I'm just pointing out that trying to fit this sort of stuff into the Obligation system is a square-peg-in-a-round-hole situation. You can hammer it in and do your best to make it work; but it soon becomes apparant that it isn't quite working the way it should. The mechanics of the Obligation system just aren't designed to handle this sort of thing.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Disassociated Mechanics. It always feels bad when the game mechanics don't reflect what's actually happening in the play sessions.

'Obligation' was confused enough before FFG decided to toss some random Motivations in there. It gets very awkward when they try to come up with a table where some Obligations have a criminal effect on you, and err, some don't, apparently on GM whim. And there's no guidelines to how much money or favours should be reducing Obligation, even stuff like Debt that should be straightforward.

As much as I love EoE, I think FFG mishandled this. And I'm happy to report that the game plays fine if you ignore it completely. Obligation gives you nothing that a well-imagined backstory doesn't. I can incorporate plots and encounters based on what the players write for their history and background; I don't need artificial and fiddly numbers to determine that for me - especially in a narrative game.

It always feels to me like a hold-over from WHFRP3, one of the fiddly things like party tension and stance that add needless complication without really giving us anything in return.

I'm also happy to report that it plays just fine if you do it correctly

The actual Obligation number is just a game mechanic stat. For some obligations to work within the game mechanics and the narrative the obligation number should go Up. So for something like addiction, if a character doesn't do anything to satisfy the addiction then the characters obligation should go up. Once it reaches a point, up to the GM, the obligation is gone. Personally, if a character with addiction satisfies that addiction during a session, I'll award xp for lowering his addiction "need". However, that addiction can never go below 0 and any session missed raises his addiction obligation. If he resists his addiction causing it to rise, then at some point, using a narrative, he loses his obligation. Its also a good idea to use stain and setback die to reflect the characters current state of mind.

For a Oath:Do no kill obligation a GM needs to put the character in situations where the character has to make those decisions. If he kills someone then that obligation goes down, if he doesn't and/or his party does kill a lot then his personal obligation goes up to some max. Having an Oath obligation of 20 might seem brutal, putting stain and situations in front of the character all the time but it fits the narrative. Then the GM can "solve" the Oath after a period of time of high obligation rewarding the character with xp or not if the solving is by breaking that oath and killing.

Personally, these obligations are perfect for the game as they allow a GM an easy way of never having to think of a way to give a character obligation since they should have some type all the time. It makes the narrative of that character easy to me at least.

FYI, here's the article about dissociated mechanics for anyone who hasn't read it.

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer

The Alexandrian is a fantastic resource for improving your GM abilities. I would recommend every GM to spend some time on this site.

FYI, here's the article about dissociated mechanics for anyone who hasn't read it.

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer

The Alexandrian is a fantastic resource for improving your GM abilities. I would recommend every GM to spend some time on this site.

Well, this really more about how the mechanic is applied through the narrative vs roleplaying a mechanic for a player. The question here is: If a person is properly roleplaying a personality flaw like obsession, addiction, or personal oath, what effect does it have on the obligation mechanic?

I don't see it as a stat, skill, or whatever for a player but a sliding scale for the GM on certain obligations that travels up and down based on the characters roleplay. Looking at the obligation mechanic like an equation isn't a good thing (which is the gist of his dissociated mechanics doesn't equal good roleplay). You get the player saying "if I pay 10,000 credits to the Hutt, that'll pay off the 10,000 credit debt I had with him. Problem solved" and angry when 1+1=0 in this case "interest" or "insult" from dealing with the Hutt's debt. A good narrative of working with a player's obligation is through nebulous "math". The reward for good roleplay of a character is slowly solving a character's problem or furthering a character (not player's) goal. That's why there are motivations and obligations.

The actual Obligation number is just a game mechanic stat.

Dharus, I think this is a brilliant point to be made, and I hope you don't mind if I use it to try and disprove everything else you wrote in that post.

The key difference between an Obligation and a Motivation is not the direction in which they're moving your character's development; both should be moving your character forward. The difference is in how they're moving it. A Motivation is something your character is working for, so it's what pulls your character from ahead. An Obligation, on the other hand, is something from the character's "past" that's pushing them from behind, something they're trying to stay ahead of.

(You might notice the quotes around "past;" I'll get to that in a bit.)

Consider this: I get up every day, go to work, and work hard in order to earn a promotion to full-time librarian. Earning a promotion is my Motivation. However, I do this because I have student loans to pay and I want to be able to move out of my dad's house. Therein lies my Obligation, trying to get ahead of my debt. I recently made things more complicated by applying to grad school; in the long run it'll increase my debt, but for now it'll actually reduce my monthly payments. The choice was, er, motivated by my Motivation, but it still serves my choice to try and deal with my Obligation.

It's just an example, but that's where the remark about "past" comes in. The character's past in this circumstance could be very recent or even concurrent with recent developments, but the idea is that an Obligation is a choice the character has to live with, and ideally they would use their Motivation as the means to do so.

The number next to your Obligation is just a game mechanic. It reflects how likely the possibility of the character's Obligation is to weigh on them personally. This is what the roll at the beginning of the session is meant to represent: who is dwelling on their Obligation, and how it's affecting everyone around them. This is why a group with a higher number of players has a lower number of individual Obligation: the chance to affect others should be approximately equal.

