Morality/Trauma Discussion

May I ask a question?
If you witness an act that is Bad, and you take trauma for it, you're traumatised. If you DO an act that is bad, are you not then somewhat more bad? Because you can always choose NOT to, if you still have your druthers...

"If you DO an act that is bad, are you not then somewhat more bad?"

Maybe. I think perhaps three likely outcomes, depending on the specific person:
1. You were already the person who could have done that. (which isn't what you're asking, I know).
2. You completely regret the decision and never do anything bad again. (less likely - but not impossible)
3. You become a worse person - and this is what KC tries to enforce - but I also happen to think that you are only a worse person in that single regard.

I found a better example. You are typical. You would take trauma for "killing for a purpose/necessity, maiming, stealing". You are very poor. You decide to steal food. You get over it. You do it again. Over time, you get to the point where stealing causes you no guilt.

I do not think that ALL people, in that scenario would be "hardened" to the point where they can now steal any item without guilt, or could kill a person without guilt, or whatever.

I recognize that a system that can handle all possibilities is rather implausible - but I'm not convinced that the system needs to handle it. It's not the only way to solve my issue with the system, but one way would be to simplify trauma/morality, maybe something like the following:

If you suffer your mortal wound, you are "out of it" (crazy) for exactly one game. (This would discourage people just to take wounds in order to get better, while removing the possibility that you've completely lost your character)
When you come out, you can choose to:
* Shift morality either way (whether or not you had an aligned trauma)
* Take a preeminence or flaw that allows or disallows you to do the thing that brought you to where you were - for example now every time you steal, you automatically take a trauma point instead of having to roll, or maybe now you're typical BUT you can steal without difficulty
* Do nothing

This would probably involve more changes (is aligned trauma useless now?) and I REALLY doubt that everyone likes this, but like I said, ONE way to deal with it. I tend to think that the rules don't need to tell you how to do everything, but it's clear that Trent's philosophy is somewhat the opposite.

PS. I know this is in the wrong thread, but so's Jill's question to me... feel free to try moving it again if you wish, Jill.

My opinion is that the Morality system in KC is trying to do exactly this:

Laura wrote:You get over it. You do it again. Over time, you get to the point where stealing causes you no guilt.

This is why you get surface Trauma, then Severe Trauma, then Mortal Trauma...because if you keep doing the Bad Thing over and over, it basically means you're ignoring your morals. Your Morality, if you will. It's entirely possible to take Trauma, then heal it, in which case, you do NOT shift Morality. And I think that is the assumption; that most people will choose to heal their Trauma, assuage their guilt for acting against their own morals, rather than descend deeper down the spiral.

I understand that you just Do Not Like (or, as my very good friend Mary would say, CANNOT Like) the Morality system in KC.

In the Morality thread that should still be around, but may not be, please feel free to suggest alternative ways of dealing with Morality in a game that is based on, at its very core, sin versus virtue.

Malicia wrote:
I found a better example. You are typical. You would take trauma for "killing for a purpose/necessity, maiming, stealing". You are very poor. You decide to steal food. You get over it. You do it again. Over time, you get to the point where stealing causes you no guilt.

I do not think that ALL people, in that scenario would be "hardened" to the point where they can now steal any item without guilt, or could kill a person without guilt, or whatever.

IMO, the opinion you've given actually shows why the morality system does work well. A person who is typical and continues to steal out of need would indeed become *hardened*. That is what the hardened morality means - it means that borderline immoral acts like stealing out of necessity don't bug you so much, but things like murder still cause you significant trauma. Remember, the hardened morality on our scale is still on the "Moral" side of things. It's not until you become hardcore that you slip into the Immoral side of the scale.

Interesting points on both sides, but I do think it fair to say that the person who is willing to steal shouldn't necessarily have the same "protection" of a Hardened morality when faced with the prospect of killing out of necessity. I think the issue rankles a little with me because the split of Infected Trauma from other forms of Trauma already says that not everything functions at the same "very simplified" level, exceptions and new systems seem part and parcel with the complexity of the Trauma system so why make Morality, which is connected to Trauma, any different?

