One of my players rolled Obsession for his obligation. He's playing a droid and has decided that he's going to be obsessed with the Jedi and Jedi artifacts. Does anyone have any tips for how to deal with Obsession in the game?

Specifically, if the Obsession obligation is triggered, what sort of narrative impact could that have on the game? How can a player reduce his Obsession obligation?

For responses, I'm actually looking for more general guidelines for Obsession, but anything specific to my situation would be helpful too.

The book even says just because Obligation triggers it need not occur during that session. The one you describe in particular might a bit hard to incorporate on the fly. In terms of how if the droid is in some position where everyone has to follow his lead it can lead into the trigger, like if the droid is the pilot and says 'we are taking a detour', or if they are breaking into some place and you could have them pass some kind of artifact or something he has to go for.

A lot depends on the player's ability to roleplay it, especially their ability to roleplay doing things which might not be in the character's best interests.

Like, if I were obsessed with a roleplaying game, I might spend a lot of time at work reading forums, working on character histories, writing up backstories, and developing plotlines. That's time when I should really be working

Likewise, if your droid's obsession gets triggered, it should mean that they're unable to keep themselves from acting on it in some way. Maybe the party is trying to rescue someone's son from a crimelord, but the droid hears (or believes) that there's a Jedi holocron in a nearby cave. The droid might go in the cave to search for the holocron when he should be helping the party rescue the son.

This could be tricky to 'force' the player to do, if they're not up for the challenge of roleplaying it. Much trickier than external problems like bounty hunters showing up and demanding payment for a debt. Just be sure the player is up for the challenge!

Luckily, the player in question is definitely a roleplayer and he has a couple decades of experience. Setting up some situations like that shouldn't be too hard. Even so, it's still difficult for me to picture very many options here. I don't want to fall into a situation where every time his obligation triggers, he needs to go in search of something that just happens to be nearby. I'll definitely be able to do that once or twice, but it will get old pretty fast.

I'm running every obligation in my campaign as a sub-plot, so each character has their own thread to follow in addition to everything else that is going on. I had someone do obsession-klatooinian freedom. I'm planning on having a group of klatooininan revolutionaries around to request his help in some dire situation (like a reskin of beyond the boiling sea from suns of fortune). I could see the same thing for a group of jedi or a group of the jedi-obsessed. You could introduce these groups via the first obligation roll, and keep bringing them back each other time with a slowly advancing plot of some kind.

He's playing a droid and has decided that he's going to be obsessed with the Jedi and Jedi artifacts.

That's a weird one. Who programmed him to be obsessed with artifacts? And why? Obvious answer to both, a hidden dark jedi, who turns out to be one of the BBEG later in the game. So I would build a sub-plot involving the collection of a set number of atifacts which our droid pall will then dutifully distribute to his hidden master. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to advance this particular sub-plot at a certain time (cuz, like, you just did it last week...) then just re-roll.

He's playing a droid and has decided that he's going to be obsessed with the Jedi and Jedi artifacts.

That's a weird one. Who programmed him to be obsessed with artifacts? And why? Obvious answer to both, a hidden dark jedi, who turns out to be one of the BBEG later in the game. So I would build a sub-plot involving the collection of a set number of atifacts which our droid pall will then dutifully distribute to his hidden master. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to advance this particular sub-plot at a certain time (cuz, like, you just did it last week...) then just re-roll.

Yeah, I was going to suggest something along these lines. At some point, maybe the Obsession is determined to be some kind of flaw in his programming. (Whether that flaw was an innocent error or put there for nefarious purposes raises some additional questions.) So once following up on tracking down Jedi relics gets old, maybe take it in the direction of discovering the root of that obsession and trying to deprogram it. This can lead lots of fun places - tracking down the original manufacturer, finding the rogue programmer, locating encryption codes to be able to access those programming subroutines, etc. Sounds like fun to me!

He's playing a droid and has decided that he's going to be obsessed with the Jedi and Jedi artifacts.

That's a weird one. Who programmed him to be obsessed with artifacts? And why? Obvious answer to both, a hidden dark jedi, who turns out to be one of the BBEG later in the game. So I would build a sub-plot involving the collection of a set number of atifacts which our droid pall will then dutifully distribute to his hidden master. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to advance this particular sub-plot at a certain time (cuz, like, you just did it last week...) then just re-roll.

