So I have one player that states to me in private whenever there is an obligation session that isn't theirs , that they dislike obligation sessions. When I ask for them to explain themselves there really isn't a justifiable reason they can come up with. I try to run a game that everyone can enjoy so when I get complaints, especially more than once, I feel I need to figure out the problem and resolve it. If not, the complaints over time will burn me out on GMing for the "plaintiffs".

My only guess is that this player doesn't like the spotlight to be focused on the other players. Problem I see with that logic is this player does not engage with the plot or the role-play at all unless prodded by other players and in the past has had little RP impact on their own obligation session. I've told them everyone gets their obligation session eventually. This player just joined a new group during a session that happened to be focused on another player's obligation and, like clockwork, this player told me afterwards that they dislike obligation sessions. I responded by explaining the previous session had focused almost exclusively on the other players so it was only fair that the only other player in the group get their moment, plus the main plotline was already headed in that direction anyway so it naturally went towards that. When I try to get this player to talk specifically about why they don't like obligation sessions they just stop talking about it so I don't really understand the root of the issue. To me it looks like they get jealous whenever someone else has a session focused on their character but I don't want to assume that.

Here's the catch with dealing with this situation: They are a close family member.

Anyone else experienced a similar situation before? What did you do?

I've never had a player that didn't like Obligation, but I have had players that always want the focus to be on them. It manifests in statements like, "what is my character's motivation for being here? I don't have any reason for tagging along!" Or it manifests in them inserting themselves into every conversation and scene, even if they're not physically present for that scene and have to be reminded

Some people just aren't that great at taking turns. And what I've found as an effective way to mollify the desire to be the center of attention is to give them (the player) a job.

• Maybe he could be the group's scribe, or journalist. He keeps track of events and actions.
• Or he could be the person who keeps track of what money & items the group possesses.
• Maybe he can be your rules lawyer, the person who looks up those pesky hard-to-remember rules so that you can focus on narrating.
• Maybe he could keep track of initiative and other rolls, like if you ever have players roll several Perception checks at the top of a session and use them as you progress through the session. I dislike players handling initiative, but I know it works for some groups.

Obviously, not all of these things work for every group, but maybe there's some way you can bring him alongside you to help you run the game, so that he feels like he's contributing.

I think maybe only the first two of those bullets could work with this player, who's eyes gloss over when explaining the mechanics of this game. Admittedly, they needed help to come up with a backstory and picking their starting career/spec and basically chose the one because it's "stronger" (Consular/Niman Disciple) and allows for less xp spent to gain good dice pools on their focused skills (lightsaber, discipline). As I said, they are very non-engaged with the RP and the story, they generally sit there quietly and only decide to do something once or twice in a session on their own initiative. in-character conversations, or really, conversations in general with that player only start when that player gets directly spoken to first. It's like they are jealous of the spotlight but at the same time have absolutely no idea what to do if the spotlight shines on them.

Wow. So he's a wallflower that gets jealous of the spotlight? Everybody's different

I had a player that I was having trouble engaging—other players had written up backstories and freely embellished on them in-session to help direct the narrative (For example, "Oh, it just so happens that my wife and kids live nearby, and they haven't seen me for a few years since I packed up to go and find my fortune"). This non-engaging player had a pretty uninspired backstory, and so I created a basic NPC and told him outside of game time, "You have this friend that does this thing here in the city. Could you please tell me his or her name, species, give me a description of what they look like, and tell me how you met?" And the player came through: he retrofitted his backstory a little bit to accommodate this new character, gave her a complete description, and even told me what weapons she liked using

I hope you find a good way of motivating this player! And perhaps others here will have better suggestions than I.

2 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Anyone else experienced a similar situation before? What did you do?

I think as a player I would dislike it too. But for me it's not about the spotlight.

As a GM, except for creating the backstory, I dislike Obligation as a GM tool. I have a story arc in mind, and I will happily weave in backstory elements to flesh things out and give the PCs a reason to be where they are. But I don't want some arbitrary game mechanic to tell me what the focus of next session has to be about. It's just interruptive, but worse, I think as a tool it facilitates a poor approach to GMing.

Now, I don't mean that personally...I have a high regard for your input on these boards, and I have no idea how you personally GM. My issue is with the tool itself. Because IMHO, it's the GM's responsibility to engage everyone at the table, and when possible weave elements from everyone's backstory when possible, and I want each player to feel like their PC has made some progress...towards a story goal, or even just some character development. Having a mechanic that arbitrarily focuses a session on one PC is a detriment to that ideal.