Now, I'm not advocating for a more complex morality system, but simply pointing out that the methodology for both doesn't seem to work quite the same. Two connected systems that don't have the same philosophical methodology for dealing with description and/or effect (in this case the level of complexities are different) will almost always create some difficulty in implementation.

Due to the level of complexity of Morality being much more simplified than the Trauma system you will always run across difficulties in having individual examples show how Moral a character is. To me, the act of deciding to take a life - justified by necessity or not, simply does not equal stealing on any level. However, not everyone's ethical structure matches mine and I don't expect it to be but KC does expect everyone's ethical structure to be based on the same chart. It's just another thing that you have to look the other way at unless you want to make Morality more complex or "diversified". Wade's example of diversification that happens in Unknown Armies is a good example of what I mean here.

Jenn's argument is a strong one if you're willing to accept the system as is, provided you are okay with a little role-playing to shoehorn it into the way people actually act, but sometimes even that isn't enough. Laura's points are closer to how people actually think about morality themselves but unfortunately this is not a universal principle, a principle required to get everyone in a gaming scenerio to be on the same page.

One of the other big issues related to this is that Trauma doesn't differentiate between "being traumatized" and "feeling guilty." Also, the frequency of either for a Morality shift in the system is quite low due to the often low stats in the game (read: lower than 4, a number I choose because the second difficulty in the game is 5 and attaining any stat to have a standard 50% success rate is uncommon). This means at MOST in a standard game people have to "feel guilty" and "be traumatized" only 8 times before possibly becoming a worse person. The issue I'm taking here is that "feeling guilty" doesn't equal "being traumatized" as a standard experience yet they are cumulatively identical in the system. Also, "feeling guilty" in a cognitively self-aware sense means that you haven't taken Trauma and are actually expressing your guilt to work through it. But as I read it, if you don't recognize the guilt you feel in yourself and are repressing it to a breaking point is when you're actually dealing with the Trauma - hence the move towards a Breakdown or Breakthrough. So the system is fundamentally adding apples (feeling guilt) and oranges (being traumatized - not being able to cope with what goes on around you) and expecting people to not raise a fuss since they're both kinda round-ish objects. Given the language used throughout the book there is an expectation (IMO) from most people that they didn't enter into the equation to add round-ish things together but to actually count apples and then count oranges.

And, now, I've likely totally derailed the thread. Sorry.

One other thing, since I am fond of providing a "solution" along with any difficulty I see:

For the issues I mentioned a possible solution could be that acts that you witness and are "being traumatized" fall under Psychological Trauma and that "feeling guilty" (actually - repressing it to an unhealthy level) fall under Emotional Trauma. This is not to say that "being traumatized" doesn't have an emotional component, because it certainly does, but it is not a guilt component which is how I'm differentiating the two. A person can then go through a Breakdown as per normal but only does a Breakthrough for Emotional Trauma at Mortal. This would more closely represent the dichotomy as I've laid it out, but not necessarily how things like Techniques deal with doling out Trauma...which I have a solution for too, but shouldn't be gotten into here since it requires more significant editing of the Trauma System than I'm sure Trent would like or even intend.

Jonathon says what I've been trying to say, possibly more elegantly. (Jenn, a person who slips from typical to hardened through stealing in this system does become capable of killing (from necessity, yes, but without guilt), something that I think perhaps you missed.) I would be happy enough if they became capable of stealing without having to drop to the level that killing is now ok, too. It's still not how everybody in the real world would respond, but much closer to reality.

PS. I think I'm the one who derailed the topic, but whatever. Take the blame if you wish.

PPS. Jonathon's solution is an interesting one, and would also solve the question that's always plagued me of "what really is the difference between psych and emo trauma?"

