Hello everyone!

I'm a new GM to the star wars RPG, and before my group starts our first session, I have a quick question...

I own the Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny books. I have some players wanting to go Jedi, and some just wanting to be force sensitive pilot/smugglers, and some just wanting to be a plain old hired gun or bounty hunter.

How would I make this work?

Do some of the players have obligations while some have morality? Do all characters use both? Is there something special for "blending" these books together?

Any help on the subject would be grand, thanks!

F&D has some rules for integrating with the other books, but the reality is that they are designed to blend quite well.

You could use Obligation only for the EotE characters, Duty for the AoR characters, and Morality for the F&D characters. Or, you could have everyone use the same single mechanic. It all depends on how you want to go.

Personally, I’d use Morality for the F&D characters, then decide if you need to also use Obligation or Duty for them as well, to help tie in with the other characters. For the AoR and EotE characters, you should decide if you just want to use Duty across the board, Obligation across the board, or some sort of mix.

The typical pattern of characters of this sort might be the EotE characters start off with Obligation, but then maybe pay that down a bit as they start gaining Duty to the Rebellion. The AoR characters would start off with Duty, but after the Rebellion is over then maybe Duty starts going away and they start picking up Obligation.

For the F&D characters, Morality might cover all their activities regarding the Force and any Force-using organization they might be a member of, while Duty and/or Obligation might cover other aspects of their life that are not related to the Force or they Force-using organization they might be a member of.

At the end of the day, all three of these mechanisms are there to help the players and the GM have fun tell a more interesting interactive story. They are hooks that the players provide to the GM to more easily hang plot developments on.

So, find what is useful about them and make use of them. If there is anything about them that is not useful, if you can’t find a way to make it useful, then maybe you ignore it instead.

The most important thing is to decide on a setting.

Do the players want to be Jedi who go around righting wrongs, or do they want to live on the edge of the law and be mercenaries?

Because you can use characters from all three corebooks in a mix, as long as you decide on a setting.

One way to look at Obligation is that it represents the problems everyday civilians and criminals face in their day to day life. By that logic, anybody could have some Obligation, or share a group Obligation. Anybody could have a moral strength/weakness as well, but the real kicker is Force sensitives' actions affect their standing with the dark and the light. A Force PC's actions in regards to his or her strength/weakness could gain conflict and change their morality, possibly falling to the dark side, but for a non-Force sensitive, it's just roleplaying that doesn't affect them the same.

If you mix a Seeker and a Consular in with the same party as a Smuggler and a Hired Gun, they can all get an Obligation if the Smuggler botches a job for a Hutt in the form of a bounty on their heads. Or the Hired Gun gets some mercenary that turns out to be for the Rebels, and now they are branded criminals by the Empire. The Morality applies to the Force sensitives activities on a very personal scale, while Obligation can be any debt, bounty, promise, owned favor, and anything else anybody could get stuck with.

I would be with OddballE8 on this one.

The setting and focus of the game is a very key factor. Whatever style of game is the primary focus I would recommend using that mechanic for all characters. That is, if you will mostly be running a game about a group of fringers trying to get by they would all have Obligation. If it's focused more around understanding the force, discovering the secrets of the lost Jedi order and righting wrongs, then give them all morality.

Some might argue against morality for the non-force sensitive types, I personally think it is good to have one primary focal theme. In the case of someone playing a mercenary the morality trait could come up in what kind of reputation they have, how certain NPCs might react to them and how some of the Jedi template security measures might react to them. It also lets them feel some amount of ties to that major aspect of the game.

From there it gets a little trickier. Many people do feel quite strongly that all force users should use the morality system. I personally lean towards a more flexible approach. I would use Morality mostly only if there are players interested in exploring becoming a Jedi as then their Morality plays an important role towards this character goal. If they are more easily described as EotE characters who happen to have force powers then I would likely be less concerned with the inclusion of Morality. But that is just me. The use of a destiny point and strain to use black pips, to me, is a reasonable enough cost without conflict and being concerned about light paragon, dark paragon, etc.. but again, that strongly depends on the types of characters and themes being brought to the table.

