I have a PC in my party addicted to passak(I he that this is spelled correctly). How would I handle It being triggered or lowering it.

When it triggers you could have him come across an ongoing game when he's really supposed to be doing something else that's more important. At the very least a Discipline check to resist the lure of the card table should be called for. Or maybe gambling away money that were supposed to go towards repairing the ship, or paying a loan shark, or buying cargo.

Lowering it is a bit more tricky. A narrative way of handling it could be to have the character seek therapy (just imagine the kind of bizarre Star Wars therapists you suitably demented GM mind could come up with). If that's not a realistic option you could just inform the player that he'll get to lower it by 1 every time he succeeds on a (consecutive) Discipline check to resist entering into a game.

Be sure to have some ideas for when his Obligation triggers in a situation where a pazaak game just isn't available (like on a primitive planet, or on a derelict space station). Mechanically, the game just suggests that his Strain Threshold gets temporarily reduced, since he can't stop thinking about playing, but it could be funny to have him trying to teach pazaak to a primitive tribe of Talz warriors or the lone MSE droid manning the abandoned starship.

Great comments so far and maybe to add to them.

How many points is this addiction?

If I were the GM, I'd assign a purple dice per 5 points of Obligation vs his discipline check whenever the game is available. So if they're on shore leave on any planet with a cantina, make him make the discipline check and if he fails, his PC disappears and will later be found in a gambling den or cantina playing this game OR bummed out somewhere when he's lost all of his credits.

And maybe start adding black dice for each couple of days that he's gone without playing this game.

Okay there is a card game called Passak (per Wookiepedia) but are you actually referring to Sabaac?

Maybe not just games. Offer him rumours or opportunity to buy overpriced special side deck cards.

43 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

Okay there is a card game called Passak (per Wookiepedia) but are you actually referring to Sabaac?

I am referring to Passak

Remember that Obligation need not be literal.

So an Obligation based on an addiction to gambling (which this is a simple variant of) is just a cornerstone for you to build happenings and history upon.

- that broker you cheated on shows up wanting payback

- the loanshark you never got around to paying back call you offering a way to get off the hook.

- that rich kid you gave cardsharking classes to landed a seat at a high risk game and wants to bring you in to help.

- the casino boss you ticked off that one time has you blacklisted from the current casino you need to get in to cut a deal.

- the location you need to go has never...ever heard of passack, and a group of teens wants you to teach them.

See?

So I start that when it is triggered , he suffers a setback to everything, because his mind is on passak, not the job. Then when he doesn't play,The next time, he suffers 2 setbacks, then 3. Until he plays or breaks the addiction.

When he attempts to not play he takes a discipline check with a difficulty for every 5 OBLIGATION. For every success uncanceled, he lowers his obligation by 1

Criticize my decision

My only suggestion - not a criticism - would be that opportunities to reduce his obligation should be made available outside of this setup as it's unlikely to trigger that often. And your player may wish to tackle it in a more narratively central manner.

Oh also, if you find that obligation/5 is a touch light (players only have 5-10 to start in a six player game) you might consider basing the difficulty on the context and adding setbacks to represent the level of obligation.

I would push for a more generic addiction, such as "gambling." Gambling addicts aren't addicted to specific games, they're addicted to the rush of winning and losing money. Saying "I'm addicted to passak and only passak" makes the player sound like he's metagaming, as he's forcing you to put him in unlikely situations where that specific game is being played.

4 hours ago, Concise Locket said:

I would push for a more generic addiction, such as "gambling." Gambling addicts aren't addicted to specific games, they're addicted to the rush of winning and losing money. Saying "I'm addicted to passak and only passak" makes the player sound like he's metagaming, as he's forcing you to put him in unlikely situations where that specific game is being played.

I was thinking the same thing at first, but I don't think we'd balk at a player saying, "I'm addicted to Death Sticks" rather than "I'm addicted to spice." In that sense, a passak addiction could actually be more punishing on the player rather than a meta-gaming strategy.

35 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

I was thinking the same thing at first, but I don't think we'd balk at a player saying, "I'm addicted to Death Sticks" rather than "I'm addicted to spice." In that sense, a passak addiction could actually be more punishing on the player rather than a meta-gaming strategy.

Drug addicts have their drug of choice - Hemingway liked alcohol and Burroughs liked heroin - but they're willing to get high off of any convenient controlled substance that makes them feel good/makes them forget they feel bad. Passak might be a gambling addict's game of choice but a gambling addict is going to wager money on sabbac, pod-racing, or any other activity with an element of chance.

