My first nitpick really and someone can correct me if I am wrong but I have read over the character creation chapter fairly well. BUT I am legally blind so I can sometimes still derp and miss details like this

Droids especially can abuse this aspect of the system but what’s the point of putting a cap of 2 skill levels during character creation on any skill, if you can just bank the xp for use after character creation and dump them all into one or two skills to get a rank 4 or 5 in a few of them right at the start. Now my players are pretty stand up people and no one tends to min max in that way but several of them asked this question to me at one point or another while looking over the system. And while you can easily house rule and say you can only have 20 or less xp banked after character creation, it just seems like an open window for abuse. Granted it would balance out to a point by the fact they would only be good in a small area that they paid the price for right off the bat. However the point is, if you can do this what’s the point of having a skill cap of 2 during creation if you can just bypass it anyway.

My second nitpick really is obligation as a whole and how its explained to a degree. I like it, don’t get me wrong. It’s a good tool that forces most players to think of a disadvantage or character flaw that they might not normally have given themselves without much benefit. My real problem comes from that most players I see get confused on how much obligation you need to take at first. How much is this one worth over another sort of deal. I understand not all obligations is built equal but sometimes party size can be drastic from table to gaming table.

So lets take an example from the rules, my table has 5 people playing right now. I told everyone to take 5 obligation during creation because the starting job they are pulling is going to give them an additional 5 obligation putting everyone at 10 per person, the recommended value in table 2-2 on page 39. But let’s say I had only 3 players so everyone needs to have around 15 obligation each. Does that blackmail obligation or addiction obligation suddenly become that much worse for a character because its set to 15 obligation for that person or should each player take 3 obligations at the cost of 5 each and have the feel minor or smaller in some fashion?

Now I think I understand this as it’s a ratio based on the group size vs the numbers to keep them in line so the percentage chance for the party as a whole stays in roughly the same area for the chance to roll the obligation on the D100 chart. However I don’t think this aspect is explained very well and it can be confusing to new players especially when making a character for the first time. It doesn’t feel very intuitive because we associate a higher number with the fact that it means more of something usually. By natural thought a +15 obligation addiction should be much worse than a +5 obligation towards it. But if were just talking a ratio on the D100 chart then really that +5 and +15 mean the same thing if you’re talking a group of 3 people vs a group of 6 people at the table. But basically I am assuming that’s the point though it’s badly explained, in my opinion at least. Choosing an obligation and its cost is based on the player base. So 3 players it costs 15 to take any obligation at the start always and with 6 players they all cost 5. However when you try to purchase extra obligation and your suddenly only taking 5 or 10 extra obligation for another choice, this leads to more confusion in the 3 man party that has spent 15 obligation on one choice already.

I mean correct me if I am wrong in my logic here on this, or explain it to me better so I can explain it to my players with better logic. But if were going by how its stated in the book as it is currently printed, obligation feels just a little vague on this area under its explanation. I have had 3 out of my 6 players ask me this questions in various ways, all of them seem confused on what numeric value you assign obligation.

Firstly, saving up your experience to dump into one skill after character creation is such a bad idea. Yeah, you'll have a 5 in ONE skill, but all of your characteristics will be super average and you won't be able to do a **** thing besides that one skill. It is usually a better idea to spend as much XP as you can on characteristics. In fact, I believe they put that 2-rank cap on it so that players WEREN'T tempted to dump their starting EXP into skills and would instead be more inclined to spend them on characteristics.

As for the obligation, you're thinking about it too hard. A larger amount of obligation might mean that it is more severe, but it also might just mean that it comes into play more often. If I have a family back home and that's my obligation, having an obligation of 20 over an obligation of 10 to that just means that there's a good chance that I'm going to be stressing out about them more than if I took 10.

And remember, you can take multiple obligations and split yours between it. So if you had that family but were also addicted to Glitterstim, you could have 10 Family and 10 Addiction obligation. Whichever one that activates would change exactly how your character is feeling in obvious ways.

If you or your players ever feel like you have too high of a starting obligation number in one thing, feel free to come up with a different thing, like a favor you owe someone on a 5 Obligation or something. That's how I'd handle it.

I really feel that the skill level limit of 2 should only apply before any XP are spent for the exact reason mentioned by the OP. IOW, the skill level limit should just matter for free skill points granted by Species, Career, and first Specialization which could otherwise provide a starting skill level up to 3... which itself shouldn't really be a problem either, but whatever.

I agree with Endrik on this one. When my players were making their characters, one of the first mechanical explaniations I gave to them was how characteristics are increased during play, which on I believe 2 or 3 talent trees costs a minmum of 75xp, admitedly you are gaining other talents in the progression, but given about a year of play, my PC's will probably gather enough XP to go through 2 complete Talent trees, with some extra to flush out skills and whatnot. That's only 2 points to spend in characteristics over the course of a years play.

That being said, the GM always determines when xp may be spent. Understand that I am in no way making accusatory statements about your players, but whenever I see or hear a question the (very roughly) equates to "I have a PC who wants to game the system" I typically respond with "Then don't let them."

Obligation is a bit trickier. You are correct in that the differing values are to balance out starting patries Obligation values. I would say that a slight shift in perspective would/could possibly help your group however. A higher number doesn't necessarily mean that the Obligation is "bigger" (more debt, a larger bounty, an imperriled family) Just that it is more pressing/important to that characters life.

