At the end of a session, the GM will ask you whether or not your Emotional Strength or Weakness played a part in an action you took that caused you to gain conflict from the Moral Conduct table. If your Emotional Strength was primarily at play, the GM may reduce the amount of conflict you take by up to 2 from the action or increase it by up to 2 if your Emotional Weakness was primarily at play. This is in addition to +3/-3 modifier GM's can add to a Moral Conduct threshold based on mitigating or exacerbating circumstances. We encourage players to use this system to engage with the emotional strengths and weaknesses of their character, rather than simply trying to work the system.
In Jedi Order: New Era there is a new system in place for the process of gaining and losing morality. A google document version can also be found here.
Step 0 - Set Morality Gain
Before the session is posted, GM sets morality gain for the session based on the general tone of the session.
Morality Gain | Tone | Description |
10 | Redemption | Session is purposely to help in the moral development or recovery of a PC/PCs. |
6 | Feel Good/Therapeutic | Session focuses on performing goodly deeds, charitable acts, or mental/spiritual recovery. |
4 | Normal Stress | Session is tonally a traditional space opera action adventure tale. The bad guys are intended to be defeated and will deserve their fate; the heroes are heroic and will save the day. |
3 | Dark Themes | Session focuses on the darker sides of humanity; a happy ending is possible and even likely, but the knowledge that this could even happen at all is upsetting. |
2 | Bleak Themes | Session focuses on somber themes. Darker concepts and details in Star Wars usually kept in the background, indirectly impled, or just lightly touched on (e.g. genocide, slavery, torture) are brough to the foreground and are in the explicit text of the session. The Darkside is very present, even if a Darksider is not. |
0 | Hopeless | The session deals with a scenario where a happy ending is in fact impossible and the best outcome is harm reduction. Even if the “villain” is defeated, the Darkside still wins. |
Step 1 - Choose Moral Conduct
Consulting the table below, the GM and Player agree upon how much the Darkside’s temptation has grown via the PC’s conduct that session. The PC takes Conflict based on the highest threshold crossed that session. They only take conflict from the worst of these. Also, remember, it is the GM’s responsibility to warn the players that they are about to perform an act that gains Conflict before the action is finalized.
Conflict Gain | Temptation from Fear | Temptation from Anger | Temptation from Hate | Temptation from Suffering |
1 | Choosing to withhold help/aid, even towards the undeserving | Verbally lashing out | Lying or cheating for personal gain | Being, without provocation, unnecessarily rude or petty |
2 | Electing to not save an unjust person from an unjust circumstance | Threatening/Bluffing with Violence | Disrespectful treatment of the dead | Openly mocking or demeaning another person's work or value |
3 | Theft for personal gain from a unjust sentient | Resorting to Violence as First Solution | Sabotaging or undermining something based on feelings of contempt and entitlement | Withholding useful information for personal gain |
4 | Theft for personal gain | Unprovoked Violence/Following through with threat of Violence | Unnecessary destruction of someone else’s property | Exposing others to a dangerous risk for personal gain |
5 | Theft for personal gain from a vulnerable or innocent sentient | Unnecessary Cruelty to an Unjust sentient | Choose to sacrifice a mission objective or duty for personal gain | Actively putting others in danger for personal gain |
6 | Electing to not save a vulnerable or innocent sentient | Unnecessary Cruelty to a vulnerable or innocent sentient | Choose to sacrifice vulnerable or innocent sentients for personal gain | Knowingly putting the vulnerable or innocent in danger for personal gain |
Special | At GM discretion, any of the above thresholds may be modified by up to +/- 2 due to mitigating or exacerbating circumstances. | |||
Clarification Of Terms
- Choose/Elect - A proactive decision was made to do so. Not a decision forced upon them.
- Unjust Sentient - A sentient being whose conduct is clearly awful and villainous. An NPC made to be a bad guy.
- Personal Gain - Done so they can keep it, personally profit from it, or personally get something from the act. Getting a sense of fulfillment from the act itself is a form of personal gain. Also encompasses personal vendettas.
- Cruelty - To cause suffering, physically or emotionally, with intent.
- Vulnerable - Someone or thing that, in the moment, lacks the power to resist in any meaningful way.
- Sentient - Something that is able to perceive and feel things. Persons, animals, and droids are all examples.
Step 2 - Resolve Mechanic Conflict
Players tallies up the total Force points converted from Darkside Force pips by their PC (GM should also be tracking such conversions to increase chance of catching an accounting error).
Step 3 - Severe Darkside Acts
Some actions are so extreme, they generate conflict in and of themselves, every and any time they are done. For every such action performed, the PC takes its appropriate Conflict. Mitigating circumstances and context may increase or lower the amount in a given performance of the act, but generally the amount should be around the listed values below. These actions fall outside the moral conduct table above and shouldn’t be used to double dip Conflict gain.
Conflict Gain | Severe Acts |
5 | Malicious, Emotional Manipulation or Abuse |
10 | Torture |
10 | Murdering someone of no physical threat |
15 | Murdering someone helpless or imprisoned |
Step 4 - Optional Reduction of Morality and Light Side Paragon Opt-in
At player request, they may reduce their character's overall morality gain by up to 2 if they feel that while their character did not participate in any major conflict generating actions, they had problematic or potentially conflict generating thoughts or actions. This optional reduction can bring a character to a net 0 Morality gain for the session, but may not bring them negative. You can hamper your characters moral growth, but 'backsliding' requires action. Becoming a Light Side Paragon requires nothing more than moving from 70 to 71 morality per RAW. However, we understand that players may wish to wait to reach Paragon status at a narratively more impactful moment. As such, if morality gain from a session would move your character to 71+ morality, you may request to reduce your morality gain, making Paragon status something you can choose to opt-in to. This optional reduction can once again only bring your net morality gain for a session to zero, but may not drop it into the negatives.