Just another Homebrew Morality Tweak

[Silverburst3 7]

Alright alright, nobody get triggered I’m just bouncing an idea out there. 
 

What if, when you roll a force power check and it rolls dark side pips (as a light side force user) you are forced to face a Discipline check with difficulty equal to the amount of DS pips and if you succeed you resist the dark side and are able to spend ADV to turn DS to LS (Still taking strain per pip). This is just an idea to help illustrate balance and control in the force, oh and you take strain for any Threat generated. Failure on the check means you take conflict equal to all the DS pips rolled. Plus this could potentially give another use for the Discipline skill and maybe explain how Jedi such as Windu could walk that fine line between the dark and the light. 
 

any thoughts? If you prefer RAW then that’s cool I just like bouncing ideas around. 

[Daeglan 5,950]

2 minutes ago, Silverburst3 said:

Alright alright, nobody get triggered I’m just bouncing an idea out there. 
 

What if, when you roll a force power check and it rolls dark side pips (as a light side force user) you are forced to face a Discipline check with difficulty equal to the amount of DS pips and if you succeed you resist the dark side and are able to spend ADV to turn DS to LS (Still taking strain per pip). This is just an idea to help illustrate balance and control in the force, oh and you take strain for any Threat generated. Failure on the check means you take conflict equal to all the DS pips rolled. Plus this could potentially give another use for the Discipline skill and maybe explain how Jedi such as Windu could walk that fine line between the dark and the light. 
 

any thoughts? If you prefer RAW then that’s cool I just like bouncing ideas around. 

It takes agency away from the player

[HappyDaze 10,108]

Adding a roll to follow a roll just makes the action take too much dice play for my tastes. 

[Silverburst3 7]

21 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

It takes agency away from the player

If it wasn’t forced but was an option does that help?

[Silverburst3 7]

25 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Adding a roll to follow a roll just makes the action take too much dice play for my tastes. 

Yep understood. My game is a 2 player game and only 1 is force sensitive so the drag on time wouldn’t be as bad 

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Main question to ask is "what benefit does this extra roll on top of an existing roll provide?"

Honestly, I'm not seeing any real benefit to this house rule, and instead see this slowing down the game, especially in a group with multiple Force users.  While he may have been a bit blunt, Daeglan is right in that having a roll to see if you can safely use those dark pips begins to undercut the player agency, which is generally a red flag when it comes to house rules.  You've also got an issue with those powers that already require a Discipline (or some other skill) check as part of just using the power in the first place.

Also, Discipline has plenty of uses already for Force users, being the primary skill used when making opposed checks for Force powers, on top of its uses to resist fear (a mechanic that many GMs underutilize), as well as opposing Deception and Coercion checks, and the ever-important strain recovery.

Edited January 20 by Donovan Morningfire

[P-47 Thunderbolt 4,177]

And opposing Charm, though that is also often underutilized from what I've heard/seen (which is a whole 'nother can of worms on player agency that I want to get into at some point, but this isn't the thread for that.

Discipline is one of the most important skills for many sorts of characters (and pretty much all force-sensitives), so giving it yet another use seems like a bad idea.

 

One reason as to why it could slow the game down is that some powers, such as Enhance, add force dice to existing pools, meaning that they would have to roll a Discipline check pretty much every time they use that skill (unless you've got FR 1, in which case it's only about 58.3% of the time). So while applying it to Move won't have the same effect, applying it to all force power checks can end up causing issues.

I am all for skill diversification, so I am hesitant to make Discipline any more useful, especially for force users, given how important it already is. Same issue (to a somewhat lesser degree) with Willpower.

 

It is an interesting idea, but I think it would end up bogging down the game too much to have a second roll that needs interpreting before you can even finish interpreting the first one.

[HappyDaze 10,108]

54 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

And opposing Charm, though that is also often underutilized from what I've heard/seen

In this system, the "defender" uses Cool--not Discipline--to resist Charm.

However, Discipline is used to resist Leadership. Hopefully those with authority over you are not abusing it, but sometimes even Rebels are rascals.

[emsquared 779]

From what I've seen, almost no one has a problem with it being too easy to gain Conflict/fall to the Darkside.

"Everyone"instead seems to have problems "preventing" players from sky-rocketing to Lightside Paragon/implementing Morality.

So, why make it even harder still to slide into the Darkside?

Now, I have called on/allowed Players to make a Discipline check to avoid Conflict that I've assessed for narrative purposes ("Hey, it seems like your PC is really upset right now. Would you be opposed to talking Conflict, or rolling a Discipline check to avoid it?"), and that works very very well toward implementing Mortality.

But making it harder to creep toward the Darkside - for using the literal Darkside - !?

Abso-friggin'-lutely not.

[Nytwyng 5,759]

It seems to me to be a system for those times a player wants to do something with the Force, doesn’t get the light pips, but doesn’t want to take conflict, allowing for a “do over.” But that completely undercuts the narrative aspect of how the system’s designed to work.

[Daeglan 5,950]

14 hours ago, Silverburst3 said:

If it wasn’t forced but was an option does that help?

What benefit does it bring to the game? Seems to me you are trying to push more conflict on the character. Which the player may not be interested in getting.  So I would go back to what are trying to accomplish?