I'm starting up a new Edge of the Empire game with a new crew (the joys of moving to a new state!), and one of the new guys has an interesting thought for his character that I am debating leaving as a character quirk or leaving it as an obligation.

The character is a field researcher (he's thinking of an archaeologist due to the versatility) that has the habit of "going native" when he's somewhere too long. Apparently, he'd "gone native" with a group of Tuskens and never fully recovered.

He wants his character to need to take medication to remain "functional" and if he goes without the meds (or at times where his body just simply gets too adjusted to them and he needs new ones) he becomes the scrawniest Tusken you've ever met.

I can see this just being a funny thing from time to time, but I'm kind of digging the idea of making it an Obligation. Now, we can use one that already exists with some finaggling (Addiction came to mind, and possibly a twist on others such as Duty), but I think giving it it's own Obligation may be a more interesting approach. I scribbled down the following earlier, and was wondering what you all thought:

Medicated: Due to an event in your past, you've been taking medication to cope with it and be a "functional" sentient in the galaxy. Without your medications, you tend to suffer from whatever ails you.

When Medicated comes up on a roll, your body has either rejected the medication and you need an alternative, or you are unable to get to your medication for some reason and suffer the ill effects.

The ill effects are based solely on the reason for the medication, but can include drastic personality changes (believing to be a Tusken Raider, or a Wookiee believes they are an Ewok) or even some form of distraction (in the form of setback dice to all rolls).

Granted, I know we don't see much of this in Star Wars, but the character concept just seemed amusing enough to roll with, and it seemed like the perfect obligation, especially since another player is considering playing the "med droid" that ensures he's taking his meds so he can continue to write his papers and do research. . .

Any thoughts or opinions on this?

It is Addiction by another name really. Same idea, take the stuff or go goofy on skill rolls. If you want to refer to it as Medicated and just use the Addiction rules seems fine to me.

See how many times he jumps up on a bar table brandishing an umbrella like a Gaffi stick making noises only to get punched in the face...............

I like it. Either the new Obligation or just as a twist on Addiction seems like it would work.

You could even make it alter his stat line when he "goes native". He gets a boost to his Brawl and Agility(maybe some extra survival skills too) but he suffers a stiff penalty to his intellect and willpower related skills. And he just creeps people out.

Seems like a split personality obligation would be a cool thing to add.

Both makes sense.

I would say people who take medication to function "normal" in their day-to-day lives would not view that as an addiction, so a new obligation makes sense. You are on the right track.

I would say that situationally you could give him some advantages to this kind of thing, like giving him boosts to survival on arid and desert planets while "in the zone."

My only concern there is it gives out bonuses to one player but not to others. I prefer to make some of these things "common knowledge" to the character, like where to find water in a desert, due to his background.

For other players, "common knowledge" may be the best dive bars on Coruscant or the subtle flavors of common poisons used by noble houses.

The player's description of it appears to be more personality-driven, which brings us to your second part.

Mostly I would imagine these kinds of things would manifest in small ways rather than the stereotypical Tusken hostility, like a distaste for bare skin or a particular way of preparing and eating food - unless he is specifically interested in combat and his knowledge of other cultures factors into his specific obsession. Not the sort of thing to require heavy medication if he's actually obsessed with cultures, but if he's obsessed with combat then yes, his frustratingly academic modus operandi and general hatred for other sentient beings may require the calming presence of powerful drugs, which he might afford if he's considered academically brilliant enough to keep around.

The player wishes to do some of these normally, and have it "escalate" as a sign that the meds are wearing off/not working. It'll start small, like the bare skin and walking in single file, and will escalate to using the Tusken language and being the scrawniest and angriest Tusken you've ever met.

As the story so far shows that the character is bright enough to warrant attention/support, these supporters want him to remain sane and do more work with cultures (and with that knowledge, you can have some great military uses for guerrilla warfare). He's not a warrior outside of what he learned by living among the Tuskens, but when the meds wear off, it's Tusken style combat with a gaderfi stick.

Does that help paint things out a bit more?