I've been trying to come up with a way to handle mental obligations, since I've got a couple players that have them and after a year or so, the results have been...lackluster, to say the least.

Player one has the Addiction Obligation. That's not too bad--he plays it for laughs, and since he has to arrive late thanks to work I usually say it's because he's stoned out of his mind on some spice or another. However, when his Obligation gets rolled, there's usually not a lot of drama. He gets the party faces to make a Streetwise check, bargains with the pusher, and then selects something reasonably non-threatening to indulge in. It's fine, but it's also kind of routine.

Player two is Dutybound. He follows a particular warrior's code that says something along the lines of, "never attack first." Also fine, except for the fact that when his Obligation is rolled, he's clever. He won't attack until someone else attacks, but he's pretty skilled in drawing someone out.

Both of these Obligations have really lost their luster, so I'm trying to make things more interesting, not to mention give them the sense that these Obligations are things they are living with and trying to control, not just yawning when they come their way.

To that end, I've come up with a couple things:

With Player One, I'm going to work on the Addiction angle. He says he's addicted to everything, so the next time his Obligation is rolled I'm going to give him a craving for a very specific kind of drug, giving him Setback penalties until he can get his fix. It's also going to be uncontrollable, so he'll want to spend as many credits as he can to get the drugs he needs.

With Player Two, I'm going to up his Dutybound Obligation to the point where if his group does anything to provoke combat, he's going also get Setback penalties if he participates. He feels somewhat responsible for them anyway, so I'm going to play up that angle.

Having said that, they can attempt to beat or cancel out these urges they have. When their Obligation hits, I plan to allow them to make a Discipline roll against Daunting difficulty, but only if they spend a Destiny Point to do so, and adjudicate the results as if the players had rolled a Fear check. The way I see it, they're trying to fight against their own natures to do so, and so it should cost them something. If they can make their admittedly hard Discipline roll, then they can reduce their Obligation by one.

I'd like to hear some other GMs' thoughts on this. I've struggled with how to run mental Obligations for a while now, and this seems like a good way to handle it. There is a cost, but I think it really represents someone having to reach deep inside themselves and succeed against their own nature, which fits in with the heroic nature of Star Wars.

I would be less inclined with the addiction one to hand out some setback dice - he's already being hit with the strain loss after all. No, with addiction, you could have some fun outside the addict box:

* The character wakes up in an alley, a bloody knife in his hands and no idea how he got there or why.

* The pusher cuts his crank with some baby powder, hitting his wound threshold.

* An overdose sends him to the hospital.

* "Eddie, you remember how I discounted your buy last week? My . . . employers were not happy with that decision. There's some men on the way to your ship to talk to you about it."

* There's a police raid in the middle of a deal.

* The character has to sell some possessions to get his next fix - and who needs that blaster anyway?

* The pusher says "I'll cut you a deal on this week's purchase of blow if you just deliver this package for me. No, don't open it. Just deliver it."

* The team's plucky young kid sidekick gets into his stash and overdoses - or dies (depending on the tone of your campaign).

* He starts becoming unreliable to the others on the team. "There we were, in the middle of a heist of imperial Stim Pacs - and all you had to do was open the door. You had just ONE job and you blew it. Now not only do we not have the merchandise, we owe Binrow the Hutt 150,000 stim packs!"

I'll think on the other one and see if I can be inspired. . . .

What Desslok said about how to handle addiction I think is spot on. It doesn't have to be directly related to his intake of drugs, you can play around with it. Maybe he finds his favorite dealer murdered, or a rival takes over the local drug trade and refuses to sell to him. The PCs are smuggling unknown cargo that turns out to be his favorite spice or something. For the Dutybound guy, you could always hit him where it hurts. If he's dutybound to not attack unless provoked, then have someone else exploit his code and beat up someone he cares about in front of him. His little brother instigates a personal fight with a tough guy, who beats the crap out of the kid nearly to death while the player watches, torn between being big bro and his code of honor.

Okay, after thinking about it over lunch - two things.

1) Obligations are not forever. Debts get paid, people go into 12 step programs and so on. If the obligation is getting stale, figure a way to write it out.

2) For the Dutybound, you need to ask why. Why is does he never strike first. Did he have a bad experience in a gun duel when he was young? Does he want to test himself by slapping leather last? Is this just a tip of the iceberg and he's playing under a Bushido code but only getting paid for "No strike first"? Find out the why and you can expand on it in game.

* He just starts becoming unreliable to the others on the team. "There we were in the middle of a heist of imperial Stim Pacs - and you had just ONE job and you blew it. Now not only do we not have the merchandise, we owe Binrow the Hutt 150,000 stim packs!"

That one is a tricky one because you're forcing something down the players throat. Some players might argue that their character wouldn't do that.... it's a dangerous path to take... it might antagonize that player. Internal Obligations are really tricky and can get frustrating to the GM. I've got a player who chose addiction too and makes it pretty hard to really exploit his obligation. As a GM, I really work hard to make those obligation shine and make the player feel that his story is unfolding when they pop up, not that it's a mechanical limitation imposed by the system.

