Hello FFG community,

I'm considering starting a Star Wars game with my kids. One has a condition making maths and abstract concept hard to grasp. I'm confident he'll get the FFG dice pool system better than "roll d20 and add various modifiers", but I'm afraid the separate wounds and strain pools might be too much for him.

Has anyone come up with a house rule mixing Wounds and Strain into a single pool of points? Don't get me wrong, I love the RaW, but I think a simplification is in order for my son to enjoy the game.

'findel

Thinking aloud here...

What if there was only strain, with wounds solely represented by critical injuries? Should the pool be higher then? Double sounds like a lot, but what about base of 15? Or 10 + Brawn + Willpower?

'findel

If you want to simplify it maybe just ditch Strain and Talents completely and stick to Skills only and Wounds.

My desire to be helpful is hampered by my total ineptitude with the situation. The only thing I can reiterate is that, although very similar in how you have them, they have their differences.

Seeing as strain how strain has a major application as an ability point, you could scrap it entirely and use those abilities, actions and maneuvers that require strain only with Advantage/Triumph. I don't know.

You could simplify strain to, say a d6 or d10 on the table that is for exhaustion.

• Extra maneuver, lower the die by one
• Aim, lower by one
• etc.
• After battle either roll something to rest or simply rest a fixed value.

This could possibly help lessen the difficulty of abstract rules.

You could also use a slider.

Draw 10 or 8 (or how many you like) colored boxes on the top of the sheet (with numbers in it or words from well rested, to fatigued to exhausted or whatever he enjoys most) and put a paperclip on the top to slide left and right.

Rival adversaries pool their wound and strain, I don't think there would be much impact, especially in a kid's game, if you did the same. Let all Resolve, Stimpacks, etc apply to the pool as normal. Sure, maybe it makes the game a bit easier to recover, but ... it's kids!

Instead of 1 Wound and all Strain recovery per day, maybe recover Brawn + Willpower per day as a way to balance it.

All that said, a solution just might be in the presentation. It might help to come up with a protocol for recording the wounds and strain as hash marks rather than numbers. You're supposed to count up from zero anyway, so: II, IIII, and IIII are 2, 4, and 5 wounds/strain. Erase as necessary. Some kids find it easier to count up like that.

We use tokens to track strain and wounds, would that help?

If you're talking about consolidating to one 'damage pool' I'd also suggest that base "wounds" be Brawn + Willpower + MAX(Racial Strain Threshold, Racial Wound Threshold). Then have Grid and Toughened add to the pool.

Hello FFG community,

I'm considering starting a Star Wars game with my kids. One has a condition making maths and abstract concept hard to grasp. I'm confident he'll get the FFG dice pool system better than "roll d20 and add various modifiers", but I'm afraid the separate wounds and strain pools might be too much for him.

Has anyone come up with a house rule mixing Wounds and Strain into a single pool of points? Don't get me wrong, I love the RaW, but I think a simplification is in order for my son to enjoy the game.

'findel

I would suggest that you try with something concrete, such as a pool of glass beads or something, for each of the two wound types and try the game out that way. He isn't dealing with modifiers, just adding or subtracting from those pools as he gets hurt or heals. Always best to try first, then modify if things aren't working rather than trying to "fix" something that might not even be a problem.

If you want to simplify it maybe just ditch Strain and Talents completely and stick to Skills only and Wounds.

I'd second this idea. If a character wants to take a second maneuver, they can take a setback die to their action.

thanks for the replies and feedback everyone.

I decided to keep talents in the game; choosing their spec and picking talents was something they enjoyed too much. Otherwise I will merge Wounds and Strain into one pool and see where it goes from there. It's a kid friendly game so I don't mind the rapid healing. Banta tanks will be for critical injuries.

I like the token idea; I tought of countdown dice but that's even better. I'll probably use LEGO bricks as it looks like characters will be represented with LEGO minifigs...

'findel

We had our first game tonight. Fun time!

The simplification seems to work in play, at least as far as I can tell from a single game with a few fights. My older son (who has a better grasp of the rules and a more strategic approach to play) was reluctant to spend his "hit points" for abilities and extra manoeuvres at first, but strain can be recovered relatively quickly if you're lucky with advantages.

Anyhow, that was conclusive enough to keep playing as we are.

cheers

One thing I have done for Kids with various game systems was to track the Points for the kids... just giving the kids a mild description of the "injury" and how bad they were feeling from it.

Been playing a few games and the "damage-as-strain" houserule is holding fine.

But now our resident Ataru Striker is investing in the Reflect talent. Without wounds, the talent as RaW is moot so I was thinking adding ranged defense setback dice per rank in reflect instead.

I'm not too worried about the overlap with cover and personal deflector shield, but Parry and Defensive Training now become identical. Perhaps I should replace Defensive Training with Defensive Stance? Since the Ataru Striker (or any Seeker specs) does not have access to Defensive Training or Defensive Stance, I'm not excessively worried either but I'm interested in the community's thoughts on the matter.