Changing Morality rules a little?

[Aetrion 441]

7 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Besides, the current system tends to keep you right in the middle unless your character is making some active effort to strive into either direction. If this is not the case for your sessions than either what you consider rational behavior is rather outside the norms what the system considers normal or your play sessions are just too long and you should use a "bigger" dice instead. 

That isn't my experience at all. Both GMing and playing in games there is absolutely no natural trend toward people getting 5-6 conflict as a baseline. People who want their character to go up in morality would also simply avoid taking more conflict once they hit 5 points, and the GM should never force conflict on people that they can't avoid at all. 

[SEApocalypse 4,443]

59 minutes ago, Aetrion said:

That isn't my experience at all. Both GMing and playing in games there is absolutely no natural trend toward people getting 5-6 conflict as a baseline. People who want their character to go up in morality would also simply avoid taking more conflict once they hit 5 points, and the GM should never force conflict on people that they can't avoid at all. 

Besides, the current system tends to keep you right in the middle unless your character is making some active effort to strive into either direction. If this is not the case for your sessions than either what you consider rational behavior is rather outside the norms what the system considers normal or your play sessions are just too long and you should use a "bigger" dice instead. 

[Aetrion 441]

I don't see your point in any way. All of my experience with the game has people trending to 100 as long as they don't deliberately do evil things all the time. Sure, you can throw them moral conundrums here or there to stump them a bit, but ultimately they often wind up making decisions according to what their current conflict is.

[Daeglan 5,950]

Are they actively trying to be a darksider? If not then I do not see the problem.

[Aetrion 441]

It's not exactly a problem, it's just kind of a weak system if everyone winds up a paragon of light. 

Personally I would prefer a system that creates a representative number on a spectrum, or a system where your 100 is variable the same way as duty or obligation can be variable. The system currently in place is awfully complex for somthing that produces a largely binary outcome. If people are essentially free to choose if they want to go light or dark through their actions then why bother having a system with subjectively awarded conflict and randomly generated morality increases?

Really the only thing that's a struggle in the system where every little point counts is redeeming yourself with a character who is built to use force powers. 

Edited March 15, 2017 by Aetrion

[HappyDaze 10,108]

Well, the Force is your ally, but it shouldn't be doing the whole job on its own. You need to bring something yourself. If you don't, then your going to need to convert those black pips and eating the Conflict.

[Daeglan 5,950]

2 hours ago, Aetrion said:

It's not exactly a problem, it's just kind of a weak system if everyone winds up a paragon of light. 

Personally I would prefer a system that creates a representative number on a spectrum, or a system where your 100 is variable the same way as duty or obligation can be variable. The system currently in place is awfully complex for somthing that produces a largely binary outcome. If people are essentially free to choose if they want to go light or dark through their actions then why bother having a system with subjectively awarded conflict and randomly generated morality increases?

Really the only thing that's a struggle in the system where every little point counts is redeeming yourself with a character who is built to use force powers. 

I am pretty sure this is by design. As you should be able to go in the direction you want. Staying in the middle is hard. Falling is easy and going to the light is easy unless you have fallen. Then it is hard. 

[Kael 1,865]

3 hours ago, Aetrion said:

 

It's not exactly a problem, it's just kind of a weak system if everyone winds up a paragon of light. 

 

 

I would only call it a weak system if this were a problem occurring for everyone. This problem seems unique to your gaming group. Which indicates that the problem itself isn't the system but something in how you guys game. Weak systems tend to affect multiple groups, not just one. 

 

Like I said before, I would really like to see how your groups is getting the results you do because frankly with everyone else getting a different set of results the problem has to be how you guys are approaching the game and not the game itself. 

[HappyDaze 10,108]

If anything, it's a fragile system that breaks easily when it's not used exactly as intended. Unfortunately, the designers' intentions are not explicitly spelled out, so user error is common.

[Aetrion 441]

What do you think the exact intended use is?

[Daeglan 5,950]

2 hours ago, Aetrion said:

What do you think the exact intended use is?

That people drift up if they are not explicitly trying to fall. The speed this happens in dependant on the GM challenging the players morality. The devs have said this game is about hard choices. Which to me means you are meant to present hard choices as a GM. All the stories about heroes I have seen the choices are not easy.

[Aetrion 441]

My definition of hard choices is a choice that has no obvious right answer, which doesn't work at all with the morality system, because if you take conflict regardless of what you choose then you have no agency over whether you go up or down. If you know exactly which choice will make you go up and which choice will make you go down on the other hand the only thing the GM can do to make the choice "hard" is by attaching a significant cost to the choice for up. That doesn't make the choice hard though, it just makes the choice painful. 