The best advice I can give you is to talk to your player and try to develop some kind of background for his addiction... Where is he from ? When did he start taking those spices ? Did he take them often, with a bunch of people or with only one person ? Did taking those drugs get him into trouble in the past ? Did taking drugs create a rift in his family, with his parents, wife or kids ? Who was his dealer ?

Here is an exemple.... let's say that a friend died of an overdose while high with said player....

After landing at some spaceport, a DEA agent ask the captain to speak with the player about the death of his friend.... Knowing that the Officer is a DEA agent, the player drops all his drugs down the drain... After some interrogation, the DEA agent says he's gonna keep an eye on him.... Now he has to get some more drugs because he flushed them but he's got a DEA agent sniffing down his back.

In that exemple, the DEA agent could become a recurring Nemesis... Each time the players obligation pops up, you have the DEA agent come with new leads that might point towards the player. He has to find ways to evade the DEA agent and get cleared of all charges.... When the players finally gets rid of the suspicion of the DEA agent, I would drop the Obligation by 5.

I had the same thing go with another player that was an Imperial Deserter. I came up with a Nemesis who's job was to capture the mutineer crew and bring them to justice. When the player finally killed the Nemesis, I dropped his obligation by 5 to show him he successfully evaded that threat.

I'd use the same tactic with the Dutybound obligation. Talk with your player to build some fun background. Maybe he broke that duty once and it might come back to haunt him. Or he didn't help a friend because he didn't want to break his code. That way you have some story elements to pull when you roll his obligation. Let him roleplay his obligation during normal games, and only push some even tied to his past when you roll his obligation.

One thing I would do is have a thug steal from his ship, and have the leader of the group taunt the player, saying that there is nothing he can do because he won't attack first, that it's against his code.... Have him be witness to an event his code forbid him to act. Making him know that his "weakness" is known by someone and exploited could instill fear and doubt in his mind.

I hope it helps

That one is a tricky one because you're forcing something down the players throat. Some players might argue that their character wouldn't do that.... it's a dangerous path to take... it might antagonize that player.

One could argue that addicts aren't necessarily always in their right mind. In real life, sometimes getting that next hit of smack overrides ALL other priorities.

It could also be a wakeup call - we had a game with an addict (well, alcoholic). I started the game, rolled the Alcoholism and the curtain-puller event for the game was them getting pulled out of hyperspace smack in the middle of a Rebel vs Imperial fight - and she was the group's only pilot and drunk off her ass like you wouldn't believe.

It made for some interesting few rounds as they bobbed and weaved (literarily) through the battle and trying go get back into hyperspace. But she decided to clean up her act after that little "whoops"

(Also, I do like the DEA agent, too. A very strong idea)

As everyone else has said, play up the consequences of the obligation. If you want to tweak a player's nose or nudge their character in a particular direction, let them have enough rope to hang themselves. So the next time that the addicted player shows up late 'because they're stoned,' have something awful happen to an NPC that they could have prevented were they present. Make it clear that this is the consequence of the player's actions and not the GM being arbitrary.

I don't like the idea of them waking up with a bloody knife in their hands, but waking up to an NPC friend of theirs dead on their chest, with their arms protecting their face and then fighting the PC (and having the aggressor get their butts thoroughly handed to them -- it's not even a fair fight). Make it exceptionally clear that if the NPC had been able to wake the PC from their slumber, the attacker would have been able to be completely neutralized without anyone else getting hurt.

For the dutybound guy, present him with an opponent that exploits that duty exclusively. He goes -right- up to that line, but never crosses it. He does horrible things in front of the PC (and only the PC), but doesn't attack. This could be in the form of personal messages, holo-recordings, or running into him in the refresher. Make sure to isolate the character so they can't fall back on the rest of the party initiating the attack -- they have to be the ones to do it.

A classic example of this is telling the PC that they're going to be at a certain place in X minutes and going to kill someone. The PC can stop them now, but only if they attack without being attacked themselves -- violating their code. Force the PC into a situation where they need to be the aggressor or else 'devastating consequences'.

Just a note: Dutybound is supposed to involve others outside of the character that can enforce breaches in expected behavior. This can be other members of a warrior brotherhood/pirate gang/fraternity/whatever. Oath, OTOH, is intended for totally self-regulated/internal limits on one's behavior.

One thing to keep in mind is that, in my opinion, the Obligation mechanic is a way of saying "This is what I want my character's story to be about."

A character could be a drinker in a game and it may not cause actual problems to the character in the game. It could be just flavor, they like to have a flask in their hand or they say "I need a drink!" after a fight.

But if they've taken it as an Obligation, that's a way of saying "I want this to factor into my character's story."

Han Solo's debt to Jabba factors into his story in a big way. It compels him to leave the Rebels and the woman he loves to get them out of danger.

So I think you should consider ramping up the problems caused by the Obligations, like Desslok suggested. If Han just needed to remember to stop by a Western Union and send Jabba an interest payment and everything was fine, it wouldn't be an Obligation.