Maybe that's not your player's issue, maybe he is just a jealous wallflower...but maybe it's also a matter of not being too rigid and/or isolating about whose Obligation is in play?

24 minutes ago, whafrog said:

I think as a player I would dislike it too. But for me it's not about the spotlight.

As a GM, except for creating the backstory, I dislike Obligation as a GM tool. I have a story arc in mind, and I will happily weave in backstory elements to flesh things out and give the PCs a reason to be where they are. But I don't want some arbitrary game mechanic to tell me what the focus of next session has to be about. It's just interruptive, but worse, I think as a tool it facilitates a poor approach to GMing.

Now, I don't mean that personally...I have a high regard for your input on these boards, and I have no idea how you personally GM. My issue is with the tool itself. Because IMHO, it's the GM's responsibility to engage everyone at the table, and when possible weave elements from everyone's backstory when possible, and I want each player to feel like their PC has made some progress...towards a story goal, or even just some character development. Having a mechanic that arbitrarily focuses a session on one PC is a detriment to that ideal.

Maybe that's not your player's issue, maybe he is just a jealous wallflower...but maybe it's also a matter of not being too rigid and/or isolating about whose Obligation is in play?

Typically the setup and reasons behind the encounters of an obligation session I run focuses on one character but the journey of that session and the resolution of situations involves the entire party. I also don't run Obligation vanilla. Rather than roll for it to arbitrarily force it in, I find good moments to bring out backstory elements and yeah, some sessions involve a bit more tangible progress in an individual character's story. Maybe my mistake in this instance is announcing that the next session will be obligation focused, I'm not sure.

More specifically, the group was traveling to the character's homeworld, to learn about a plot mcguffin (main storyline) that is tied to their people. They need the obligation character with them to get on the good side of the natives but the obligation character is hesitant to go because they are exiled (obligation). so the plot deals with resolving their exileship as well as the overall main plot of finding the mcguffin before the badguys do.

The session itself was the group deciding what to do while in transit, landing to refuel before finishing the journey. There they spent an hour or two ingame to sell weapons, buy drugs (kinda turned into a tense situation where they ended up leaving the seller alive but begrudgingly [he had been recording them and his backup was on the way]). From there they arrived on planet. They made their way to a village, getting attacked by some monsters, then tried to convince the village elder to let them in, which was a social encounter per the Genesys rules. Unfortunately for the majority of the group, the conversation was in the native tongue of the obligation player (i houserule known languages, anyone could have said they know the language and 1 player did) so it was a 2v1 social encounter. It was almost won and then the last PC in the encounter drew his lightsaber to make an obvious threat, like it wasn't going to make the village elder concerned about his people shut down. At this point the obligation character had agreed to undergo a deadly trial to regain their status or die trying, the NPC tagging along helped convince the elder to make it a little easier on them by having the group go with, which the elder was chill with because almost nobody survives. This was at the last hour of a 5 hour game, so only 20% of the session.

Some narration of travel and sights and they enter the core of this massive tree, heading down towards its root tips.

The majority of the session was the entire group doing stuff up until the social encounter (in which anyone could have said "hey i know the language I'm gonna join in the conversation"). So that was really the only part in which 3 players had nothing to do but wait and listen to the story unfold.

I think the trick with Obligation is just because it may be a single player's, doesn't mean there can't be something in it for everyone. Plus, I typically ditch individual Obligation as fast as I can and simply have the players accrue group Obligation. That's more to help me in keeping things moving in the direction I want for the story, as opposed to a player not liking it.

Close family member or not, refusing to articulate why leaves you with 2 options. 1. Develop telepathy. 2. Address it when they actually tell you why. I personally wouldn't waste my time trying to make someone happy who isn't telling me precisely why they are unhappy. Unless it's my grandson, he's 3, and still pees himself a little, so he gets a pass.....

Being a primarily AoR GM since I started 2 years ago, I have only recently dabbled in obligation in a new campaign i recently started.

I also find it a bit awkward and cumbersome, as it is a negative mechanic. It strips players of strain, and can prevent xp expenditure for a rather arbitary reason. I am only using it because of the setting of the campaign (After Episode III, thankyou Dawn of Rebellion), doesn't justify using duty.. yet. After 28 hours my six players have wiped there group bounty on them, and all there individual obligations are down to 5.

Now Duty I know and love. The effect is positive to the individual and group, adding wounds and rewards, and is optional for the player to act on. When they trigger, I only have to provide and opportunity for them to advance their duty, they dont have to. and Party actions in every session can contribute towards their duty. and the party loves it whenever they reach 100 and go DING!