I'd also like to say, although I'm sure I'm beating a geriatric ungulate mammal here, that the list of Acts in the book *is not an exhaustive list*. Stealing a loaf of bread, f'rinstance, might be a Questionable Act, but stealing cars or kidnapping children might be an Heinous Act. Petty theft, in other words, versus Grand Larceny.

Assault might be a Questionable Act if you strike someone in self-defense, whereas it might be an Heinous Act if you strike someone and are the instigator.

There are Acts that will come up during the course of a story which are not on that list.

Killing a deer or a moose for food might be Questionable for some characters. Killing things that appear to be human is another issue altogether (refer to Wade's "soldier" arguments here).

Anyway. The point I'm making is that the list of Acts is not exhaustive and is, ultimately, mutable based on the Storyguide's interpretation of the setting, and, possibly in some cases, the player's ability to defend their actions based on their character's Morality and background, and on the situation. Of course, if you've written up a background wherein you were a hired demon killer but your Morality is "Typical", there might be some questions about what happened in between there...

My response I believe in the other thread as well, but there is one thing I'd like to add to it here since it is most relevant even on its own.

The subjectivity and circumstances under which a "moral crime" occurs and you have to test for Trauma isn't all that subjective under the rules. What I find holds a lot of weight in my own considerations is that any action that will prompt a trauma test according to the Hieararchy of Acts for a character is a FORCED Trauma test, and the only real subjectivity that can occur is based on the game master/story teller's discretion which can often not match the intent of the character when they undertook an action. This is a bit of a recipe for disaster since it is just another way in which an ST is kind of forced into "meddling" (when taken to it's negative extreme) with their own interpretation of a character's actions instead of the player getting to decide for themselves (if they are being reasonable and fair) how an action they took should affect their character's Morality.

*Hm*

1) By "FORCED Trauma test", do you mean a Forced Trauma? This is that "these terms are confusing" thing again. Because I'm not sure what the difference is between a "trauma test according to the Hierarchy of Acts" and "FORCED Trauma test", or if the difference is important.

2) Are you saying that the trauma tests for violating one's own character's Morality should be a decision entirely in the hands of the player? (I'm not saying I disagree; I just want to know if that's what you're suggesting.)

3) It has usually been the case in Providence that when someone witnesses an Henious Act or performs an Act that *may* be outside their Morality, I've asked them, "if you feel you should test for Trauma for witnessing this/seeing this, according to your Morality, please do so". Is this the kind of thing you're getting at?

I'm just confused a) with the concept of "Forced Trauma test" versus "trauma test", and b) where the line of 'responsibility' (not the right word, but I'm going ahead with it) lies in making the decision about whether an Act is Bad Enough to draw a test. (ie. Solely with the player? Solely with the SG? Somewhere in between?)

On 1) yes, I didn't catch the error until I hit send and my post just became available to me now to edit. Technically the Trauma from violation of the Moral Hierarchy is "Voluntary" but the player is forced to make the test and from that point on it is treated identically to Forced Trauma only it's called Voluntary for no reason that I can really fathom other than the player voluntarily did the act which prompted the challenge.

2) I'm saying that you can't really use terms like "mutable" or imply subjectivity in the Morality system because the mechanic seems to operate quite differently and the chart is pretty clear on where violations are in the Hierarchy.

3) I tried to restrict the last post to acts committed by the character. As provided earlier I think the difference between acts witnessed and acts done should be addressed but that right now there is no difference, so in a way everything I've indicated is equally true of acts witnessed. I'll have to double check but you have to test for Trauma every time you witness an act that is further down the Hierarchy than your current Morality. That will have to wait at least a few hours before I can get my hands on a BRB to confirm.

From how I read the system in the BRB you'd be cheating if you didn't take a test and the appropriate times since the Trauma from committing an act is considered Voluntary in a Forced way. At work we call that being Voluntold to do something. You weren't really asked, you didn't really volunteer, but they only asked to be polite since you have an obligation to do it now that it's been brought up.

