I think it's okay in a game like Call of Cthulhu or something, where the material it's based on has lots of people fainting, running away, or going insane.

In a game like D&D it does open up some design space for monsters and PCs, because you can have monsters with fear effects and PCs that are immune or resistant to them. But it is kind of annoying and I do prefer PCs being able to decide whether or not they're scared. Ideally you play in an old school way where combat is inherently scary and dangerous, and the players have the expectation that sometimes they're going to encounter enemies that they probably won't beat, and running away is an option.

Fatigue is a different concept from morale, and is already represented by hit points (kind of) or other status effects.

Quote from: Spobo on April 05, 2025, 07:15:58 AMIn a game like D&D it does open up some design space for monsters and PCs, because you can have monsters with fear effects and PCs that are immune or resistant to them. But it is kind of annoying and I do prefer PCs being able to decide whether or not they're scared. Ideally you play in an old school way where combat is inherently scary and dangerous, and the players have the expectation that sometimes they're going to encounter enemies that they probably won't beat, and running away is an option.

Part of the reason that I wanted a very light touch morale effect on PCs was to train newer players in old school ways.  That might sound counter-productive, but I've found that it helps to give players just a taste of what is happening to get them to think about it.  In fact, with a given group, I end up doing less and less morale checks that affect PCs because: 

1. The morale rules impinge a lot more on any allies they have, so that they are reminded that people can break.

2. This in turn causes 1 or 2 players to prioritize building up their rallying abilities and/or making themselves harder to break.  I've rolled that up into a "Leadership" talent that also affects intimidation.  So the characters that are naturally the most aggressive are also least likely to break.

3. The above two things conspire such that any given group only needs to have a PC morale check once in a blue moon, and then they begin retreating before the morale check happens.

Either their allies are breaking or threatening to, or something really bad just went down.  Then the group will decide to do a strategic retreat before some of them have their skills diminished due to the morale effects. On those rare occasions when they decide they need to push through despite the risk of PC morale hitting, it makes for some dramatic moments.

This kind of design is part of what I referenced elsewhere when I said that a lot of the problems in game design is taking a good idea too far.  Thinking that because a rule with a light touch happens rarely that you should just eliminate it entirely.  Which is also why I disagree with removing fear effects entirely (though I've rolled them into my morale system, which actually gives them a lighter touch than old-school D&D). The idea that sometimes a player character feels the strain, fear, nervousness to the degree that it impedes their ability to act, is not removing player agency, anymore than not allowing a character without magic or wings to fly. 

If hit points represent more than the physical ability to soak damage, then morale could be considered a part of hit points. Doing so could be used to indicate that 0 hit points is broken morale and -10/-(Con) is dead. This would probably require a minor rule change that 0 hit point "broken" opponents can still run & hide, but it would be far simpler than adding in most rule changes.