Morality I have only ever used at a personal level for force sensitives to track their path of the force, I don't bother with the whole strength/weakness mechanic

Obligation is a interesting resource; it can be gained to obtain an immediate favour or in exchange for failure in exchange for owing a favour and it also reflects that the galaxy is *much* bigger then the PC's. The key to running obligation however is to not only weave it into events; e.g. extra complications or sometimes just a worrying message from the obligatee can justify the lowering strain rate because of the impending stress. But also not to dangle it in front of them for too long, if one receives an obligation that by it's very nature seems unsolvable; then they likely won't make any attempt to resolve it. There was one time that a PC simply gave up on trying to learn about his family because each and every nemesis dangled it like a carrot, yet the character lost the will to care because there was never an answer, they were only ever looking to push his buttons.

That being said, I don't think that's the problem here. I guess one factor of it is that a person mightn't even be particularly used to story driven roleplaying; though given he hasn't spoken to you about it I just suspect he had a bad taste in his mouth about the first obligation session but couldn't tell you why that was. Either way, until he decides to talk about it there's not a great deal you can do about it.

Obligation is awesome but not the way the book presents it. I have a table of 5 players, obligation session never truly happened. They manage to keep their obligations always at 100 to be knowed in the underworld, so everyone is cherry picked once every session to be triggered about is obligation. If you skip the obligation of someone too long it's alright, get back at that player harder then the other. I often let them forget they actually have a favor pending with x crimelord and when they least expect it, like in the movies the bad guys finds them.

Your player who doesn't like the obligation session, maybe try to make it in half a session and also talk to the player. How much time and effort do you put as gm, tell him. Sometimes they need to be reminded that it's a game for everyone including the GMs. Good luck and keep us posted

5 hours ago, Storm-Trooper-God said:

Your player who doesn't like the obligation session, maybe try to make it in half a session and also talk to the player. How much time and effort do you put as gm, tell him. Sometimes they need to be reminded that it's a game for everyone including the GMs. Good luck and keep us posted

The obligation session really only had about an hour out of a 5 hour game dedicated to the obligation, in which this player still could have participated had they chose to do so. It's not like the player couldn't do anything and wasn't able to still have fun or be proactive just because of the social encounter, they chose not to be a part of it.

They know the amount of time and effort I put in, we live in the same household. I have reminded them in the past that the game should cater to everyone and that Obligations will not go away.

I think, after talking to another in my group about the situation, the issue stems from myself having the desire to fix problems and this plaintiff player having the desire to just complain about something. If I hear a complaint multiple times it drives me insane if nothing is done to rectify the situation and I have heard this one complaint a multitude of times (every time it's someone else's Obligation, regardless of what group and how engaging the session was). This player can find a myriad of things to complain about depending on their state of mood but they aren't really looking for solutions nor can they articulate why they have a complaint or what the complaint is specifically about. So basically the situation won't resolve because that player is just looking to complain and if it wasn't about Obligation it would be about something else.

I'm currently trying to find a way to not let the complaint bug me since I really have only that as a choice besides ending the entire group (if I kicked out just this player things would not go well despite how much I truly believe that RPG's just aren't a good fit for them).

The mechanic is there to help remind GM to focus on the background. If your group doesn't like it don't feel obligated to use it.

Some players love this knowing that they will be the focus of a story, my group enjoys it. It can also be a great challenge for the GM to come up with the wrinkles in their plan. As a new GM it forces me out of my comfort zone. One thing i may also do is if i can't work it on the current story, i will let them know and then build the next chapter around the obligation.

With all role playing games these are here to help out but if your group doesn't enjoy it, then don't use it.

Hope this helps.

22 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Close family member or not, refusing to articulate why leaves you with 2 options. 1. Develop telepathy. 2. Address it when they actually tell you why. I personally wouldn't waste my time trying to make someone happy who isn't telling me precisely why they are unhappy. Unless it's my grandson, he's 3, and still pees himself a little, so he gets a pass.....

Yeah, that's the piece of this that sticks out as abnormal to me. It really smacks of some sort of attention/emotion that the game is only shining a light on but has always been there. I'm with you on this one, @2P51 - you can't fix what they won't tell you is broken.

9 hours ago, damnkid3 said:

The mechanic is there to help remind GM to focus on the background. If your group doesn't like it don't feel obligated to use it.

Some players love this knowing that they will be the focus of a story, my group enjoys it. It can also be a great challenge for the GM to come up with the wrinkles in their plan. As a new GM it forces me out of my comfort zone. One thing i may also do is if i can't work it on the current story, i will let them know and then build the next chapter around the obligation.