The real role-playing element is to have the player explain why they're addicted. Were they abused? Were they neglected? Were they a good person who happened to fall in with a bad crowd? Was one of their parents a perpetual loser?

13 hours ago, Matt Skywalker said:

So I start that when it is triggered , he suffers a setback to everything, because his mind is on passak, not the job. Then when he doesn't play,The next time, he suffers 2 setbacks, then 3. Until he plays or breaks the addiction.

When he attempts to not play he takes a discipline check with a difficulty for every 5 OBLIGATION. For every success uncanceled, he lowers his obligation by 1

Criticize my decision

Too litteral!

Obligation isn't supposed to be a self flagellation, it's a method for the player to kick in options for the GM to incorporate into the story.

So it's not really about the need to play, it's about what he has to deal with because of his need to play. What trouble has he gotten in or will he get in because of it? Who is going to show up and cause problems because he cheated them, or something? What did he screw up because he blew it off to go play a few hands and now he's on the run from?

These are what you need to be asking. Sometimes it'll just be a simple "you've got your mind on new deck build that might work for you, so you're mind isn't really on the situation at hand." Other times it might get more complicated like "You walk into the warehouse to make the spice deal for Durka the Hutt. The lights come up, and there on the other side of the pile of cargo crates is Bingi Hadaku... a twi'lek spice dealer you know... From the look on his face you're pretty sure that he's still mad about you forgetting to show up to marry his sister because you were on a winning streak in a gambling den in the next system over... I mean he shouldn't be, you won like 20,000 credits after all was said and done, and you're pretty sure his sister got a really good job as a dancer on Tatooine, and you don't like sand anyway, so it was really a win-win, right?"

7 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

Too litteral!

While I agree that Obligations are mainly a way to connect the characters with the universe and not a means to punish them (the exact opposite, it rewards them with personal stories), I am loath to write their characters' back stories for my players without their consent. As a player, I'd be rather annoyed if the GM decided that my character ran away from a wedding if that is not how I envisioned my character at all. That is a pretty big encroachment on player agency, especially on the one thing they should have a very high degree of control over - their own character. With consent, sure, anything goes, but writing Addiction: Gambling on a sheet does not mean that the GM gets to define other, intimate details of the character without talking to the player first.

22 hours ago, Matt Skywalker said:

So I start that when it is triggered , he suffers a setback to everything, because his mind is on passak, not the job. Then when he doesn't play,The next time, he suffers 2 setbacks, then 3. Until he plays or breaks the addiction.

When he attempts to not play he takes a discipline check with a difficulty for every 5 OBLIGATION. For every success uncanceled, he lowers his obligation by 1

Criticize my decision

Look at other Obligations. You lower them by feeding them, not by starving them. In fact, starve the Obligation and it only gets worse.

This means that by playing the games he can reduce Obligation (while possibly losing time and or credits). Eventually, he might need something bad enough that he accepts more Obligation to get it... And then he has to burn that off. Always remember that Obligation is a character resource.

8 hours ago, Franigo said:

While I agree that Obligations are mainly a way to connect the characters with the universe and not a means to punish them (the exact opposite, it rewards them with personal stories), I am loath to write their characters' back stories for my players without their consent. As a player, I'd be rather annoyed if the GM decided that my character ran away from a wedding if that is not how I envisioned my character at all. That is a pretty big encroachment on player agency, especially on the one thing they should have a very high degree of control over - their own character. With consent, sure, anything goes, but writing Addiction: Gambling on a sheet does not mean that the GM gets to define other, intimate details of the character without talking to the player first.

Absolutely! The GM needs to be in tune with the players and how far they are willing to go, or let the gm go. It's like coming up with an adventure hook that has a player secretly related to nobility to pull them into a dispute of some kind. Some players will go with it, others won't.

The wedding example was interesting, but admittedly an extreme example that makes certain assumptions about the player and character. The same result could be generated by using a more simple version where the guy across the table just happens to also be the guy the player won a pile of credits off of last time he was on this planet. Or someone the player lost a ton of credits too, or is the guy the party won thier ship off of, or the guy that taught the player how to play, or any number of other things that can put the player at a disadvantage.

The point is just that there's lots of story elements, great and small, that can be hung off an Obligation instead of just "yeah... Ummm.... You want to play cards really bad right now." But you do need to look at the character in question, and the party as a whole and make it fit.

My memory of my pazzak 'addiction ' playing kotor was having to check every merchant and Npc looking for side deck cards to improve my deck!

i guess it depends if at your table pazzak is like having a pack of cards or if like kotor it is more like a collectible card game with rare side deck cards. If so the search for rares could be part of the addiction