Hello Testers,

This thread is stickied for the purpose of posting feedback and comments concerning the dice mechanics. Thanks, everyone!

I noticed that when you build your obligation chart, the first person on the list (the lowest range) is going to have tend to have less of a chance to have doubles rolled within his spread.  For example, a character with an obligation range of 1 to 20 will only receive double obligation on an 11 while a character with the same magnitude of Obligation but higher on the scale (21 to 40) will get double obligation on a 22 and 33.  It might work out to about the same if a roll of "01" was counted as "rolling doubles" for this purpose.

Being married (Spouse) is oddly absent from the Relationship motivation chart. It seems like that would be a pretty common one.

GoblynByte said:

Yes, rolling double to activate the "bad" effect can lead to strange (and not so fair) results.

Maybe when an Obligation is activated it would be sufficient to roll a single d10: on a roll of 1 it would have the "bad" effect.

LukeZZ said:

Or maybe if a 1 is rolled for the 1's digit (01, 11, 21, 31, etc). That would save having to make one more roll and it would still give more or less the same results as rolling an extra d10.

GoblynByte said:

Or rotate each member up a position on the chart each session. This way, during the second session,  the PC that was first becomes second, and the PC that was last becomes first, and so on  around the dial each session. Each player then has an equal chance to be in the the lowest range.

 Also, you could put the person with the least Obligation at the bottom, as it is the one least likely to draw in trouble.  Or, if the party has a Group Obligation, perhaps that should be on the low end of the scale, as triggering a Group Obligation with doubles is a whole lot of pain to swallow.

  That said, this is a discussion on a variance of 1% of situations or so.

GoblynByte said:

This way it would still lead to "unfair" results:

01 - 15 My Obligation

16 - 30 Your Obligation

Mine would trigger with 01 and 11.

Yours would trigger with 21.

 For some reason I don't feel 'fairness' is necessarily desirable with the obligation mechanic.  Rolling doubles is easy to remember and gets the job done. 

cetiken said:

Fairness based upon the position of characters' Obligation in a table seems desiderable to me…

 Meh. I can just put the character with the lowest strain threshold at the bottom. He's the one who would be most screwed right?

Or you could randomize placement that would prevent bias.

Or you could count on the law of very large numbers to make it so the PCs don't notice during the relative few game sessions of a campaign that it is relevant. Playing weekly for six years it would only come up three times after all. 

nyriv1 said:

Yeah, it's a niggling little detail. One that would probably never be noticed. I just thought I'd point it out 'cause… well… I'm kind of a nerd.

After playing a session or two we have a question about the Obligation mechanic. First we love the Obligation aspect of the game. For me, it's right below the Destiny Pool for being the best aspect of the game. But we're having a bit of confusion about something.

Some of the Obligations are not easy to quantify into numbers for the addition or reduction of Obligation. For example, if a character has Debt, Criminal, Blackmail, or something like that it's easy to reduce or add to the Obligation. Paid some of the Debt, the Obligation reduces a little. Do an illegal task for a Hutt and the Criminal Obligation may go down a bit.

But there are some that I am having a bit of trouble trying to figure out how, and how much, an Obligation can be reduced. Family, Dutybound, Responsibility, Betrayal are examples. A player is Responsible for making sure someone is safe, Another player is dutybound to a Bounty Hunter Guild, A character is betrayed and sold into slavery. How do you quantify things like them and know when they would be lessened?

Any thoughts?

True, not all obligations are easily quantified, but I think that's not necessarily a problem.

Also funny you should mention Betrayal, because that's the obligation of my current character - and it ties into his motivation:  Revenge. But mind you that revenge is a custom motivation (it's stated you're free to pick a different motivation if your GM allows it). However, being such a base motivation, revenge really should have a place in the motivation table. (And to be precise, the exact details about my motivation would be a bad bond to my character's former comrades, leading to a wish for revenge, since I wanted to use the motivations listed).

However, in my betrayal example, my character is actively looking for ways to seek revenge for his betrayal. I imagine the obligation would be decreased whenever a score is settled. I believe the clue to this is to find out what exactly your specific obligation entails. For example:

Betrayal and sold into slavery: Could be solved by battling slavers in general (your character has a grudge) - and especially if you encounter those who betrayed you or their agents. In general: Encountering the sources of your betrayal. Also keep in mind that your character could be the one who betrayed.

Family: This is (most likely) an obligation that never goes completely away (well, I guess it could in game terms, but you know what I mean). Looking after family/family member in question, sending money or goods, attending birthdays, weddings etc (imagine a session where your brother is getting married and you're the best man and you have to reach Dantooine in time for the wedding…only that you're busy fighting off thugs who are after your illegal cargo that you have yet to deliver to Tatooine). If you reach the wedding, you get some leeway, otherwise you might get the ire of a lot of familiy members for some time with Sunday brunches being obligatory for months to come…

Dutybound: Would perhaps function a little like family, depending on the nature of your duty. Is it a life debt, are you honor bound, is it by contract, etc. If you serve enough, your duties are likely to end or lessen eventually.

Responsibility: Much like family. 

I believe that although there are no way to put a quantity to many of the obligations into real life terms (debt is easily transferred into money, for instance), it is possible to measure it  in game terms. Since the obligations are vague (I imagine they might get some more examples in the final product), it is also very easy to match the details surrounding them to your specific character. In a way, this is better than being tied to a set of tables and values and more in tune with the open premises of the rules.

 I agree some of those Obligations are not immediately clear. Personally I had problems with Obsession. Any ideas anyone can share are welcome :)

Obligation is making me scratch my head.

1.  Is there a scale for what constitutes "high" Obligation for a PC?  Is 5 a lot?  10?  15?

2.  Is Obligation given by multiple of fives?  I have players who split it 6/4 between two and character generation  Is that legal?

3.  How many Obligations can a player start with?  I thought the rules said only two, but then I couldn't find it again.  So I'm not sure.