I'll use Debt as an example as it is easier. Two PC's have the Debt Obligation, PC:A at 5, PC:B at 15. In credit terms, the Debt ammount is 50,000c. Now PC:A owes said debt to a loanshark in the Corporate sector. Sure the guy has some leg breakers, but PC:A isn't really worried about it that much as he's flying around the other side of the Core. PC:B is also in Debt to a loanshark, but this one is a direct employee for a BlackSun Vigo. It is a much more pressing concern for PC:B but only because the reach of the Vigo is much farther.

Duty can also be substituted. Say PC:A has Duty 5 to her Bothan clan. As she is on the fringe anyway, the clan will rarely call upon her for aid. PC:B, a Wookie, Has Duty 25! He is an active supporter of the Rebellion and will often get called up for missions.

The higher the number, the more the Obligation influences your characters actions and life. The Debt mentioned could easily be 100,000c for PC:A, but only 5,000c or PC:B, but because of the relatively small level of influence that the Corp Sector loanshark has, it's just not as much of a threat, while the BlackSun Vigo certainly is a substantial influence on the character.

Feel free to split Obligation up in order to have a much broader narrative base for the story, but I wouldn't go too far. The Core Book reccommends limiting the total number of Obligations a PC can have to about 3. I'd stay fairly close to this number myself.

I hope this rambling helps. Good luck.

On starting obligation, it's laid out pretty clear, you start with a suggested amount, and a single or split obligation. They aren't spending anything on obligation, they are required to take it, and players can never dip below 5 obligation. It's a mechanic that's not there to befuddle players with numbers, it's meant as a mechanical representation of life in the gritty underworld. You have GM tools at your disposal to affect things if they ignore obligation, also. The book suggests hitting one of the players' obligations at least once per session. Make it fun, exciting, personal. Tonight when the players hack into a system to disable a door, they might find a wanted notice mentioning them by name scrolling across the screen, or go to a Hutt's palace and one of the guards is a cousin to the players' life-debt, etc etc. Constantly remind them that they are on the grey side of the law, and they will probably give you back hooks to run with. Get your players into it, and they will reward you with good RP (hopefully).

Also, remember, players must always willingly take obligation, it's laid out that taking on new obligation must always be their choice. You can't just assign it. So make it interesting and give them something good! And then make them PAY. It's a cool mechanic that generates adventure hooks!

I think viewing obligation "severity" more in terms of frequency is better than magnitude. It's not that a 15 obligation is somehow "larger" than obligation 5, it's just that it will come up more often (which is directly affected by a percentile roll).

A 15 could be as simple as an unpaid parking ticket, but because it's 15, the character has to hear about it ALL THE **** TIME from the meter maids. They just WON'T stop pestering him, ever.

I'm exaggerating, of course, so there is a balance...because a 15 obligation should be harder to pay down, too, so maybe look around the obligation threads here for ideas.

As far as players banking all their experience points during character generation to spend on high skill ranks once play starts, let them. Yes, I said "let them." They will only be hurting themselves. While they wait for the chance to spend those EPs to get the high skill levels they will be suffering through low characteristics, low skills, and few talents. Even after they buy that Rank 5 skill, their other skills, characteristics and talents will remain low. Low characteristics can be crippling, and what if they guess wrong about the important skill?

As for the Obligation numbers, remember that the number reflects a global "pain in the butt" level for the obligation. It could be that the character is mildly addicted to a substance that is very hard to find, or keeps getting pulled over by law enforcement, rather than being severely addicted or wanted for a serious crime. A high obligation to Family could mean that relatives are always popping out of the woodwork to ask for little favors.

Keep in mind as well that the 500 starting credits is "no strings attached" -- they've already got from 80,000 to 120,000 credits' worth pooled together in their starting starship, and one example of Obligation in the narrative may be that your characters are indebted to someone for that starship.

If you get too much flack from your players regarding obligations, just remind them that it's more of a story/plot device to help you flesh out the adventure and it's meant to add variety to the game.

The whole saving up skill points thing is actually an issue with clever players. There is an assumption here that players will "Min Max" and cripple themselves by doing so, but this assumption is false. Players are a lot more clever then they are being given credit for here. Through this loophole they will simply create better characters then what the system tries to prevent them from doing during character creation. Saving 15 points for example can get them 3 skills to level 3 after the first session. That's a significant boost which is easily to accomplish given that there are many combination of ways to put your skills to level 2 without ever spending a single experience point.

I think GM's kind of have to accept that no rule system is perfect and when their is a loophole in the rules, as a GM you are obligated to simply close it. The first house rule in our game was to implement a hard fast rule, any character points not spend during creation are lost. Simple, easy to remember and really doesn't effect the game in any negative way. So far I have not seen how its possible to end up with experience points you cant spend.

As for Obligations, in many ways I think they have been left rather vague in their narrative application because its part of the GM tool belt in terms of story writing. You can kind of think of it this way. A GM's job is to create adventures for the group, Obligations are a source of side quests and since every story needs a conflict, obligations create the key piece of information you need for writing stories.

What I suggest is that you look over your players obligations and jot some notes down about what you plan to do with that obligations when you roll on it. Then whatever the players are doing, throw the wrench in the program and throw them off track.

I personally think obligations should be rolled in secret. The players should have no idea if obligations will be called into play, this way, if you miss it but you think the story would be well served by having an obligation come up.. you simply add it and no one is the wiser and vice versus. Also if the players know an obligation is coming and worse yet know which one it kind of spoils it in my opinion for the players.