I hadn't really considered the side of where the obsession is coming from as a droid. I like both the idea that it was done intentionally by someone as well as the idea that it's a quirk in the programming. I'll have to put some thought into it.

I'm running every obligation in my campaign as a sub-plot, so each character has their own thread to follow in addition to everything else that is going on. I had someone do obsession-klatooinian freedom. I'm planning on having a group of klatooininan revolutionaries around to request his help in some dire situation (like a reskin of beyond the boiling sea from suns of fortune). I could see the same thing for a group of jedi or a group of the jedi-obsessed. You could introduce these groups via the first obligation roll, and keep bringing them back each other time with a slowly advancing plot of some kind.

I hadn't really considered the idea that the obligation roll could be driving something long-term rather than it just being a spur of the moment thing. Thanks for the fuel.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I have a pretty good handle on how to deal with the obligation roll (although if you have more ideas, feel free to add them).

So far, no one has yet to respond to the other half of my post, though, which is how to reduce the obligation. My thoughts, which lines up with other posts on I've found on this board, are that giving into the obsession should not reduce the obligation. That's akin to dealing with your addiction by doing more drugs. With that in mind, I'm finding it difficult to find a player driven method of reducing the obligation. Again, any help would be appreciated.

Obligation is reduced/eliminated when the issue is resolved in the fiction.

Continuing on from the previous discussion, I would have the obsession disappear once the set of artifacts was complete. ("Oh, my task is finished, how wonderful" -- said in the voice of Anthony Daniels) However, EotE characters never get away clean, so that obligation should be replaced with some other obligation once it's resolved -- that is, the fiction should tell you what comes next, and it may take a while to develop.

This is mostly why there are no hard and fast rules in the books -- e.g.: how many credits it takes to pay off a debt depends upon how many you owe, and Obligation rating doesn't scale with credits, it scales with trouble.

For the very specific suggestion you provided that might work, but it actually goes completely counter to what I said before: giving into the obsession shouldn't lower it. Going out and collecting Jedi artifacts and continuing to obsess over the Jedi should not work to remove the obligation. Sure, that works great for adding some narrative spice, but triggering your obligation is meant to be an inconvenience with a negative impact on the party as a whole.

Outside of that though, what if the player is obsessed with My Little Bantha dolls or a celebrity? This is why I stated originally that I wasn't looking for specifics for my situation but rather more general guidelines for obsessions in general. I feel like the solution (or at last some of them) will be common to all obsessions.

The stress of not being able to see your favorite celeb when they're in town or missing-out on the first run of the Sparklebreath-Rainbow-Bantha because you were busy flamethrowering Fetts in the face is reflected by the -2 to strain threshold. It's not the "giving in" to the obsession that lowers it, but resolving it in the fiction. Maybe you just realize that Bantha collecting was just a displacement activity for losing your entire family in an asteroid strike and some other Obligation comes to the fore.

The stress of not being able to see your favorite celeb when they're in town or missing-out on the first run of the Sparklebreath-Rainbow-Bantha because you were busy flamethrowering Fetts in the face is reflected by the -2 to strain threshold. It's not the "giving in" to the obsession that lowers it, but resolving it in the fiction. Maybe you just realize that Bantha collecting was just a displacement activity for losing your entire family in an asteroid strike and some other Obligation comes to the fore.

I completely disagree with your interpretation of the strain reduction. That modifier is applied to the whole party regardless of what happens with the narrative.

As to the second bit, how do you represent that mechanically in a way that's fair to everyone? The player just decides that, you know what, I don't have the obsession any more. It was really just hiding some childhood trauma. Obviously it can't be that, so what? A session where the player meets with a counselor? Or an adventure where the player confronts his mother? Does that 30 obligation just disappear all at once? What if this breakthrough doesn't occur? Is the player stuck with that obligation forever? What if the player doesn't want it to be based on trauma?

I'm sorry to be so negative here, but I feel like you're either intentionally fighting me or simply hand-waving away my question. I'm looking for tangible, mechanical, player-driven ways to reduce their obsession obligation. To clarify, when I say player-driven, I mean that the player should be able to choose to perform some action that will reduce his obligation. If my player comes to me and says, "What can I do to reduce my obligation?" and my answer is a shrug, then I've failed as a GM.