Where I think the 'responsibility' ought to lie is solely with the player with the exception of Heinous Acts, committed or witnessed. Again, with the proviso that the player is being honest about things and not just avoiding negative effects on their character because in reality the character is their Mary Sue.

"Voluntold to do something" made me giggle.

I agree with you, Johnathan, in that the responsibility should lie with the player in making the tests. I do think the responsibility for announcing when such tests might be applicable lies with the Storyguide. Again, not as in being "Voluntold" (snicker), but just as a reminder, particularly when there are players new to the system.

Players who are just learning their own character sheets, for instance, might be able to ask the Storyguide for input. A *good* SG should be able to say, "Okay, well, if your Morality is X, and you've witnessed/done something that might be on the List, you might consider making a Trauma Test."

There are times, though, that I think it's okay for a Storyguide to say: "Everyone who witnessed this thing, whose Morality is X, please test for Trauma." (Contested Trauma)

I do *not* think that most situations call for a Storyguide to say: "Everyone who witnessed/took part in this thing, whose Morality is X, take an automatic Trauma." (Forced Trauma)

To be clear, the intent of my post was to point out the I think the rules should reflect that Trauma is a character decision for all but Heinous Acts. As it stands I have no contention with what you've just said as things are currently written, but I think the rules should be far more flexible and more in the control of the player for trauma related to Morality and commission of acts, and not a rigid construction of the game.

So how do you make them more flexible then, without causing Confusion and Consternation?

Remove the criteria for those who commit an act below their Morality to take a Voluntary Trauma test, and if there is currently a rule indicating witnessing an act below their Morality to take a test scrap that one too. Then put in a rule that says that only Heinous Acts require the Voluntary Trauma test for witnessing or committing acts.

This should provide players with a guideline as based on the Hierarchy of Acts to know when they feel they should be rolling for trauma based on their character and circumstance without letting people run totally rampant and still have the "evils" of the world forcibly affect them.

I thought I was pretty clear about this earlier, apologies if it was not.

Page 152 of the BRB indicates that committing an act that is Prohibited is a test, (usually difficulty 5, unless you are Hardcore in which case the difficulty is usually 2...see the start of the Trauma section for these points) however, witnessing a Prohibited Act is an automatic Forced Trauma, not a test, just the Trauma.

that the list of Acts in the book *is not an exhaustive list*.

Which is why the morality system is so subjective and essentially enforces the moral beliefs of the guide. My most frustrating moment in any KC game was being told by a guide that since pre-marital sex or smoking pot were questionable acts they would require trauma tests for a typical character. It shifted the moral spectrum out of the realm of "doing harm to others" into having to role-play out a belief system I disagreed with.

So how do you make them more flexible then, without causing Confusion and Consternation?

You can't. I would like to point out that philosophers, theologians, tyrants, saints, and people in general have been struggling to define "good" and "evil" for the entirety of human history. Hundreds of thousands of pages of religious and other writings have tackled these subjects with varying degrees of non-success. How any game designer expects to succinctly derive a clearly understood mechanism for defining the nature of morality in a few pages in a role-playing book without it becoming flat and one-dimensional at best and preachy and condescending at worst is baffling.

Yes the game is about "sin" and "virtue" and yes the game deals with the struggle of defining morality but in order to be consistent, KC needs to either have morality involve difficult choices and unknowable answers to questions regarding the true meaning of good and evil (in which case scrap having a mechanic for morality) or accept that a 3 page write up on the nature of good and evil will be simplistic, pontificating, and one-dimensional (in which case there should be a comprehensive list on what each act entails and playing the game requires a suspension of disbelief that involves accepting moral inconsistancies). Option #3 of course is to have a book that leaves things vague. The choice between option 1 and 2 then just gets passed along to the guide (which is how I currently view the system)

For the record, the option of simplistic and one dimensional is not inherently bad and in fact it is exactly what Alan Dotson and I were aiming for for many of the mechanics in his highschool game. We were purposefully trying to create the feel of cheesy 80's highschool movies and for that very reason did include mechanics for things like love, emotional wounds, and good and evil. While Fallen are supposed to have the emotional maturity of cheesy 80's highschool movie characters, I don't think Trent intended the feel of the game to emulate that genre.

