Lemme start this out by saying that player characters should rarely, if ever, be forced to do something like retreat. That should be left up to the player.
But how do you feel about a morale system where the character may be tired and demoralized, and accrue penalties if the player decides to push on?
It's definitely thematic and I like it in theory but I'd worry about a death spiral potentially if the player doesn't want to take the hint.
I make PCs initially get suppressed by incoming gunfire if they fail the roll because that's instinctual. I THEN give them the option of exposing themselves to fire anyway, knowing the risks of being hit. Sometimes, if they're smart, they'll stay behind cover.
Outright failings of willpower? Sure, they can happen mechanically too in my games and the PCs will have no choice. Fatigue, hunger, environment can all make it mechanically impossible for a PC to keep acting.
I think it's important to back up mandatory rulings for PC behaviour with tons of mechanics so they know you're not just punishing them on a whim or because you hate them. And I do, I do hate the PCs and consider my relationship to them to be generally adversarial.
My system uses a simple morale rule for the main player characters: If they fail morale, they can still do anything they want. However, if what they want to do is not surrendering, fleeing, hiding, or some similar attempt to get out of the fight, they are "hindered" on the actions until they succeed at one or are rallied by someone else. "Hindered" is a substantial penalty, much like D&D 5E disadvantage.
Also, my rules for what will cause a main PC to fail are slightly less onerous than the equivalent rules for allied NPCs. Basically, an allied NPC getting brutally killed does not force the check on the PC's but a PC going down does force the check on the allies.
Yes, this can cause a bit of a PC and party death spiral, but in my case that's on purpose. I wanted it to work such that a player was encouraged to flee but not forced. In play, that means that sometimes the player does flee and sometimes does not.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 02, 2025, 10:11:18 PMAlso, my rules for what will cause a main PC to fail are slightly less onerous than the equivalent rules for allied NPCs. Basically, an allied NPC getting brutally killed does not force the check on the PC's but a PC going down does force the check on the allies.
I'm really not a fan of that kind of ruling. Rules that make NPCs 'non-people' really hurts my immersion in the game. IMO, if my best buddy gets mutilated right next to me, it shouldn't matter whether that buddy is another PC or an NPC.
I imagine Morale got trimmed from D&D monster design because it felt like rules bloat. It would definitely feel like rules-bloat for the PC-side. You could be adding a lot of interactivity to the game in the form of morale checks which could make the game notably worse to play because the overall gameplay is slower, even if the mechanic works perfectly.
The best way to do this is probably by recycling resources from another part of the game. If you have mechanics which can give you more than one bit of information at a time, this seems doable. For example, if you draw cards for initiative, you can use card interactions across rounds to recharge your morale or the party's morale. If you use a dice pool, you can look for multiples and runs in addition to just counting successes. There are probably a lot more options, but my point is to look to recycle interactions into morale rather than trying to build one out of scratch.
But just tacking it onto a D20 system seems like a mistake. I don't think you can do that without slowing down the system enough that it becomes a bad trade.
PCs are typically fanatics and shouldn't be able to fail morale. The NPCs of the world, many of them aren't really there for a hard fight, or even any fight.
If you were to have a realistic morale applied to PCs, it would be something that derived from their stats and perhaps they would be able to take some skill or feat or proficiency to raise it from high to invincible. But assuming that they don't, then PCs will fail morale at some point, and suffer the consequences- and this will add a potential snowball to hard fights against the PCs.
I suspect in the shift to 3rd, the fact that morale wasn't something the PCs had was a reason to get rid of it for monsters, especially given how hard that edition worked to have symmetry.
I don't like anything that impinges on player control of their characters, so no morale for pcs in my game. For tired and worn, out my game uses an endurance system. If a character gets too fatigued then anything that normally costs fatigue gets a big penalty and causes a bit of damage. If your character is at that point and your enemies are not it's time to think about leaving.
Quote from: Fheredin on April 02, 2025, 10:34:14 PMThe best way to do this is probably by recycling resources from another part of the game.
I had considered using rules for slow-acting poisons to represent failing morale. Sure, the resisting stat is mental resolve rather than physical hardiness, but there are some parallels that could work well mechanically--assuming your game system doesn't just have instant-effect-and-done poisons (as are most in D&D).
I think a morale system is essential for NPCs and monsters, but I don't want one for PCs. Something like physical fatigue is one thing, but morale is another. I'd rather the players have total control over that.
My one point of comparison is fear effects in various games. Nothing was less fun than having to run away each turn until you succeed on a check (and then need to spend an equal number of turns to get back) because a failed die rolls says you succumb to mundane fear and leave you allies in the lurch, but then the system further presumes a metagame reaction that your allies shouldn't treat you like a bloody coward afterwards because its not like you chose to run away, you just had an unlucky dice roll.
As such, I generally prefer non-magical morale/courage to be conveyed not through penalties or forced actions, but GM narration of how hopeless the situation looks and probing questions like "is this situation really worth dying over when you clearly cannot win?"
The player can choose to keep going or whatever they wish, but I've generally found that just the DM hyping the hopelessness of the situation often makes the players choose to withdraw and feels better about it because it was a mechanic forcing it on them.
That said, my own system does have fear effects, but they're more in the "shock" reaction category (take a few steps back, lose your reaction, take a penalty to hit on your next attack) and rarely last more than a single round. It's also a wounds/vitality (fatigue, morale, luck) type system where excess vitality damage (called "threat" in the system) can cascade to nearby oppon and if it depletes their vitality too (very possible with mooks), then the presumption is their morale broke on seeing their ally defeated and they are out of the fight because they're either fleeing, surrendering or playing dead (the GM noting it if it's possible they could show up again).
In other words, morale is also baked into the default mechanics of "dealing threat" to opponents.
If you want to leave choice entirely in the hands of the players (something I'm not in agreement with), then perhaps a character with broken morale suffers double damage? Now it's FAR more likely the PC will want to avoid the threats that broke them, but they still have a choice.
The original Albedo RPG had a PC morale system and one for flipping out even under stress. And considering how deadly combat was. PCs could end up breaking nearly as often as Call of Cthulhu PCs.
The rules for AD&D Conan introduced a fear element which was effectively morale for PCs.
Those are the three RPGs that come to mind for different takes on that sort of thing.
Quotethen perhaps a character with broken morale suffers double damage?
Undead level drain only happens after morale breaks.