As my players set up their characters for the campaign, I've been asked the question of wether it's a requirement to use Duty if you have a career from Age of Rebellion.

I think it should be ok, but I'd like some advice from my good friends here on the forums.

As long as you have Obligation OR Duty, you're fine, as is my interpretation. I believe Duty just fits better for Rebellion, or military type games.

I have a player that specifically wanted to go with Soldier > Doctor instead of Colonist > Doctor. His story is that after Alderaan, he poisoned the officers of his unit and went awol. So in that case, I replaced Duty with Obligation. They are pretty much the same mechanic, or at least fit in the same "slot" so to speak.

So an Ace in AoR would have a duty to his unit, navy, etc. An Ace in EotE might have an Obligation to whomever trained him to fly.

Technically you never have to use any of the 3 mechanics. They are there as a resource for the GM and Player to use. Duty is their "draw" towards the rebellion (away from a non rebellion story). On the other hand Obligation is their draw to a problem of some kind (away from any story). Lastly there is Morality with a draw towards the demands of the Force (again away from the story).

If you want only Obligation that does not make a character bad, and if you have a more rebellion focused story later you can add it on without the XP or $$$ draw that could cause it to be lowered.

The main thing though is AoR careers are more designed around Rebellion needs and are more focused. Other than that there isn't really a problem.

I'm running an Ace Pilot in a game that the GM is using the obligation mechanic for his game and it works fine.

Does your character work for an organization that he or she would need a duty to? If not, then I would have no idea how that would work.

Use either, both, or neither. It's a secondary mechanic to help the GM and player develop a more interesting story that involves the player characters more directly. If you feel you've got that base sufficiently covered.... just give everyone a starting XP or credit boost, and get rolling those dice.

its not a big deal. I use both. I have edge of the empire characters that are contractors for the alliance, as well as other organizations.they don't really conflict with each other neither does one replace the other. this game is very modular is design, you can take and leave what you want and don't by its very nature.

Just remember that Duty is pretty much all positive, while Obligation is all negative. They fit the same slot, by there s a huge difference between trading away 10 Duty and piling on 10 Obligation.

Ok, so the careers are separate from the Duty/Morality/Obligation mechanic.

In my campaign, it's 5 years after Order 66 so the Rebellion is yet to exist so unless they are part of the Empire or other Criminal Organisation, Duty probably might be better to be done away with at the start.

My other question about Duty (which should be asked on the Age of Rebellion Forum) is what happens if you have Duty to two organisations? Could you in effect have multiple Duty ratings?

Just to clarify, this isn't a discussion about the three "systems" working together or how, but is a question of whether Duty is a requirement for characters who have careers from Age of Rebellion. If not (and it appears that the "nots" have it), then all is good, and I will remove that option from my game

[EDIT]: Or at least change it to be work a little differently.

Much like Obligation, Duty is just an extra tool to weave the PCs' personal goals and motives into the mission objectives of each session, and to provide measurable rewards for progressing through it. It relates mostly to Motivation and to adventure design and not really anything to do with Careers.

Duty is also a group mechanic, asides from Duty type and value it's assumed PC in the party has some form of Duty (or Obligation/Morality, hence people's confusion as to what else a PC would have if not Duty). If some PCs aren't going to have a Duty then you may as well not use it at all, it would have far less utility if only a couple PCs were contributing.

If you and your group would rather just wing it and just rely on your own guidelines for providing the PCs time to shine, then by all means leave it out.

I prefer the Obligation mechanic myself. The Duty mechanic seems too much like a savings account for shopping rather than a narrative story driver. If it were my campaign, I would scrap Duty and develop an Obligation for that character. In an AoR campaign, I would no doubt keep it, but in Edge of the Empire Obligation works best.

I think that Obligation is the better-built tool, but I do dislike the XP-spending freeze when group Obligation > 100. None of the other mechanics have that kind of metagame effect.

I think that mechanic exists because if it goes over 100, you need something else other than a percentage dice roll.