A hard choice is something like, a section of your capital ship has suffered catastrophic damage and caught fire, there are hundreds of people still in that section, but it also contains fuel and munitions for fighter operations. You can vent the atmosphere in the affected section to put out the fire immediately, but kill everyone inside, which guarantees the rest of the ship will be safe. You can tell the crew inside to try to fight the blaze manually, but they have already sustained heavy casualties, and if they don't succeed the entire ship will be destroyed. Or you can order an evacuation of the affected section, but without any efforts to fight the fire you have no idea how many turns of evacuating people you have before the ship blows, so eventually you'll have to close the bulkheads and vent the atmosphere.

That's what a hard choice is, having to make a decision with extreme consequences without ever being able to find out if you could have gotten a better result by doing something different. Let's say you give them three turns to evacuate, then vent the atmosphere, someone can always say "You murdered those people, you should have given them more time!" but you'll never know if the ship would have exploded on turn 4 or 5. That's what a hard choice is. 

How do you award conflict in a situation like that though? Risking the lives of everyone on board the ship to save people in the burning section isn't exactly a no-conflict action. Killing the people in the burning section outright to save the ship also sounds like it will give conflict. Evacuating people, trying to strike a balance between risk to the ship and rescuing crewmembers also isn't automatically the best plan. All of those choices potentially carry conflict. 

Edited March 16, 2017 by Aetrion

[Daeglan 5,950]

13 minutes ago, Aetrion said:

My definition of hard choices is a choice that has no obvious right answer, which doesn't work at all with the morality system, because if you take conflict regardless of what you choose then you have no agency over whether you go up or down. If you know exactly which choice will make you go up and which choice will make you go down on the other hand the only thing the GM can do to make the choice "hard" is by attaching a significant cost to the choice for up. That doesn't make the choice hard though, it just makes the choice painful. 

A hard choice is something like, a section of your capital ship has suffered catastrophic damage and caught fire, there are hundreds of people still in that section, but it also contains fuel and munitions for fighter operations. You can vent the atmosphere in the affected section to put out the fire immediately, but kill everyone inside, which guarantees the rest of the ship will be safe. You can tell the crew inside to try to fight the blaze manually, but they have already sustained heavy casualties, and if they don't succeed the entire ship will be destroyed. Or you can order an evacuation of the affected section, but without any efforts to fight the fire you have no idea how many turns of evacuating people you have before the ship blows, so eventually you'll have to close the bulkheads and vent the atmosphere.

That's what a hard choice is, having to make a decision with extreme consequences without ever being able to find out if you could have gotten a better result by doing something different. Let's say you give them three turns to evacuate, then vent the atmosphere, someone can always say "You murdered those people, you should have given them more time!" but you'll never know if the ship would have exploded on turn 4 or 5. That's what a hard choice is. 

How do you award conflict in a situation like that though? Risking the lives of everyone on board the ship to save people in the burning section isn't exactly a no-conflict action. Killing the people in the burning section outright to save the ship also sounds like it will give conflict. Evacuating people, trying to strike a balance between risk to the ship and rescuing crewmembers also isn't automatically the best plan. All of those choices potentially carry conflict. 

OK then Tell me another better way of handling it. Cause so far all I hear is complaining. With nothing offered up as better. 

[Aetrion 441]

I've posted several suggestions for other systems, some even in this thread. 

[HappyDaze 10,108]

Just now, Aetrion said:

I've posted several suggestions for other systems, some even in this thread. 

OK. Give them a try and let us know how they work out in actual play when used with this system and setting.

[Garran 485]

Aetrion, the F&D definition of hard choices is what you called painful ones - doing things the right (and more difficult and/or costly) way vs doing them the easy (and unethical/immoral) way. The latter generates conflict as its price.

"No right answer" situations can still be part of the story and make for good dramatic tension (if used sparingly) , but they don't play to the good/evil trope that morality and conflict are supposed to - however imperfectly - represent.

Edited March 16, 2017 by Garran

[Aetrion 441]

14 minutes ago, Garran said:

Aetrion, the F&D definition of hard choices is what you called painful ones - doing things the right (and more difficult and/or costly) way vs doing them the easy (and unethical/immoral) way. The latter generates conflict as its price.

Yea, and that's exactly what I don't like about the system. Being a paragon isn't hard, it just means being frugal with your goodness points and only spending them when you're topping out or when the cost is unusually great. 

Edited March 16, 2017 by Aetrion

[StarkJunior 1,240]

It's not hard if your GM isn't giving you proper situations. In our game, my Paragon struggles to maintain that status because he is always being challenged and frequently the good and right decision makes things much more difficult.

