1: Shared obligations: Suppose you have a group of 4 players, each starting with the standard obligation value of 10 for the group size and no additional complications taken. 2 of the players have chosen the same obligation type and have decided (with GM's permission, of course) that they share the same obligation. (Say that both characters, are being collectively blackmailed by an enemy regarding an event/incident that both were involved in.) When creating the obligation check table, would you combine their obligation(s) into a single entry with the values added together, or just list them both separately, one for each character?

2: Also, along similar lines, what if all the players have decided (again, with GM permission) to chose the same starting obligation as a group obligation? (All players were framed for a crime, and seek to clear their names.)

In both of the above examples, how would you handle the Strain Threshold penalty for the players of a shared obligation should it come up? Would you total the players'/group's obligation value and make it a single entry, or list each separately as normal, and whomever's "number" comes up on the roll takes the brunt of the consequences for the session?

3: Additional Obligation: It says that you can increase the value of your starting obligation for either extra starting XP or money. But can you take on a 2nd starting Obligation in this manner?

(i.e.: Same group of 4, you chose for your character's starting Obligation "Betrayal" at the default value of 10. Can you then take on an additional +5 Obligation, but put it into a "Debt" obligation instead of adding it to the value of your "Betrayal"?

1) Combine into a single entry.

2) All characters tied to the entry rolled suffer the greater effect. This is the result of putting all of your eggs in one basket.

3) Yes. You increase the value of your character's total Obligation and can then allocate it as desired to one or more categories.

1) There's three options on how to handle it in the Obligation roll:

a) Treat it as one big entry as per HappyDaze's suggestion.

b) Sort it into the list as though it were one big entry, but divy it up among the players according to their actual ranks in the Obligation.

c) The standard method, where each 'chunk' is sorted into the list according to its own value.

2) My personal choice for resolving this would be #2, because it treats the big combined Obligation as a big Obligation, but doesn't nail everyone in that cluster with the "I rolled *your* Obligation" penalty. After all, not every instance of a multi-PC Obligation is going to hit all of those PCs exactly the same way each time. Sometimes the pressure will hit one harder than the others, depending on a wide variety of potential in-game factors.

3) Yes, when you take additional Obligation, it can be a second Obligation (potentially a third, though I'd recommend against it). I think *technically*, the rules say you should split the value of each Obligation as evenly as possible (10 = 5 & 5; 15 = 7 & 8; etc), but I don't see anything wrong with divvying them up as the player sees fit, based on the details of the Obligations in question (15 = 5 & 10). I would tend to recommend splitting them into easy-to-add values in that case, though. Just to make things easy on the GM. (Building the Obligation chart for the roll gets tricky if you're dealing with 13, 2; 11, 4; 9, 6; 8, 7 as the Obligation values for 4 PCs.)

I would say combine them and when it is rolled each character reduces thier strain threshold by 2. but if you happen to roll doubles on the combined obligation i would only increase the total strain loss to 3. The reasoning is because it coming up impacts each character equally but when the really bad doubles come along the additional strain is displaced among all of the characters.

Ok, another question that I thought up.

Let's say that you have 3 players, they each pick an obligation starting at the default value of 15, based on the number of players. None of them take any additional obligation.

Later, a 4th player joins the group, how do you handle his/her starting obligation value? Would you just start him with a value of 10, now that there are 4 players? Also, would the default value of the other 3 players' obligations change retroactively to accommodate the 4th player, or would the 4th's obligation value just add to the existing list without change?

1: Shared obligations: Suppose you have a group of 4 players, each starting with the standard obligation value of 10 for the group size and no additional complications taken. 2 of the players have chosen the same obligation type and have decided (with GM's permission, of course) that they share the same obligation. (Say that both characters, are being collectively blackmailed by an enemy regarding an event/incident that both were involved in.) When creating the obligation check table, would you combine their obligation(s) into a single entry with the values added together, or just list them both separately, one for each character?

2: Also, along similar lines, what if all the players have decided (again, with GM permission) to chose the same starting obligation as a group obligation? (All players were framed for a crime, and seek to clear their names.)

In both of the above examples, how would you handle the Strain Threshold penalty for the players of a shared obligation should it come up? Would you total the players'/group's obligation value and make it a single entry, or list each separately as normal, and whomever's "number" comes up on the roll takes the brunt of the consequences for the session?

3: Additional Obligation: It says that you can increase the value of your starting obligation for either extra starting XP or money. But can you take on a 2nd starting Obligation in this manner?

(i.e.: Same group of 4, you chose for your character's starting Obligation "Betrayal" at the default value of 10. Can you then take on an additional +5 Obligation, but put it into a "Debt" obligation instead of adding it to the value of your "Betrayal"?

1) I'd keep them separate, as what deeply affects one character may not be quite as worrisome for another character, and depending on what the Obligation is, circumstances may show up where one character can reduce their Obligation but the other can't, so keeping them separate allows for this sort of thing

2) Per RAW, you'd track them all separately, even if they're the same type and backstory, such as the example you gave or the PCs all having a substantial debt to the same crime lord.

3) A PC can split their Obligation however they like, thought it's been suggested to avoid taking more than two different Obligations at any given time by Sterling Hershey, who wrote that particular section of the rules. And you can even do this with your starting Obligation, such as taking the default 10 that a group of 4 to 5 PCs begins with and splitting it into Debt 5 and Blackmail 5, and then taking an extra +5 Obligation and either applying it to one of the two in whole or splitting it up, such as having Debt 8 and Blackmail 7 (total Obligation is 15)

As for your most recent question, that's a trickier one, and lacks any sort of official answer. Honestly, it's gonna depend on your group. Personally, I'd set the 4th player's Obligation at 10, and might consider reducing the group's total Obligation as well, particularly if they didn't take any extra Obligation, Other GM's have said new guy starts at 10 Obligation, and the prior players are stuck with their 15 points of individual Obligation.

It really only gets tricky if someone in the original group of players took the maximum allowable extra Obligation. If nobody did, then it's clean enough to reduce the base Obligation rank on the rest of the players.

If someone did, does the new guy get the opportunity to take on 15 Obligation, or just the 10?