since. Not because he wants to, but because the rng is turning him dark. So the I'm sorry guys I need to just stand here like an idiot while you do all the work, because I can't use my force powers with out going darkside is a load of bantha manure. Its not the player's fault the rng gives him dark side pips nor is it his fault he can't roll above a 5 on his morality rolls. He is literally being rolled out of existence.

Your character uses the Force? That's great. My character uses blasters. You know what happens sometimes? I miss. Especially at first level.

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

Pretend he never defined his PC as a good guy. Pretend that from the start, he was using Move to lift people up and let them drop ( ). Pretend he has been consistently doing conflict generating/evil things. Now his morality is below 30. He intends to continue playing the same way. What would you do, if anything?

 

This, to me, would be an example of not being interested in the Morality mechanic. He does what his character WANTS to do. If that means conflict, fine. If not, also fine. If it takes him below 30, fine; he will continue doing what his character wants to do.

 

Oh, for those wondering how we got here:

"move is imba, lift people up and let them drop"

"no it isn't because if you do that...zomg CONFLICT!"

"So? omgwtfbbq CONFLICT is not a deterrent!"

 

Ahh. Okay, so then he was basically playing a bad guy from the beginning. This is the first issue, and as soon as this behavior exhibited itself I would say "Alright, if you're gonna be that way from the beginning, we're going to need to change up your PC a bit. After this session, let's take your Morality down to 29 (+/- any adjustmens from tonight) and adjust [X Morality award] in light of the rewards of this session. This is because you're being a bad guy, and this system assumes that you're a good guy. So the deterrent is that you lose a potential opportunity for +10 XP or +2500 credits if you want to start as a bad guy.

"Or, if you want to instead roleplay your descent into darkness and ultimate fall, then by all means you keep your PC as is and we'll talk about narrating the fall in a few sessions! It will be the central theme to a future adventure."

 

Agreements preclude disagreements. I have just given the player two choices, both very reasonable, and he can take either one. The price he must pay is either the credits/XP he got at character creation OR a bit of roleplaying a few sessions later. That doesn't sound too hard, does it?

 

If neither solution sounds good to him, and he tells me then and there that he doesn't care about the Morality mechanic, then that solves the situation too. "Here's your 20 Magnitude Obligation instead, then! Let's roll with it, and since you're the only person with the Obligation, you can crank that sucker HIGH."

 

So from the beginning I would have already created a set of expectations. If there is a later breach of social contract, then we can deal with it as it comes in a reasonable way that lets the player keep having fun, but also keeps the game fun and immersive for everyone else. 

 

And in any case, he's a dark sider doing powerful dark side things with the Force? Expect a visit from an inquisitor tomorrow! And a team of inquisitors next week! And Darth Vader himself not long after that, if he keeps at it. The Sith don't like to share power...

[Rakaydos 4,236]

 

Pretend he never defined his PC as a good guy. Pretend that from the start, he was using Move to lift people up and let them drop ( ). Pretend he has been consistently doing conflict generating/evil things. Now his morality is below 30. He intends to continue playing the same way. What would you do, if anything?

 

This, to me, would be an example of not being interested in the Morality mechanic. He does what his character WANTS to do. If that means conflict, fine. If not, also fine. If it takes him below 30, fine; he will continue doing what his character wants to do.

 

Oh, for those wondering how we got here:

"move is imba, lift people up and let them drop"

"no it isn't because if you do that...zomg CONFLICT!"

"So? omgwtfbbq CONFLICT is not a deterrent!"

 

Ahh. Okay, so then he was basically playing a bad guy from the beginning. This is the first issue, and as soon as this behavior exhibited itself I would say "Alright, if you're gonna be that way from the beginning, we're going to need to change up your PC a bit. After this session, let's take your Morality down to 29 (+/- any adjustmens from tonight) and adjust [X Morality award] in light of the rewards of this session. This is because you're being a bad guy, and this system assumes that you're a good guy. So the deterrent is that you lose a potential opportunity for +10 XP or +2500 credits if you want to start as a bad guy.

"Or, if you want to instead roleplay your descent into darkness and ultimate fall, then by all means you keep your PC as is and we'll talk about narrating the fall in a few sessions! It will be the central theme to a future adventure."

 

Agreements preclude disagreements. I have just given the player two choices, both very reasonable, and he can take either one. The price he must pay is either the credits/XP he got at character creation OR a bit of roleplaying a few sessions later. That doesn't sound too hard, does it?

 

If neither solution sounds good to him, and he tells me then and there that he doesn't care about the Morality mechanic, then that solves the situation too. "Here's your 20 Magnitude Obligation instead, then! Let's roll with it, and since you're the only person with the Obligation, you can crank that sucker HIGH."

