CT Only: Do you use morale?

[McPerth]

Its interesting that in the "Integrating with Traveller" section of AHL, there's no mention of determining a Morale number for a character

In my gaming group we always assumed rules from LLB4:Mercenary page 28 (Experience and morale) appled here...

 

[aramis]

The thing about these numbers (or any numbers someone might come up with) is that they are wildly culturally and chronologically specific, with no consistent way to modify them for other cultures, times, or anything. I can totally imagine Aslan passing a morale check others might fail. Or Vargr, for different reasons.

Historically, in the 19th century and before, most of the TNs in the system described above would be very low, but even lowering the pass to a 3+ means 1 in 36 runs away, which is not how movies portray these things (which is all I know about them). The Charge of the Light Brigade could almost certainly not have happened under those rules. The Western Front in WW1 and the D-Day landings in WW2 could probably never have happened, and a lot of historical things that happened could likewise not have happened due to even 1 in 36 people running away.

I am OK with morale rules for NPCs, which these seem to be representing, but I don't feel like these specific rules would do a very good job of portraying specific groups.

Understand: Morale failure need not be "runs away." (exception: beasts passing the flee check)
It can be as simple as holing up in cover and not firing back.

 

[Badenov]

Understand: Morale failure need not be "runs away." (exception: beasts passing the flee check)
It can be as simple as holing up in cover and not firing back.

Failure of a casualty or unexpected fire morale check will cause the character to panic and flee. Regardless of what was chosen for the character in the decision phase, the character must, in the action phase(s) immediately following the failed check, run away from the location of the enemy characters until he or she reaches a position of complete cover (referred to as cowering). The character will then remain there until he or she successfully makes a morale check.

This ^ is a bit more than taking cover and not firing back. I understand that not every game system has the same list of effects of morale failure, but this one specific game absolutely has people running away to take cover and cower. My personal opinion is that is how the authors of the game would react in the situation. I do not think most professional soldiers, and even recent draftees, would react that way, and the quoted TNs for various forces bear that out a little:

Morale Values, Human
Recruit 4
Regular 7
Veteran 10
Elite 13

But this means that 1 in 12 veterans will turn tail and run away and cower if someone takes a serious wound. And half the regulars. Evidence from RL conflicts suggest these numbers are wildly high and that even draftees hold it together under fire better than the designers of the game system predicted.

Also

While the order in which a player's characters move is determined by the player, all characters whose movement will require a morale check must take the morale check before any characters move.

So, this is not one check for the group, this is every individual rolling the dice. The most recent conflicts had TV news embedded with soldiers, and we saw none of this.