Hey, all,
Once I had a player named Chris who fell into a trap I set to test the 
discernment of the players. I believe our group learned something about 
docking MUs during the game. As the story progressed, in a quick adventure I 
wrote the week before, I had the LightRaiders be approached by a person 
claiming a temple devoted to the same God as they served, but called 
differently. (Think what Muslims would claim about Allah.) Most players were 
discerning enough to check things out (find out why a large group of the 
OverLord's followers are hanging out in such sinful conditions) but one 
player (Chris) made the mistake of not only attending their ceremony of 
worship but also getting the other players to go along. Later on they 
realized (after a plot twist) that they'd done wrong. I nodded, and gave some 
Faithfulness mu penalties. Since Chris was 'ringleader' he got one more. He'd 
just gotten an eight from Rescue of the Sacred Scrolls. He had no extras to 
lose, he was headed for seven again. Atop that, the players had to fight a 
sin enchantment after this. Chris, however, accepted the loss and adjusted 
his scores, and, in some good roleplaying, modeled his character repenting to 
his fellows and the OLMN, and atop that, looking up the NPC who invited them, 
and explaining to him gently why it was a mistake to accept the invititation, 
and why that was so. In fact, the other characters jumped in and started 
quoting some verses, and in the end, we got to the Great Rescue Wordrunes and 
I decided the man would follow the true OverLord. Because his roleplaying 
modeled repentance and encouraged his fellows, I felt he'd gotten everything 
back on the right track, and I gave him back the maturity units. Since then, 
it's been apparent that as a more experience roleplayer, Chris has been a 
sort of leader. He's not overdominating, but he does influence newer players. 
The point of all this is sometime, right after we mess up, we realize our 
mistakes, and quickly make amends. This can even make us, as Christians, 
stronger. Therefore, just from this encounter, I tend to give my characters 
grace if they realize, repent, and make amends right after the incident. I do 
feel, however, that failing one of those steps should result in a quick loss 
of mus, and if necessary, the refiguring of the abilities. If you lose mus 
over a sin in the game, and then try to compensate by regaining the mus in 
later encounters, I at least think the root of the problem has been ignored. 
Anyway, this is just a story from my group, to hopefully give you ideas on 
the negative mus. Different groups will work better differently. Yours,
Lance