With all role playing games these are here to help out but if your group doesn't enjoy it, then don't use it.

Hope this helps.

I agree. But one trick I've learned is that I always roll for it at the END of the session. That gives me time to incorporate it for the next session rather than having to imrprovise something by rolling it at the beginning of the session, as the book suggests.

I never roll obligation and try to work in 3 or more players obligation/sidestory into every session, kind of like an avengers movie.

one thing that may help is not having the obligation be the focus of the story, but rather an element that affects the larger game.

For instance, one of my players has the Ob for criminal, in that he is the leader of a (very) small gang. During a game where his OB was triggered, the group needed to make a deal with a large crime syndicate, however the boss refused to work with the group, because he didn't want to support a potential rival. So the group had to find a way around this.

his obligation was involved, but the larger story was the focus so the rest of the player were still active.

I would also suggest not letting the group know who's obligation is triggered. Roll it behind the screen or a head of time, and incorporate it into you story.

18 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

I never roll obligation and try to work in 3 or more players obligation/sidestory into every session, kind of like an avengers movie.

How do you handle the strain costs?

2 hours ago, themensch said:

How do you handle the strain costs?

Personally I ignore them, because i use obligation in an almost completely narrative/plot way (only plot consequences, starting mechanical benefits, and you can use it as a loan shark, and my party was big enough that enforcing the 100 obligation cap wasn't practical), but if I was inclined to the strain thing everyone whose obligation was active would take 1 strain and everyone else would take none, unless they happened to be over 100 obligation then +1 obligation everyone (so those those whose obligations were active would take 2)

Here's the feeling I get from all this.

I don't think it's a problem with the spotlight not being on that player.

I think the problem is that the player doesn't like to RP, and Obligation sessions are largely about RP.

What your player might want is just a "computer game" type session where you're just running around mindlessly shooting minions and completing objectives.

And if those objectives don't contribute to the players stats or wealth, it just doesn't engage the player.

That's the feeling I get, at least.

What I do is not make the obligation session all about the obligation. I make the session involve the obligation. So if I have a bank heist and a criminal obligation is triggered, then I just have the cops hear that the player is nearby and add more security to the bank.

1 hour ago, Matt Skywalker said:

What I do is not make the obligation session all about the obligation. I make the session involve the obligation. So if I have a bank heist and a criminal obligation is triggered, then I just have the cops hear that the player is nearby and add more security to the bank.

I definitely do this. Rarely if ever does one player's Obligation consume an entire session unless it's the resolution of said Obligation and everyone has an interest in doing so (like nobody can spend experience....) Otherwise, it's just additional spice to what's already going on.

20 hours ago, Matt Skywalker said:

What I do is not make the obligation session all about the obligation. I make the session involve the obligation. So if I have a bank heist and a criminal obligation is triggered, then I just have the cops hear that the player is nearby and add more security to the bank.

Yeah that's what happened last game and the one player still complained. The obligation lasted 1 hr out of the entire 5 hr session and everything leading up to that was main plot stuff, the obligation just happened to coincide with the main plot.

26 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Yeah that's what happened last game and the one player still complained.

Really? Gah, that stinks. I wonder, how do they know it's an Obligation-based scene? Could that fact be concealed?

59 minutes ago, themensch said:

Really? Gah, that stinks. I wonder, how do they know it's an Obligation-based scene? Could that fact be concealed?

What I plan on doing from now on is not announcing that the next session will be an obligation one at all. Make it complete surprise to everyone. Or as much surprise as I can muster.

Beyond that, I am just going to have to ignore the player's complaints about obligation sessions that aren't theirs. They seem concerned about the spotlight being on the obligation player but they aren't really that much of a go-getter when it comes to roleplay or anything like that. Delicate situation since they are a close family member.

30 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

What I plan on doing from now on is not announcing that the next session will be an obligation one at all. Make it complete surprise to everyone. Or as much surprise as I can muster.

Beyond that, I am just going to have to ignore the player's complaints about obligation sessions that aren't theirs. They seem concerned about the spotlight being on the obligation player but they aren't really that much of a go-getter when it comes to roleplay or anything like that. Delicate situation since they are a close family member.

Could you rolls it, say "oooh, someone's Obligation triggered! Find out who next time!"

Being a close and clearly sensitive family member does add complexity here. The game is just a game, and you have to live with this person 100% of the time you're not playing the game, so...yeah. Delicate finesse required.