Not sure if this has been discussed before, but...

My players like the concept, but really hate the 'threshold loss because someone is fretting and giving the other characters a headache about it' thing.

Reading through one of the other adventures (I think it was 'Shadows of Dark Sun'?) they seem to tie Obligation into the plot a lot more. For example, the Bothan slicer is known as a notorious criminal, so some of the computer systems in the game have been upgraded against her signature style.

I suggested this to the players and they liked it a lot more. It will require a bit more thinking and planning, but it feels a lot more appropriate.

Reading the EoE book, Obligation seems to be handled a bit vaguely. The aforementioned (and hated) mechanic mentioned earlier aside, they seem to leave it to the GM as to how to add or remove it.

I like the idea that they can choose to pick it up by owing Favours or Debt to get more money for a quick fix they need... or taking on Responsibility when they meet new NPCs they want to protect. (For example, there's a gang of kids down at the spaceport called the Mynocks... After finding a stowaway moppet, the party as a whole feels inclined to make things better for them... which might even pay dividends later with the spaceport staff 'looking the other way' at certain times...)

I also want to do away with the 100 party limit thing and roll each PCs separately. If he has Responsibility to the droid liberation front and I roll it, then the adventure has someone mistreating droids in it. If a player has Criminal Obligation, and we roll it, the Imperials start hassling him. And if his Bounty is rolled, then actual Bounty Hunters turn up at an inopportune moment, rather than him just getting a headache and whining to the other PCs about it.

Anyone else use anything like this?

In my current and previous campaign I have stuck with rolling at the end of a session to determine whose Obligation comes up and thus actively plays a part in the next session. Obligation is such a strong connection to the PC's backgrounds it needs to be prominent when invoked and serve as the primary story conflict against the players' motivations and money-making schemes.

Currently I find I'm only invoking the strain penalty when the session starts after an interlude (like they've gotten away from the last obligation event) and it makes sense for it to come into effect the same time the Obligation is introduced, like news about a bounty or a holonet message from home is received. If I surprise them with their old friend or a debt collector in the middle of the session I tend not apply it then; the encounter is threat enough. If it's still going on the next session then I'll apply strain, but in retrospect I may just be indecisive about calling out Obligation strain when it's immediately relevant.

Yeah, I've been rolling at the end of a session to see if someone's comes up and then adding something to the next session that directly ties to this. As I am still new to the system I am leaving the threshold reduction in, but I have said to my players that if their Obligation comes up and you can roleplay it in such a way that it's believable that everyone's strain threshold is reduced, you'll be getting bonus xp.

Based on your other post about running the PCs through the Beginner Game adventures, it sounds like you haven't actually played with Obligation in effect yet.

That being the case, I strongly recommend giving it a try as-is a few times, first, before trying to retool it drastically from the get-go. The designers of this game built Obligation the way they did for a reason, and it's built into the balance of the game pretty strongly, in terms of what the PCs are able to do with it and how they're able to deal with it.

Having the Obligation roll bring in a character's backstory in a narrative sense is a great idea (and one endorsed by the book), but I'd definitely leave it as just one roll for the entire party. Rolling for everyone separately runs the reasonable risk that you're dealing with three or four Obligations at once, and as GM, that's going to derail pretty much everything you've got (not to mention clutter the narrative beyond reasonable suspension of disbelief, in many cases).

Yes, fair comments, thank you.

We haven't used Obligation yet, but we all have a book, and me and the guy who's sharing GMing duties have read 'Shadows of a Black Sun'.

We'll give it a go, I'm really just thinking of ways we can personalise things.

They like the concept, they just don't seem to like the execution as written.

I agree I don't want things to get too cluttered, but I've thought of at least one scenario where two opposing gangs of bounty hunters show up and get embroiled, and the wiser PCs can slip away...

I really don't understand these Obligation. This is a very nice narrative system and yet obligations are done so ... I am lacking the word for it ... but you roll for them! This is an absurd for me. A GM should use obligation freely to create adventures for the PCs, but it should not be governed by a die roll.

As of now, I have played through the Beginner game and Long Arm of the Hutt and am in the process of reading through the book. But from what I gather I think the system sounds awesome, and I especially like the part about rolling a die to see if it comes up or not.

However, here's one thing I am having trouble with picturing. When someones Obligation is triggered, I plan to weave the Obligation into the story, especially in surprising circumstances. However I want an element of surprise, if I follow the rules as written my players will have been warned about the Obligation entering play by the reduced thresholds, even going as far as knowing which persons Obligation is going to appear.