 

So from the beginning I would have already created a set of expectations. If there is a later breach of social contract, then we can deal with it as it comes in a reasonable way that lets the player keep having fun, but also keeps the game fun and immersive for everyone else. 

 

And in any case, he's a dark sider doing powerful dark side things with the Force? Expect a visit from an inquisitor tomorrow! And a team of inquisitors next week! And Darth Vader himself not long after that, if he keeps at it. The Sith don't like to share power...

 

it sounds like you're punishing a player for not conforming to your expectations. If he needed that extra +10 xp for starting stats, that's not something you can retroactively patch up.

 

And as for the inquisition, why does the PC not ALREADY have the inquisition on them?

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

I just talked to the hypothetical player; he is totally cool with what I suggested.

 

It turns out he wasn't at all interested in Morality, so he opted to take Obligation (Addiction) and said he was addicted to the dark side of the Force. I liked it so much that I made him a dark side Force user: he gets to use DS Pips by default to fuel his Force powers, and in exchange we turn a Destiny Point from light to dark at the beginning of the game. I ignored the Strain/Wound Threshold adjustments, because I felt those belonged more to the Morality mechanic, and it already feels balanced to me.

 

I gave him a 20 magnitude Obligation, and he opted to increase it by 20 to gain +10 XP and +2,500 credits, so it is the best of both worlds for him, and there's still only a 40% chance of activating his Obligation.

 

I asked him if he felt punished by this, and he said "No." 

 

As for inquisitors, we've only had our first hypothetical session. Patience, Rakaydos, there will be inquisitors. Oh, there will be inquisitors. And I will hypothetically tell you all about it when it happens...

[dfn 88]

Ahh. Okay, so then he was basically playing a bad guy from the beginning. This is the first issue, and as soon as this behavior exhibited itself I would say "Alright, if you're gonna be that way from the beginning, we're going to need to change up your PC a bit. After this session, let's take your Morality down to 29 (+/- any adjustmens from tonight) and adjust [X Morality award] in light of the rewards of this session. This is because you're being a bad guy, and this system assumes that you're a good guy.

The system is pretty clear with giving the players the option of XP/credits in place of Morality up/down. Why would you take that option away, since it is in the rules?

 

"Or, if you want to instead roleplay your descent into darkness and ultimate fall, then by all means you keep your PC as is and we'll talk about narrating the fall in a few sessions! It will be the central theme to a future adventure."

How about another example. You initially brought up the idea of someone playing a "good guy" but tanking their morality. I countered with someone who is not playing a "good guy" at all - now lets go to someone who just plays to evolve their character. They want to start with the XP/credits bonus from Morality. They have no idea if their PC will be good, evil, or whatever. They will just act according to what they want their PC to do based on the situation they're facing. In this case, I assume you would simply have them RP their "fall"?

 

If neither solution sounds good to him, and he tells me then and there that he doesn't care about the Morality mechanic, then that solves the situation too. "Here's your 20 Magnitude Obligation instead, then! Let's roll with it, and since you're the only person with the Obligation, you can crank that sucker HIGH."

Would they still get conflict for *cough* usingMovetoliftenemiesandlettingthemfall *cough*? If yes, how does that work? If not, we're back to there is no deterrent to using Move that way.

 

Honestly, I think you personally wouldn't run into any of these issues because it seems you'd set expectations beforehand. That's what I like - that's something I think everyone should do, whether they're playing by RAW, houserules, with or without the Morality mechanic, and so on. Also good to set expectations for tone, and so on.

What's kind of ironic about our exchange is that I think I'd really enjoy playing at your table, but to a third party, it may not seem that way lol.

As an aside, for one of the PCs I'm currently playing, I had no intent for him to go dark. But it seems to be happening anyway... The last 3 sessions, I rolled a 1 on the d10, and each session I used Force Move to save allies from harm. I kept on getting 3-4 dark pips, which meant 3-4 conflict. When that happens a few times in a session, and you roll a 1, it might be surprising how quickly your Morality dips. It has been a full 3 sessions since the last time I had more than 1 light pip on my force rolls. Sleepwalking your way to Paragon? For me, it is more like Saving your way to Palp's favourite pupil. Only mentioning this because of the other discussions going on. Now, I could have not used the dark pips - and let my allies get destroyed. However, it isn't what I wanted to do.