Again, it really comes down to the roleplaying by the character. Resolving an Obsession or Addiction Obligation requires much more sophisticated play than, for example, eliminating a debt or a bounty by killing the individual holding your marker.

In our campaign, all the storylines we play are ongoing subplots based on the characters' Obligations. We have a resurrected Old Republic droid character who never carried out its last assassination. Now it was Obsessed with tracking down and killing a famous celebrity because he's a descendent of the droid's original target.

Unfortunately this player has dropped out of the game, but the longer-term plan I had developed for this as the GM has to do with getting the droid in a position to meet and possibly assassinate the celebrity. I developed a rounded character with some positive sides to it, hopefully making it a difficult moral decision to just murder this person.

So overcoming the Obsession would be, basically, one of two choices: (a) killing the target and dealing with the consequences, or (b) meeting the target and deciding that carrying out the assassination would be wrong, and letting him live.

Those are story choices which would be made by the player in the moment during the session, and they'd have an impact on the story whichever way she chose.

By the way, the strain threshold reduction is absolutely meant the way Lorne described it. The reduction on the party is due to their proximity and rapport with you. I guarantee you when I'm obsessed about something and won't stop talking about it, my wife gets almost as stressed as I am

Most stories involve a character who wants something, then they go through enormous challenges to attain it. Sometimes when they do they realize they didn't need it after all. But they needed to go through those challenges to grow as a person.

Have your droid character learn about a potent and valuable Jedi artifact. Then put them through hell trying to get it.

When they reach the end of this quest, one way or another, this should affect their Obsession.

Maybe they really were programmed to seek out these artifacts by an ancient Sith. Maybe they just developed this quirk of programming on their own. Either way, once they get this artifact, or go through enormous challenges only to learn the artifact was a lie, or a hoax, or a red herring, etc, then player is perfectly justified in roleplaying this as resolving their Obsession.

So, sure, at that point you can remove the 30 points of Obsession Obligation.

If they went looking for a Jedi artifact during the rule of the Empire, they may well have accrued some additional Obligation on top of this. This can guide their story from this point onward. Maybe the Empire's pursuing them now. Maybe they're being chased by cultists who worshipped the ancient Jedi whose tomb you looted. Maybe gangsters are after you because you stole their ship to reach the planet where the tomb was located.

Loads of possibilities.

My R5 is Obsessed with Droid Liberation. (Droid Rights is also one of his motivations.) Every chance he gets, he tries to free droids (ex. remove restraining bolts, reprogram the droid). He tries to be discrete, but when his Obligation is rolled he cares far less about the consequences.

Obessions, like many 'psychological conditions', can be managed via counselling or can be altered via 'significant emotional events'. For example, drug addiction can be dealt with via counselling. Or sometimes the user can get the will to stop because he/she was with a loved one when he/she died via overdose. Same with obsession. Perhaps the obsession to kill the murderer of your parents dies the day the obsessor realizes he's (about to) become a bigger monster than the murderer.

In any event, it should take some time and role-playing to shake an Obsession. Then it just gets replaced by another Obligation. (Ex. Perhaps an Oath to make up for the bad things done while Obsessed.)

Thanks for all of the responses everyone (Lorne too). Much food for thought. Everyone seems to be going in a different direction than me which would indicate that I'm going in the wrong direction. I'll have to spend some time adjusting my viewpoint.

If you have ways to do it that make sense to you, you should feel free to follow your own council!

You did ask for advice, though

Are there ways of reducing an Obsession Obligation that make sense to you?

Offhand I'd say that the Obsession and Addiction Obligations are probably ones that come up most often with questions on the forum about how to implement them and how to reduce them.

Knowing what I know now, for new characters I'd recommend those Obligations only for intermediate to advanced roleplayers, I'd suggest other options for beginners.

Personally, I feel that Obsession, Oath and Responsibility are not Obligations, but motivations. And I don't allow them as Obligations. (Let it be said I don't use the strain threshold thing either).

I don't count anything as an Obligation unless it has an external effect on the character. I ask myself the question: 'would anything happen if the PC decided just to walk away from this?'

If you owe Peetza the Hutt a large debt, then he's likely to hire bounty hunters to come after you if you skip town without paying. If you don't repay Favours or Duty, the people you owe them to are going to get annoyed.

But if Mr Obsessive decides he just doesn't care about collecting action figures any more, then nobody else cares. And I find these 'motivational obligations' really hard to reduce in play. What's involved, professional therapy? Doesn't sound very Star Wars-y.