If you increase a player's Obligation, it's important to remember you're basically punishing them for something, as it means they're more likely to get that double hit to Strain and possibly get the group up to 100+, at which point nobody gets to use XP. Nobody , not just an individual player. Thus, when a player succeeds at roleplaying their adherence to their Hippocratic Oath, you shouldn't punish them by raising their Obligation. You don't necessarily have to lower it right away, but when they manage to resist serious temptation to go against it, consider lowering it as a reward for good roleplaying. Raising their Obligation just comes off as counter-intuitive.

I'll conclude this excessively long post by reiterating my opinion from the start of the thread: Obligation is what your character has to live with, and the Obligation's value represents how well they're living with it.

Also, as a post script, I'm a firm believer that a character must be able to fully pay off their Obligation (or in the case of Oath, come to terms with it) and either find a new one or retire the character.

So I'd say your player is right, and the way for him to pay down his Oath would be to put him in positions where it's both immediately to his advantage to kill and detrimental to him if he doesn't. If he stays true to his oath, reduce his Obligation by 5 and start thinking up how you can twist the knife further next time. If he fails to uphold his oath, don't reduce it.

Another angle, not nessassrly where its advantagous to kill a man, but put him in a position where he despertly wants to. Something like - well, like this:

http://youtu.be/XuNuPT4PJfI

Yeah, push his buttons and reward him for doing the right thing.

The number next to your Obligation is just a game mechanic. It reflects how likely the possibility of the character's Obligation is to weigh on them personally. This is what the roll at the beginning of the session is meant to represent: who is dwelling on their Obligation, and how it's affecting everyone around them. This is why a group with a higher number of players has a lower number of individual Obligation: the chance to affect others should be approximately equal.

If you increase a player's Obligation, it's important to remember you're basically punishing them for something, as it means they're more likely to get that double hit to Strain and possibly get the group up to 100+, at which point nobody gets to use XP. Nobody , not just an individual player. Thus, when a player succeeds at roleplaying their adherence to their Hippocratic Oath, you shouldn't punish them by raising their Obligation. You don't necessarily have to lower it right away, but when they manage to resist serious temptation to go against it, consider lowering it as a reward for good roleplaying. Raising their Obligation just comes off as counter-intuitive.

Also, as a post script, I'm a firm believer that a character must be able to fully pay off their Obligation (or in the case of Oath, come to terms with it) and either find a new one or retire the character.

I think we are on the same page. I probably wasn't super clear. Since obligations can be all over the place, its really a case by case with the player and GM. However, if a player is "movitivated" to overcome an "obligation" and they understand that to beat it might make it worse isn't punishing a player or the group who's probably going to deal with this person's demons anyway. Sometimes it take a support network to solve various problems especially "mental" ones. Having that 100 obligation barrier can also be metagaming motivation for the players to work together too.

My example would be say a player A who is trying to overcome an addiction or trying something like redeeming themselves from the darkside. The stress of overcoming this obligation from the past can be reflected by the Obligation stat going up to reflect ongoing stress and more and more temptation within the narrative. Or you could reduce the obligation stat each encounter with said obligation while increasing the intensity of each challenge. If player B says that player A's problems aren't my problems and doesn't really team play, then going up might be a better means.

So, there really isn't a right or wrong way here. Its really about how a GM wants to handle it with his/her group.

What's the difference between, say, a 20-point Obligation of an oath not to kill and that same Obligation reduced to 10 or even 0 points?

20 point Oath of "Do Not Kill" = The character is often overcome with grief for having killed someone; or is stressed by the possibility that in this cold, dog eat dog world on the rim they might have to kill to survive.

10 point Oath of "Do Not Kill" = The character rarely has nightmares anymore about "that guy I killed"; or character has proven repeatedly that not killing is both possible but profitable and worries much less often about future conflicts.

0 point Oath of "Do Not Kill" = The nightmares ended a while back and the character has moved on from that terrible memory; or the character has an established practice of not killing foes and no longer feels stressed about what may come to pass.

Simple. The character still has the Oath in all three versions, it's merely the stress levels it causes them in life that has differed.

Yeah you could also extend the feelings of not wanting to kill, to feeling bad when other characters kill and so either becomes conflicted about wether he should be preventing them for killing.

Its weird there are some things that kind of work how obligation is supposed to work but arent obligations for example.

1: being a force user would mean would mean they could accidently use a force power or use a power that was noticed and this triggers a hunt for them or perhaps just suspicion, or reactions in people that add to the overall awareness of the character having a difference

2: or similarly ifyou played a certain species it might have certain stigma attached to them or if you played an Assasin Droid you obviously might not be treated the same way as a pit droid when you have Guns for hands like IG-88.

Too bad fantasy flight provided next to no examples on how to track most obligations numerically

I feel like im going to be forced to rework how obligation works for me.

I think a Doctor who had a Hippocratic Oath should take that as a Motivation, and his actual Obligation should be something different - perhaps Duty to a particular medical order of pacifists, who get upset if he breaks it.

How about the risk of having his license to practice medicine being taken away? If that happens, suddenly it becomes much more difficult for him to get the restricted drugs that he uses in his treatments, maybe being put on a "Do Not Do Business With" rule so that buying anything becomes more difficult and expensive, maybe even having a "bring-em-back-alive" bounty put out on him so that he can be prosecuted and put in jail?

In other words, a lot of the same sorts of things that could happen to a real doctor in our mundane world?

Sorry I haven't been responding in my own thread I got quite busy at work and then Gen Con. This is all fantastic advice and I'll definitely be mulling all of this over as I move forward with that character. That is, if he survives. That player's wife just got a job in Jersey and they are moving very shortly. I may not be able to find anyone to replace his character, or may have to get a new player with a totally new character in. In any case I'm sure this will keep coming up so it is extremely helpful!