Conscience

[Limbo]

I was wondering how other people are dealing with the SA of Conscience in their games?   Are character's picking this as an SA, does it apply only to "good" characters, how often is it actually used in the game?   I guess I feel a bit uncomfortable with such an ill-defined concept and I'm wondering what others think of it.

[Valamir]

I think Concience has to have as an rider the particular culture, social structure, and prevailing religion (even for character's with no particular Faith SA) of the region where the character grew up.

Concience strikes me as that little voice that tells you "you're not supposed to be doing that".  When ever there is something that the "obvious" choice from a strictly "what is in my best interests" perspective that the little voice gets in the way of and causes the player to ignore his "best interests" in favor of the voice, that's Concience kicking in.

However, what that little voice says is very much dependent on the value set that the character was raised with.

[Jim DelRosso]

Of course, people's conscience can often transcend the values with which they were raised.  And a character whose ethics or morality has brought her into conflict with her society can be a very interesting character to play.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

In my current game, Conscience is defined as putting yourself at risk for others without a payoff for yourself: basically, altruism. That's worked out well for me so far: when the PCs rescue someone because they're getting paid to, no Conscience. However, when they rescue someone because they feel as if that person needs their help (they recently rescued a raft full of Gelure-ian refugees from slavers - in the middle of a bay during a storm, fighting on the raft, no less) Conscience a-plenty.

[allahlav]

In the game I am playing in, one character has conscience and does 'the right thing' by the social and moral conventions of his homeland (Cyrinthmeir), which is not the same as the land we are playing in (Stahl).  Therfore sometimes the character acts according to his conscience but against what is socially correct or moral in Stahl.  

The other character (mine) has no conscience SA, and his philosophy refelcts this - "necessity knows no laws" (an Irish proverb if you are interested).  This character's other SA's might lead him to do the right thing, but he doesn't see social or moral conventions as important.

I see conscience as a product of background, cultural and social, rather than a universal right and wrong.  An example of what happened in our game - it might be right in the land you are in to cut off a thief's hand, but you weren't brought up to think that was okay, and so your conscience tells you that maybe you shouldn't turn this thief over to the watch.