These things can make great Motivations. But I don't see they are Obligations, because you're not actually Obligated to anyone.

I do allow Adrenaline Junkie and Addiction as they have a detrimental effect on the character if it's not addressed.

If you have ways to do it that make sense to you, you should feel free to follow your own council!

You did ask for advice, though

Are there ways of reducing an Obsession Obligation that make sense to you?

Offhand I'd say that the Obsession and Addiction Obligations are probably ones that come up most often with questions on the forum about how to implement them and how to reduce them.

Knowing what I know now, for new characters I'd recommend those Obligations only for intermediate to advanced roleplayers, I'd suggest other options for beginners.

The problem is that I don't have any solutions, I just have a, I don't know, feeling or concept about how I want it to work. I'm having trouble coming up with specifics for that which is what I was hoping to get out of this thread. Since no one seems to be able to offer me solutions that fit my mold, that's a red flag for me.

I think the biggest disconnect for me is just that an obsession doesn't need to come from a bad place. I mean how many of you fit the following description or know someone that does.

You're really into a TV show. You've seen every episode, even the older stuff, and you always try to watch the new episodes as soon as possible. If it's made into a movie, you're there at the midnight showing. You have toys and collectibles from the show and you even have some at work if you're allowed. You follow all the news about that show. You have a greater than average knowledge of the canon of that universe. You might even spend time in forums discussing that show even going so far as to get into arguments with people about it. When more mainstream people find out about this interest, they tend to see you as a bit of an obsessive weirdo.

This is a pretty common occurrence and does not have a foundation in trauma and does not need therapy to be dealt with. This is where I'm coming from when I think about the obsession obligation and matches up pretty well with the description in the core book.

It doesn't have to come from a bad place to be an Obligation, in my opinion. It just needs to show up every now and then to mess with your life.

Even something positive like an "Obsession to help people" can put a character in danger, can get them wanted by the authorities or the Empire, can anger powerful gangsters, and so on.

It's certainly true that you can be obsessed with, for example, Star Wars, without it ruining your life. But what if the new movie comes out and your wife is in the hospital about to give birth to your child? Do you go to the midnight showing of Episode VII with all your friends or do you skip it and do the right thing and be there for your family?

An average person in the real world would probably just catch the movie later. A character with an Obsession Obligation might find himself sitting in the theater telling himself "As soon as it's over I'll rush to the hospital, it'll be fine, it's no problem".

In a game like this, heightened drama is a big part of what makes it fun. Just like the Bounty obligation. It's not as much fun if there's a bounty for 1,000 credits out on you, so that you get pursued by generic no-name thugs with a light blaster pistol.

It's much more compelling as drama if there's a 20,000 credit bounty on your head, so the most dangerous and terrifying hunters are tracking your every move and just waiting to ambush you.

This is the kind of Obligation that would be fun to deal with in a game.

I agree completely. In my example above, it would be one step above the usual version and move a little bit into compulsion. Maybe our theoretical PC triggers his obligation during the birth of his child. He could still decide to stay, but it's gnawing away at him. For a TV show, maybe he's sneakily watching it on his iPhone while in the delivery room or taking frequent bathroom breaks to watch a bit at a time. That's a true obsession

Now, in that example, how do you reduce that obligation without therapy and without relying on a realization moment (e.g. "My God, I missed my baby's birth to watch this show. What am I doing?")?

Something like 'Obsession' over a TV show just sounds silly, and not very Space Opera-like. If Oath or Obsession are to have any impact at all, it should be something big, like restoring the Jedi or defeating the Empire or re-establishing the glory of the Mandalorians, or freeing Kashyyyk. Something that might drive the character on, not a silly distraction like in the 'Holiday Special'.

And even then, I can't see these things are 'Obligations', because you're not obligated to anyone beyond yourself. If you stop doing them, nobody else will care.

And even then, I can't see these things are 'Obligations', because you're not obligated to anyone beyond yourself. If you stop doing them, nobody else will care.

They can totally be obligations, you as a GM just need to insert NPCs that force the character to have consequences from them. For instance, establishing a group of NPCs that share the obsession and become part of the story somehow. If the PC all of a sudden decides to do something that doesn't fit, then he has a group of people that would not be very happy about that.