I have a droid PC that has Blackmail and Bounty for his starting obligation in a campaign I'm running. His back story, simply put, is that he is blackmailing a past owner, and the owner has a bounty on his head.

I allowed this at character creation, but as I'm thinking more about it, does it make sense that the droid has Blackmail as HIS obligation, even though HE is the one doing the blackmail? How might it get resolved or lessoned? Should that obligation be under a different one?

From a PC perspective there is no motivation to reduce that obligation. If he is receptive to it, just talk to him and arrange a new obligation. Alternatively, you might try to come up with a way to get him under a new obligation through the course of play. Debt or criminal seem like they might be easy to make happen. Maybe a big boss crime lord doesn't like droids and they develop some grudge on a job.

Depending on what the item of blackmail is, maybe the previous owner dies mysteriously and is now looking for the droid who haas the last piece of evidence... I don't know.

Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same way Dbuntu. I just needed to hear it from someone else to make sure I wasn't thinking about this wrong.

The blackmail is about information the droid found on his previous owners computers. I think having the bounty makes sense, but I'll talk with him about changing or getting rid of the blackmail one.

Thanks for the feedback!

Keep in mind that Obligation should hold the PC back, not help him out.

Now if you and he want to keep the Obligation what it is, that can work too, as long as its a disadvantage to the PC. So yeah, he's blackmailing the past owner, but he has to stay intimidating enough that the NPC will stay blackmailed. It takes work.

So maybe if his Obligation triggers, he begins to suspect that the NPC isn't as willing to give in to the blackmail. If it triggers on a double, he has to do something quick to intimidate the NPC again. It could be a direct connection, or it could be more subtle.

To decrease the Obligation, the PC could make an example of another one of his enemies and make sure the information gets to the NPC in the Obligation, as a message that "this could be you if you don't do as I say". On the other hand, if the PC begins attracting too much attention from the authorities, the NPC may be more likely to go public in exchange for protection, increasing the Obligation and/or changing it to Bounty/Criminal/etc.

Keep in mind that Obligation should hold the PC back, not help him out.

Now if you and he want to keep the Obligation what it is, that can work too, as long as its a disadvantage to the PC. So yeah, he's blackmailing the past owner, but he has to stay intimidating enough that the NPC will stay blackmailed. It takes work.

Good point! And some good ideas on how to try to make it work. I'm still thinking it probably would be better to either rethink it, or get rid of it all together. But thanks for the ideas Joker Two!

Sigh. It's that time of the month. Time to blackmail my former owner again. *Suffers 2 Strain*

A very amusing image indeed. I would apply this as an entirely different Obligation, resulting from his blackmail. Perhaps his attempts to blackmail the owner have failed, or maybe they just got sick of it and took a hit out on the droid. Or maybe he has come to regret the blackmail and is trying to restore a relationship, only to be troubled by the lack of reciprocation.

It definitely doesn't make sense in and of itself, but you should be able to easily flip the perspective on the Obligation to make it work.

Actually, it doesn't sound like blackmail anymore if there is a bounty on the droids head. Now the droid should have some criminal or something else. You are right though, if you are blackmailing someone it shouldn't be your obligation.