I have a player in my campaign who is playing a Medical Droid who's program was rewritten by a Slicer to be an assassin droid.

The player was saying that, because of his starting obligation, he should get free armour and blaster pistols. My argument was that your starting equipment was supposed to be purchased by your starting credits, not your starting obligation.

I realize that the way that a ship could be explained by Obligation is a valid point, but that's quite different then something a character could actually purchase at character creation.

Thoughts?

If the two of you are arguing about it, I would say definitely just go by the rules and have him to buy the stuff with his starting credits.

Otherwise, it's a case by case basis...

I feel that sometimes players should get stuff for free from their obligation, especially in a narrative sense. These free things can be good or bad. Let's say one person rolls a character with a certain illness as his obligation. So not only does he incur strain from having his obligation rolled that session, he'll also feel the effects of his illness, like he won't be able to run because he just feels totally out of it that day.

Or conversely you could have someone that's like Bib Fortuna, who runs the operations of Jabba, so he's bound to have a LOT of contacts. While you can't put a price on contacts, they're definitely valuable to him; arguably more so than a simple blaster or some low level armor. I would give that player his contacts for free.

Try this case: What if the player wants to start off with a lightsaber? You'd probably say no. But what if the player says that the lightsaber is broken, or maybe he stole it while a sith apprentice was sleeping? I'd say sure.

So let me conclude:

If your player is taking something for free to enhance the narrative, allow him to have it, because in the end everyone will have more fun.

If your player is taking something because he wants to game the system, then don't, because everyone will have less fun.

I think I would say that the player wanted to game the system in this instance.

He also was trying to convince me that I should let him start with his fully upgraded Firespray (Literally spent every hard-point and bought every single modification for each of the attachments) because it was "under 120,000 credits!".

In that instance to, that would totally take away from the excitement of when you finally buy that attachment for your ship you've been saving up for, and when you finally install it, it seems all the more awesome.

I think you should suggest to him a more concrete or competitive game. D&D4E is very specific in how it's designed. He is more welcome to game that system, although D&D4 does allow for narrative play as well.

Any board games are good too.

These kinds of players have always been hard to deal with imo. If the player needs to feel powerful... then you could certainly just give him the super firespray and start the campaign off with him against a star destroyer. This would be fine if you're playing a solo campaign, but that's unlikely and you'll probably ruin the enjoyment of other players that way. When you're trying to be a fair and impartial GM, and then the player stands up at the table and declares how OP they are, y'know everybody else at the table's going to be rolling their eyes.

You can remove them from the game, challenge them in a unique way, or play something different.

I have a player who is dying for a lightsaber and I'm inclined to draw him in by giving maybe bits and murmurs from the underworld about one that may have been seen, or even giving a piece of one to say well, here's step one. Give them a hook so they know they will get one, but they have to work for it. besides, without the effectiveness of training they be likely to lob off one of their own arms.

If you can't give them the item because the narrative doesn't make sense yet, start a narrative that will let it start to make sense. Show them you want them to have the cool items but you want a great story to get it there.

There's reasonable and unreasonable. Give him the stuff, just let him know that on one of his missions he left it all behind and now has to go retrieve it - <Insert Adventure>.

While you're at it, since my pilot was a member of the Empire, it only makes sense that my character have a fleet of SSDs.