There must be a way to devise a system of "right and wrong" actions that are fairly easily understood as "right and wrong". It would necessarily have to be somewhat arbitrary, and it would necessarily have to be somewhat...simple. However, I don't think a game like KC would fare very well without ANY sort of Morality scale.

Remove the criteria for those who commit an act below their Morality to
take a Voluntary Trauma test, and if there is currently a rule
indicating witnessing an act below their Morality to take a test scrap
that one too.

Do you mean "outside" of their Morality? ie. Prohibited Acts?

Then put in a rule that says that only Heinous Acts
require the Voluntary Trauma test for witnessing or committing acts.

How would this work then with Techniques that draw trauma tests for forcing people to perform acts outside of their Morality? Would it *only* apply to Heinous Acts? ie. forcing an innocent to maim someone (say, Branding) would *not* draw a Trauma test? Or would that be a situation in which the player and storyguide would discuss the matter?

Yes. I mean "Prohibited Act" when I said "an act below their Morality" however I also make allowance for any other Act that falls outside their Morality that isn't covered by Prohibited Act but since those other examples rarely if ever prompt a Trauma Test or Forced Trauma. I mention it only to cover off any other possible example that take the decision to take Trauma (or tests for Trauma) away from the player in the circumstances. The intent here is to declare that only in cases of Heinous Acts should a person be obligated by the rules to take a Trauma or make a Trauma Test.
I don't know which Techniques you are referencing. Although a character under the effects of a Technique may commit an act prohibited to their morality I think that unless the Technique specifically has a mechanic listed in it for such an act, the acts taken by the character should count as "Forced to Commit/Witness an Act Outside Their Morality" as per normal. I think "Forced" covers it off well enough.

I would hope, however, that those Techniques do not also have a "when the effect ends, now test for Trauma for just being under the Technique" since, providing the example of Pure Penitence used on an Hardcore or Irredeemable character they would then be taking Voluntary Trauma rolls for any Act of Gracethey committed while at Typical and, a Forced Trauma for every Act of Grace they Witnessed while being a do-gooder, then taking yet another Coerced Trauma Roll for the Technique. Since the rules governing these different types of Trauma all stack you could end an Immoral character's role in a story in one or two scenes. I think in the example I provide that the Immoral character should only have to take the Coerced Trauma Test, period. For those unaware, if a person has already taken their Coerced Trauma for the event the roll for Penitence, if failed, converts the previous Trauma to Aligned Moral Trauma which should be sufficient for prompting change or complicating the Immoral character's life. Anything more than the Coerced Trauma test in this example is akin to making a player character an unnamed minion in combat (meaning you could concievably, and easily one-hit-kill them), effectively making them nothing but a setting roadbump in the overall story.

So to be clear, I think a fair rule would be,for those under the effects of Techniques, I think the Trauma should be covered by "Forced to Commit/Witness an Act Outside Their Morality" unless there is a Trauma Test given by the Technique already. The player can then decide if they want to volunteer to take more Trauma if they feel the Trauma by the Technique was insufficient for their character.

For those who don't share my stance on how intrusive Trauma is in the game to the characters the above example may be reasonable to you. I will grant you that, but I would hate to see the Rules help enforce this sort of abuse to end a character (and thus story) which is what I think, and have tried to demonstrate that, they do now.

I also think that any rule that doles out Regular, Lingering, or Infected Trauma at the rate suggested in my Penitence example, or an equally powerful example of a Moral character under something like Dispensation, triavializes the importance and weight of something that Trauma is supposed to represent.

Even if Fallen are more prone to Trauma than a normal human, which they are not by the rules and only by flavour text in the setting, Fallen should not be mental crystal glassware that is irrevocably shattered in the presence of loud noises. Afterall, they coped well enough remembering the Fall, I don't see why a single technique or situation should force a player to write-out their character for months (or even permanently) from the story.