The way I think I'll do it is this:

• All characters have Obligation
• All Force Sensitive characters must also have Morality
• Characters may have Duty to any number of organisations - they just don't track it. This will be something I can do in the background and is probably more akin to a Reputation Score than a Duty mechanic. The "Reputation" level within the organisation can go above 100 (for every 100 points they get an acknowledgment), and below 0. When it gets below 0, it will manifest itself as an Obligation.

Sound reasonable?

The way I think I'll do it is this:

• All characters have Obligation
• All Force Sensitive characters must also have Morality
• Characters may have Duty to any number of organisations - they just don't track it. This will be something I can do in the background and is probably more akin to a Reputation Score than a Duty mechanic. The "Reputation" level within the organisation can go above 100 (for every 100 points they get an acknowledgment), and below 0. When it gets below 0, it will manifest itself as an Obligation.

Sound reasonable?

That sounds great, from a player's perspective. Tracking all that might be rough on you as the GM. Maybe you'll come up with another great sheet to help out.

Yes indeed along with a set of rules to adjust Duty

I haven't used Duty yet, but I don't think any of them are necessary (well...maybe some Morality if you want to track dark side tendencies). We use Obligation in character creation, but I've rarely used it in game play.

I've never used any of them and my games run fine! I just run all that as a narrative. It's great for me to know that a smuggler owes a debt to a Hutt, or that a certain Ace is a 'placard hunter' who targets the best of the opposition... but I don't need a number attached to it. (I use the mechanical penalties for Dark Side, but characters are expected to flip back and forth during a session, and only use this for F&D careers...)

But what you are suggesting, GM Hooly, seems a good compromise. Keeps everyone all on the same page, with a little more emphasis on the Force users.

I don't think any of the systems are objectively bad or unworkable, I just don't want the extra book-keeping that comes with them. Other people have used them and report that they work well.

As my players set up their characters for the campaign, I've been asked the question of whether it's a requirement to use Duty if you have a career from Age of Rebellion.

I think it should be ok, but I'd like some advice from my good friends here on the forums.

No requirement whatsoever. If you're playing a strictly Edge-based campaign, just have the PCs take Obligation instead.

Conversely, if running a Rebellion-themed game, the PCs can take careers and specs from EotE along with Duty. Point of fact, I'm in a campaign that's based around the PCs being members of the Rebel Alliance (we're a "mission ops group" to use an old bit of WEG parlance) but none of the current PCs were built using AoR careers, partly as half the group only had access to the EotE core rulebook and one other player bringing back a PC from a long-defunct EotE game; until he croaked squaring off with an ISB Agent I has the only character with a career/spec from AoR.

And as Maelora posted, you don't really even need to use Obligation or Duty at all, though this could deprive your PCs of additional starting XP or funds since both games are built around the idea of PCs either taking on additional Obligation or reducing their starting Duty. In that vein, you could probably incorporate the starting bonuses from Force and Destiny (+10 XP, +2500 credits or +5XP/+1000 credits) instead to account for PCs not being able to manipulate their starting Obligation/Duty scores to get those particular bonuses.

We play an Edge game, but use Duty as Reputation. Basically as we successfully complete jobs we get more Reputation, which in turn means we could ask for a higher fee, get some specialized gear, or training with in an organization. Of course if we screw up we could not only lose Rep, but also gain Obligation (kinda of like Han to Jabba the Hutt).

As for if you need to use it, not at all. I just find using something gives a little more to the games narrative.

I prefer the Obligation mechanic myself. The Duty mechanic seems too much like a savings account for shopping rather than a narrative story driver. If it were my campaign, I would scrap Duty and develop an Obligation for that character. In an AoR campaign, I would no doubt keep it, but in Edge of the Empire Obligation works best.

It is a narrative driver. It is just a different kind that fits a military campaign better than obligation. You can use whatever is appropriate to your character. You don't even need to have everyone in the party using the same one. You could have force users using morality and rebels using duty and smugglers using obligation.