Edited July 24, 2015 by dfn

[deraforia 169]

As an aside, for one of the PCs I'm currently playing, I had no intent for him to go dark. But it seems to be happening anyway... The last 3 sessions, I rolled a 1 on the d10, and each session I used Force Move to save allies from harm. I kept on getting 3-4 dark pips, which meant 3-4 conflict. When that happens a few times in a session, and you roll a 1, it might be surprising how quickly your Morality dips. It has been a full 3 sessions since the last time I had more than 1 light pip on my force rolls. Sleepwalking your way to Paragon? For me, it is more like Saving your way to Palp's favourite pupil. Only mentioning this because of the other discussions going on. Now, I could have not used the dark pips - and let my allies get destroyed. However, it isn't what I wanted to do.

At this point, it might be best to just accept that the dark side is stronger. Seems like it would cost you a lot less strain to go full dark. Honestly, I think that's an interesting story to tell. But if a mechanic is not telling the story you want it to, yeah, I would suggest working it out with the GM to make the necessarily changes (lower conflict to one per roll, rather than one per pip, or just stop getting conflict for it after a certain point).

My two cents, anyway.

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

The system is pretty clear with giving the players the option of XP/credits in place of Morality up/down. Why would you take that option away, since it is in the rules?

 

If a player has no interest in roleplaying his fall to the dark side, I will not force him to do so. There are two other core mechanics that he can choose from if he doesn't want to play the Morality mechanic. So I don't really see it as "taking away options;" I am offering alternatives to the options that he isn't satisfied with!

 

How about another example. You initially brought up the idea of someone playing a "good guy" but tanking their morality. I countered with someone who is not playing a "good guy" at all - now lets go to someone who just plays to evolve their character. They want to start with the XP/credits bonus from Morality. They have no idea if their PC will be good, evil, or whatever. They will just act according to what they want their PC to do based on the situation they're facing. In this case, I assume you would simply have them RP their "fall"?

 

At the point that they accept the Morality mechanic and all that it entails, especially after I explain to them the consequences for a declining Morality score, then yes, I would expect them to uphold their end of the contract they struck. That seems to be reasonable to me. However, if they find later that they are just "not feeling it," then I would be inclined to help them look for options. Again, easiest option is just to put the PC on hiatus for a session and then bring him back re-designed into a version that the player can get on board with 100%...basically just have the PC "fall" off-screen and then have people wonder what the tipping point was...but it really just depends on the situation, what the player wants out of the character, how they want to use the Force, etc.

 

 

If neither solution sounds good to him, and he tells me then and there that he doesn't care about the Morality mechanic, then that solves the situation too. "Here's your 20 Magnitude Obligation instead, then! Let's roll with it, and since you're the only person with the Obligation, you can crank that sucker HIGH."

Would they still get conflict for *cough* usingMovetoliftenemiesandlettingthemfall *cough*? If yes, how does that work? If not, we're back to there is no deterrent to using Move that way.

 

 

Nah, if they didn't want to play Morality in the first place, I'm not gonna force it on them. If Conflict isn't a deterrent to them, the inquisitorius might be But all these things can simply lead to greater adventures, if you let them. Not to mention the way people will treat your PC once you start using the Force in such an evil way.

 

Honestly, I think you personally wouldn't run into any of these issues because it seems you'd set expectations beforehand. That's what I like - that's something I think everyone should do, whether they're playing by RAW, houserules, with or without the Morality mechanic, and so on. Also good to set expectations for tone, and so on.

What's kind of ironic about our exchange is that I think I'd really enjoy playing at your table, but to a third party, it may not seem that way lol.

Ha ha...yeah, like you say, setting the expectations upfront makes everything much easier. Not that it's some ironclad rule-that-you-must-follow-or-suffer-my-wrath, but simply that it's something we agreed upon. If we need to "re-negotiate terms," that's totally cool, but at least we have a basis for understanding each other.

 

As an aside, for one of the PCs I'm currently playing, I had no intent for him to go dark. But it seems to be happening anyway... The last 3 sessions, I rolled a 1 on the d10, and each session I used Force Move to save allies from harm. I kept on getting 3-4 dark pips, which meant 3-4 conflict. When that happens a few times in a session, and you roll a 1, it might be surprising how quickly your Morality dips. It has been a full 3 sessions since the last time I had more than 1 light pip on my force rolls. Sleepwalking your way to Paragon? For me, it is more like Saving your way to Palp's favourite pupil. Only mentioning this because of the other discussions going on. Now, I could have not used the dark pips - and let my allies get destroyed. However, it isn't what I wanted to do.

 

And therein lies the insidious nature of the dark side. Little by little, pulling you slowly and inexorably into its embrace. Just give in to your anger...you will save your friends! That's seduction at its best! The kind that starts out all unassuming and innocent, but by the time you realize what's actually going on, you're already too involved, and you realize that it's something that you want. It's not even a rational choice at that point. 

Edited July 26, 2015 by awayputurwpn