I've been thinking about how much of the system is kind of abstracted and cinematic and wondering why the devs chose to deal with concrete resources instead of abstract ones.

I mean, even saying "I owe 50,000 credits to Sicko the Hutt" as your starting Obligation - it's not really concretely 50,000 credits that is represented by 10 Obligation, it's just giving an in-setting amount to the Obligation mechanic. And also, tracking money is nitpicky like tracking bullets, and that doesn't seem to be what this system is about.

To me the cinematic system would work really well with a Rogue Trader style of abstracted money. Rarer items would require more successes to obtain (using the existing Rarity mechanic as a baseline), illegal items would have higher difficulty and/or be upgraded. How advanced or backwater your current setting is (Tatooine vs Nar Shadda) or being able to talk to known contacts would either increase/decrease difficulty or add Boost or Penalty dice to the roll.

I'm not sure what rolls would be based off of, but I'd want it to be fairly broad so there's not One True Build for item acquisition - perhaps Cunning/Streetwise to find a shady dealer who can get you the item, Intelligence/Knowledge to let you know encyclopedic stuff about where to go to get certain items, or Presence/Charm, Negotiate or Cool to do the same in a more legal circle, or even Willpower/Coercion to threaten you to get you what you want or else.

Further, characters would be able to take on more Obligation at start to get more gear, and everyone would get some kind of basic kit appropriate for their starting Career, including a commlink.

Thoughts?

By valuing everything in credits you ensure that relative expense, etc. is maintained.

Credits also seems simpler and more concrete to me than having a system of skill checks to find items you want based mostly on GM fiat.

To be honest, the amount of credits is purely GM fiat anyway. So I'd have no problem with that.

It doesn't seem especially 'Star Warsy' to track every credit, so I wouldn't blame anyone for abstracting it depending on the needs of the story. This isn't D&D and I'm happy for the heroes of the story to have cool stuff right off the bat.

What better way to emulate characters living hand-to-mouth than counting credits?

OTOH, if Yellen the Hutt embarks on a campaign of massive credit expansion, then abstract might work better...

By valuing everything in credits you ensure that relative expense, etc. is maintained.

Agreed, and I'm glad the actual expenses are there. In fact, I wouldn't mind more types of expenses and local economics, for example in WEG's Tramp Freighters book.

That said, during actual play I veer towards the OP in that I don't make the players track every credit. I do make sure their resources are on track, but usually pool the expenditures, e.g.: "You've been staying in this cheap hotel for 3 days; that plus food is 200 for the lot of you…you might want to ask the Wookiee not to eat so much". Small ticket items (commlinks, etc) I usually just let them have, and maybe bundle it into another pooled expenditure.

Also, I haven't yet given a credit amount equal to X obligation, because I agree with that part of the OP.

Luckily the players I play with don't want to track every credit. I know of players who do get off on that, if they ever joined I might deal with it a bit differently. But for now, keeping track in more general terms seems more in keeping with the game system, and still lets me use money as a plot device when necessary.

I think having the actual prices allows for credits to be a useful reward for the PCs; if only skill checks were used, that reward would be nullified.

-Nate

I think having the actual prices allows for credits to be a useful reward for the PCs; if only skill checks were used, that reward would be nullified.

-Nate

The alternative could be a degree of Difficulty reduction or Boosts on the next purchase they want to make.

I like old school costs and cash/credit tracking. The resource system of Rogue Trader and such is a mark against a game in my eyes.

Perhaps you could try a mix of the two? By this I mean you could perhaps use different levels of wealth (starting something from like homeless all the way to mega rich with all sorts of various levels in between),where doing jobs and missions will increase your level of wealth while buying things and paying off debts, etc. will lower your level of wealth. This way you could maintain the balancing of cost while still keeping it mostly abstract, and your players will get an extra way they get to identify themselves as. I know with many groups I have played with players enjoy having various "indicators" they can use to gauge their own character in comparison to the NPCs and other PCs around them which can often help them get more into the character, and being able to identify their character as a certain wealth class may provide that much more immersion.

This might also prove to be interesting in that a character may never be quite sure whether their wealth level quite covers their obligation. Making it abstract but keeping it concrete enough to measure could prove to be very intriguing. Does being "Rich" quite cover that 40 obligation you've accumulated? Did you perhaps wait too long to get to that required wealth level and now you owe even more or the debt has grown? There are a lot of scenarios that could come simply from implementing this fully. You could even cause problems or even make things worse when a player tries to pay it off but doesn't have a high enough wealth level to satisfy the debts.

Just some thoughts, hopefully they don't sound entirely foolish

I think it depends largely on what sort of game you want to run.

EotE seems to have the design focus of "the PCs are living hand-to-mouth and in constant need of funds just to get by", not unlike Firefly (as has been noted a great many times ever since the EotE Beta was released). Age of Rebellion is a bit similar, as the PCs are part of the resource-strapped Rebel Alliance, and while they might be part of a larger organization, said organization is severely understaffed and underfunded for what they're attempting to accomplish (and the folks at the top know it). And I suspect that Force & Destiny will be much the same in terms of the PCs not being loaded with cash.

But for a more purely "cinematic" approach to a campaign, particularly an episodic one, even requiring skill checks can be cumbersome, particularly if it's for fairly common items. In such cases, I'd say that unless an item has a Rarity value of 6 or more (taking into account the PC's location as per Table 5-2: Rarity Modifiers on page 150), don't even bother rolling; just figure that if a PC has a rank in Streetwise or an appropriate Knowledge skill (such as Underworld for strictly black market goods or Warfare for military hardware), they can track down the item in question and are able to cover the costs without much fuss.

I can see pros and cons for either approach, so I guess it boils down to what works best for your game. Some players (such as HappyDaze) really enjoy what some might (unfairly) refer to as "tedious bean counting" and tracking every last copper piece, so it could be that not everyone in your group will be happy to switch to a "credit free" system.

I prefer having a monetary system, because monetary systems are "fair" unless the GM makes them otherwise. What I mean by fair is that you know when you buy heavy battle armor for 5000 credits, you know you aren't getting cheated by the GM, because the price is right in the book. Similarly there are guidelines for selling things in the book, and any good GM will explain why he is deferring from the book and will be consistent.

I like old school costs and cash/credit tracking. The resource system of Rogue Trader and such is a mark against a game in my eyes.

Why is that a mark against a game?

In fairness, the DH cash-tracking real-money system would completely break down on the Rogue Trader level, and EotE PCs don't remotely operate on that level.

I like old school costs and cash/credit tracking. The resource system of Rogue Trader and such is a mark against a game in my eyes.

Why is that a mark against a game?

In fairness, the DH cash-tracking real-money system would completely break down on the Rogue Trader level, and EotE PCs don't remotely operate on that level.

Sicko's a Hutt. 50k is never 50k - it's 50k plus vigorous interest.

(Also known as, "Until the plot dictates that the Obligation has been bought off".)

I do agree that accounting is usually the least fun part of gaming.

The best argument I've heard in it's favour is that "how much cash do I have to my name?" gives players a well-defined gauge telling them just how successful their character is, and thus a sense of accomplishment when they can finally afford that cool new bit of kit.