Also, remember, this system relies a lot more on the players than Obligation or Duty do. If players are just fiddling along and not really playing to their Morality, then of course it's just going to be an easy thing. Force and Destiny is way more about personal development that occurs on the inside, not the exterior things that Obligation and Duty rely on.

Further, it's also okay to gain Conflict with even the good decision sometimes - Conflict doesn't equal bad, it just means the character was conflicted about the choice, which they certainly can even if they made the morally good choice.

Edited March 16, 2017 by StarkJunior

[Kael 1,865]

9 hours ago, Aetrion said:

Yea, and that's exactly what I don't like about the system. Being a paragon isn't hard, it just means being frugal with your goodness points and only spending them when you're topping out or when the cost is unusually great.

 

It is hard though if the GM makes it that way. The rules are written to give freedom to GM's who don't really care to make it hard but to also allow it to be harder for GM's who want to make it hard. A good ruleset is adaptable to multiple groups. If it's not hard it's because the GM isn't making it hard. The rules are written to accommodate different playstyles. 

You seem to want a system that does all the heavy mechanical lifting for you. And that's not this system. Which isn't bad. It just means it's not for you. But that is hardly a system fault. 

[Aetrion 441]

I love how half the arguments on this board basically just consist of the same half dozen people strawmanning someone's position or then telling them the game isn't for them just because they want to see some portions of it improved. I get private messages from people telling me they agree with me but don't want to argue with the people doing this stuff too because they are afraid to actually speak up on the boards and be subjected to the same nonsense. Sad state of affairs around here. 

[Kael 1,865]

3 minutes ago, Aetrion said:

I love how half the arguments on this board basically just consist of the same half dozen people strawmanning someone's position or then telling them the game isn't for them just because they want to see some portions of it improved. I get private messages from people telling me they agree with me but don't want to argue with the people doing this stuff too because they are afraid to actually speak up on the boards and be subjected to the same nonsense. Sad state of affairs around here. 

 

So your defense is "people secretly agree with me"?

[SEApocalypse 4,443]

32 minutes ago, Kael said:

So your defense is "people secretly agree with me"?

He still has a point. People want this game to be for them, despite mechanics rubbing them the wrong way or the inability to properly execute those mechanics. Just because building encounter around jury-rigged autofire weapons or around morality rules is no issue for your or my table, it does not mean that this can't be a huge issue for others. 

So changing the system in ways to adjust it to those tables who do not like those aspects of the game is legitimate. Being a drumpf  about it and claiming that people secretly agree with you … shows just how different those tables must be from mine  xxx

Edited March 16, 2017 by SEApocalypse

[Kael 1,865]

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

He still has a point. People want this game to be for them, despite mechanics rubbing them the wrong way or the inability to properly execute those mechanics. Just because building encounter around jury-rigged autofire weapons or around morality rules is no issue for your or my table, it does not mean that this can't be a huge issue for others. 

 

 

Sure, but in those situations, the problem is less about the game itself and more about how to fine tune the rules to fit your table. As I stated before no rule set can sastify everyone. There is no game, anywhere, that is 100% for everyone who picks it up. I've made changes to every D&D edition I've used. I make changes to WoD. I made changes to the last Star Wars. I made changes to Delta Green. But all those changes are about fine tunning the game to suit my personal taste and not about claiming the game itself is busted because it wasn't written specifically for me. 

And I asked him repeatedly about the conditions at his table so that we could tailor advice to suit his table and he's never given it. And he's been asked if he's actually playtested rules changes and what the results where and he's not provided that kind of information. So there isn't much anyone else can do other than to point out that the problem seems to be somewhere with how he's using the game. Which isn't a bad thing. There is no way to build an rpg that 100% fits every gaming table it will ever be used at. But if you go to the forums looking for help and don't provide details about your unique table then all we have to draw upon is our experince at our tables and in that regard, no problem exist. 

If the problem isn't replicated at other tables I'm less inclined to think the RAW is wrong. I'm all for game improvement. I think there are areas that could be improved should they do a 2nd Edition. But those improvements will likely be based on the reports of many tables as opposed to one table. 

Edited March 16, 2017 by Kael

[Darth Pizza 3]

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but...

If the intent is to make the morality role less "swingy", instead of d10, I use 2d4, which introduces a bell curve, with an average roll of 5.

[LordBritish 1,016]

12 hours ago, Darth Pizza said:

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but...

If the intent is to make the morality role less "swingy", instead of d10, I use 2d4, which introduces a bell curve, with an average roll of 5.

Aye, I generally noticed that using more dice makes a result more consistant, more like a bell curve.