I think I need to break this down a bit.
I'm going to use the following language:
Forced Trauma - you take a trauma without a test
Coerced Trauma (aka "trauma test") - you make a trauma test
Voluntary Trauma - you voluntarily take a trauma, or voluntarily test to take trauma
Prohibited Acts (aka "Acts outside their Morality") - something Bad that may violate your Morality

1) Remove the requirement for characters to make a trauma test for Acts outside their Morality, save Heinous Acts.

2) Remove the requirement for characters to make a trauma test for *witnessing* Acts outside their Morality, save Heinous Acts.

3) There are allowances made for characters who witness or who commit Acts normally prohibited to them according to their Morality; these characters would not take Forced Trauma, but may be asked to make a trauma test, depending on the circumstances (and leaving the decision to do so up to the player).

4) Those Techniques which *could* be used to compel a character to take an action that would otherwise be Prohibited would trigger the regular "Coerced Trauma test" unless otherwise specified in the Technique's write-up.

5) Players can choose to take Voluntary Trauma (or they could choose to take a Trauma Test) if they feel their actions or that which they witnessed while under the effects of such a Technique would require an additional test.

Do I have this right?

Question 2:
Does this mean you'd leave the Morality scale as-is (ie. there would still be Innocent (with Preeminence), Typical, Hardened, Hardcore, and Irredeemable (Controlled (with Preeminence)/Uncontrolled (via Breakdown/Breakthrough)?

Question 3:
Would you leave the list of Acts as is?

Your definition of "Forced Trauma" and "Coerced Trauma" complicates the explanation. Forced Trauma is, according to the BRB, is any Trauma forced upon a character either with or without a test. Coerced Trauma as you have used it above implies that Prohibited Acts precipitate Coerced Trauma, which because of the 1 per event limitation associated with that title, is not correct. The BRB is very clear that Trauma from commission or witnessing a Prohibited Act is "Voluntary Trauma" but operates identically to Forced Trauma as I have just described it.

Accordingly, then up until 4) things are fine but using my clarification as noted it should read, using the language as it appears in the BRB:
"4) Those Techniques which *could* be used to compel a character to take an action that would otherwise be Prohibited would trigger the regular "Forced Trauma test" unless otherwise specified in the Technique's write-up." ~change noted by formating.

The rest seems to be a clear understanding of how I think the rules would be more fair and less prone to abuse.

To Question 2: The Morality scale remains as is.

To Question 3: The list of Acts remains as is.

I need to post a correction to my post just made and I don't get access to edit yet so I'm doing this as a separate post.

Although Jill's interpretation seemed correct on 4) upon closer read should actually read, despite my previous editing:
"4) Those Techniques which *could* be used to compel a character to take an action that would otherwise be Heinous for Moral characters, or Acts of Grace for Immoral characters, would be treated according to rules 1), 2), and 3) as above unless otherwise specified in the Technique's write-up."

I know my definitions don't match up with what's in the BRB; that's why I mentioned it. This is one of the clarifications that is being made to the BRB (as discussed in other Forums). I would like to use the definitions posted here (and in other Forums) because they seem to be far more clear. In fact, I believe I had suggested using:
Forced Trauma (you're forced to take a Trauma)
Contested (rather than Coerced) Trauma (you must make a Trauma test)
Voluntary Trauma (you may voluntarily take a Trauma itself or you may voluntarily make a Trauma test)

These definitions are more concise, more clear, and better represent the gravity of each. For instance, there are *very few cases* wherein characters are Forced to take Trauma without a test (Hollow Death and Crucifixion are two examples). MOST trauma in the game, you must test for. Some Trauma, you may *choose* to test for.

Thanks, Johnathan.

I would like to hear what the rest of the gallery thinks about your suggestions. It's something we could try out as a house rule, or it could be a suggestion we take to Trent.