So for this point it feels like the mechanical aspect of Obligations are working against their Narrative aspect...

I really don't understand these Obligation. This is a very nice narrative system and yet obligations are done so ... I am lacking the word for it ... but you roll for them! This is an absurd for me. A GM should use obligation freely to create adventures for the PCs, but it should not be governed by a die roll.

Honestly, if you have the perfect thing involving their obligation, just bring it into play anyways, even if you didn't roll it up. It won't have the Obligation mechanic per se, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't still do it, and inflict normal Strain on them because of it.

For example, this last session, my renegade Dark Side-using Gand Ex-Findsman had his obligation roll up (which resulted in the Findsmen group hunting him down being on Corellia when they got there, and he found out about it from a food vendor). However, they later went to a doctor friend to ask a favor and to heal up their injuries from their past heist. She was the former student of an old friend of our Kubaz thief, so she helped them out and pointed them in the direction to find his friend to help with the special task. However, she mistook our Twi'lek smuggler to be her sister, who is on Corellia taking care of her accidental child she had when she was younger while she galavants across the galaxy - her Obligation. That Doctor acts as a family physician for her sister's entire family, and that is going to come in to play next session for sure. She volunteered to suffer Strain when I dropped that bomb on her. Her obligation didn't trigger, lowering thresholds further than they were lowered by the Gand's, but that still came in to play regardless, by her own choosing.

Case in point? Use Obligation as a tool, but don't EVER let it restrict your storytelling. Players will, in my experiences, have more fun when you make them relevant, either by bringing in their backstory or by doing something that drives them. If you have a plot hook to drag characters in to, and it utilizes their obligation without it rolling up, do it. Just don't inflict the written penalties involved by rolling up obligation by doing so.

Obligation *may* be rolled in the same way you *may* roll to pick one; it's springboard roleplaying, essentially. If you're sitting there as GM with your GM notes from last session, scratching your head over how to make the next session more complicated and dynamic, you can roll and see how the result motivates your creativity. What was originally set to be a fairly mundane return to Ryloth for my players to resupply became tense caution as our Trandoshan learned that Wookiee outlaws were in town looking to hunt down him/his family/anyone that looked at them funny. This culminated in an ambush and shootout and was a very memorable exploration of the PC's 'hatfield & mccoy' backstory. Otherwise I may not have thought to go that route then and there.

I did not like separating the group roll at all. The whole point is to create group unity, tension, and adventure hooks. Pets only, IRL, if my buddy had something going on it would effect me also. I find I have to remind players this is a new system, its not like other systems let's play it as is for now. No point changing the rules before you have really given given it a chance.

Case in point? Use Obligation as a tool, but don't EVER let it restrict your storytelling. Players will, in my experiences, have more fun when you make them relevant, either by bringing in their backstory or by doing something that drives them. If you have a plot hook to drag characters in to, and it utilizes their obligation without it rolling up, do it. Just don't inflict the written penalties involved by rolling up obligation by doing so.

Thank you, that's great example of the kind of things I was thinking about.

Obligation *may* be rolled in the same way you *may* roll to pick one; it's springboard roleplaying, essentially.

I agree, but I am not that good GM to create a good adventure in a few seconds after an obligation check at the beginning of the session. Of course I can roll at the end of the session and prepare something later, but I still prefer to have a choice how I arrange and pop-up obligations during the campaign.

Obligation *may* be rolled in the same way you *may* roll to pick one; it's springboard roleplaying, essentially.

I agree, but I am not that good GM to create a good adventure in a few seconds after an obligation check at the beginning of the session. Of course I can roll at the end of the session and prepare something later, but I still prefer to have a choice how I arrange and pop-up obligations during the campaign.

Don't roll it at the start of a session. Roll it after a session and have it affect the upcoming session. That will give you plenty of time to work in somethine awesome.

For example: At the end of session I roll Obligation and Johnny's comes up. He's got a bounty on his head for stealing a ship. Next session, while the PCs are going about the main campaign a bounty hunter is going to corner the PCs in a cantina and attempt to take Johnny in. Maybe his companions will protect him, maybe they won't.

Keep them on their toes.

One of my to-date favorite invocations of beyond-maxed-out Obligation ever was when the players stole from "the biggest crime syndicate" (I believe Black Sun?) and got a 150,000 credit bounty on their heads... one day they looked out through the cockpit to see a guy in Mandalorian armor standing outside their landed ship.

Player: "... do the escape pods still work?"