I agree with OddballE8 on getting a focus for direction. You can stack any or all of them together, but you don't want it to be player versus player because they have a difference of opinion of what they want to do in Star Wars. Can it be done? You bet... but you can help yourself out by getting them to talk together and come up with a consensus.

After that, you want to use OggDude's Another Character Generator as it can mix and match all of the Obligation / Duty / Morality mechanics on character sheets (any or all).

I'm repeating this to emphasise how much it will help your decision and make the party more cohesive. CHOOSE A THEME FOR THE CAMPAIGN OR PARTY.

FaD characters are very broad I capability so will fit any game very easily. So choose a theme, Archiologist explorers, struggling colonists, a traveling stage show (that are mercenaries on the side), a rebellion A Team, etc ETC

Then choose a central mechanic Morality, Duty or Obligation, base the party resources on this.

Then if everyone isn't a force user (and Morality isn't the central theme) all PC's start with either Duty or Obligation. Force users start with a Morality as well.

If you have a Non-Force User in a FaD game where Morality is the central mechanic, let them have either Obligation or Duty, knowing that it won't come up that often. Duty is the mechanic most affected by the number of PC's who use it, due to the contribution rank system, and if you have a single PC using Duty in a party of force users you will probably need to artificially increase the amount of Duty awarded to compensate.

I'm repeating this to emphasise how much it will help your decision and make the party more cohesive. CHOOSE A THEME FOR THE CAMPAIGN OR PARTY.

And I’ll quote it for further emphasis.

This one thing is probably the single most important item that needs to be resolved on your agenda, and should be addressed in your “Session Zero” with the players.

I'll recommend a podcast episode that cover this really well:

The Mad Adventurers Society » Tales From the Hydian Way: 19 – Encouraging Weird Parties

https://overcast.fm/+DW2a1FTgk

Direct link: http://www.madadventurers.com/tales-from-the-hydian-way-episode-19-encouraging-weird-parties/

They talk a lot about building a fun coherent party with intending themes.

On the same note as above, sketch out (and, at this point, it's really a sketch) a beginning, middle and END to the campaign. Once the party accomplishes their goal, plan to wrap things up. As cool as ongoing campaigns can be, new storylines and plots should take the place of an extension of a dying campaign.

On that note, make sure that every third session, at least, the party makes some progress toward their ultimate goal. Take a look at the pacing of multi-year arcs on TV series for guidelines. There are lots of sub-plots that weave into and out of the main story, but there are always episodes that are focused solely on moving toward the ultimate objective.

Similarly, make sure that at least one out of every five sessions has -nothing- to do with the main plot (and is self-contained). Asides and one-shots within the campaign universe make for excellent palate cleansers for characters and stories that are getting stale.

I own the Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny books. I have some players wanting to go Jedi, and some just wanting to be force sensitive pilot/smugglers, and some just wanting to be a plain old hired gun or bounty hunter.

How would I make this work?

Figure out why these people would be together, and what they'd be doing. That's really the only hard part. There's plenty of room to maneuver... Firefly does something very similar with Mal as the smuggler, Jayne as the Hired Gun, and River as the "Jedi" of sorts. So you can totally make it work.

Mechanically speaking the games are all the same and fairly balanced to each other, so from a dice rolling perspective there's no extra work for you.

Do some of the players have obligations while some have morality?

That is probably the easiest way to go about it.

Do all characters use both?

They could if they so desire, or if there's reason. Some people want an Obligation, but the GM will still track the Morality rating just for light/dark reasons. You only get the starting bonuses from one though, so no huge XP bonus for taking 50 Morality, 50 Obligation, and 0 Duty all at the same time.

Is there something special for "blending" these books together?

Use a blender or food processor, whisking just takes too long.

You've all been so very helpful! Thank you so much for your responses! It is very clear to me now!