It's important to remember that wound threshold does not have equate to hits and damage. Wounds can be a mathematical descriptor for plot armor. Children rarely die in these sorts of stories. A wound threshold equivalent to a normal PC could represent this.

Alternatively, you could grant the child 3 automatic unrecoverable critical injuries. This way, the PC is not spending most of their fights unconscious because a stray blaster bolt, but if they do suffer an unlucky hit, it would be pretty nasty.

It's important to remember that wound threshold does not have equate to hits and damage. Wounds can be a mathematical descriptor for plot armor. Children rarely die in these sorts of stories. A wound threshold equivalent to a normal PC could represent this.

Alternatively, you could grant the child 3 automatic unrecoverable critical injuries. This way, the PC is not spending most of their fights unconscious because a stray blaster bolt, but if they do suffer an unlucky hit, it would be pretty nasty.

Well yeah, most PC's in this game are hard to actually kill, at least by most GM's opinion, or at least the hosts of Order 66.

But what do you mean by "unrecoverable crits"? Do you mean giving them a crit they can never heal up? Or just one that can't be removed by talents during the encounter it happened? Because given the level of magical medical science in Star Wars, I find it odd that the kid would be stuck with a lifelong injury they could never recover from, simply because they are a kid. In fact, given how much growing they are doing, most injuries they would get would likely heal up better than an equivalent adult, seeing as they are being rebuilt constantly to grow, the injuries would be less severe over time. Please elaborate if you could, as I'm curious to what exactly you mean.

Does your playgroup have the emotional fortitude to successfully manage outcomes of failure, including possible child-age character death?

Killing a character of any age is fairly difficult in this system. Also, if the player/party is taking the character with any seriousness, then the child character will also be very low on the threat chart when a combat encounter stars.

I mean, if you're a stormtrooper, you're going to target mando demolitionist, or the hulking alien, or the jedi knight. The stupid kid with a stun damage only powersling is just not that scary by comparison.

As long as the kid doesn't make a point of elevating his/her threat level early in an encounter, and doesn't get trapped in an aggravated damage situation, the probability of death is pretty low.

Now if you do want to actually do this, there are rules in FaD for Juvenile Beasts (FaD p415), i would just use those to modify the species your player wants to use:

Decrease Silhouette by 1 (minimum of 0)

Decrease WT and ST to half (rounding up)

Decrease damage of any weapons to half (rounding up), I would only apply this to Brawl/Melee weapons where the damage of the weapon is a +X damage (Lightsabers, blasters and ships cannons don't care how strong you are, they still hurt the other guy)

I just wanted to say how perfect these rules seem to me. I had completely forgotten about the Juvenile Beasts rules. Thanks so much, I had been looking for good Young PC rules.

It's important to remember that wound threshold does not have equate to hits and damage. Wounds can be a mathematical descriptor for plot armor. Children rarely die in these sorts of stories. A wound threshold equivalent to a normal PC could represent this.

Alternatively, you could grant the child 3 automatic unrecoverable critical injuries. This way, the PC is not spending most of their fights unconscious because a stray blaster bolt, but if they do suffer an unlucky hit, it would be pretty nasty.

Well yeah, most PC's in this game are hard to actually kill, at least by most GM's opinion, or at least the hosts of Order 66.

But what do you mean by "unrecoverable crits"? Do you mean giving them a crit they can never heal up? Or just one that can't be removed by talents during the encounter it happened? Because given the level of magical medical science in Star Wars, I find it odd that the kid would be stuck with a lifelong injury they could never recover from, simply because they are a kid. In fact, given how much growing they are doing, most injuries they would get would likely heal up better than an equivalent adult, seeing as they are being rebuilt constantly to grow, the injuries would be less severe over time. Please elaborate if you could, as I'm curious to what exactly you mean.

Nothing that would translate to in-game. The only purpose of the unrecoverable crits would be to grant +10, +20, ect... to critical injury rolls. This would represent how frail (comparatively speaking) a child would be when struck by a viscous blow.

I personally wouldn't use my own suggestion. I would probably just say "No" to a child under 12, and run the character RAW for any PC age 12 or above.

I think the thing to consider when allowing a child PC is the scale of the system and it's granularity. What I mean is the FFGSW system is based on the assumption that the PCs and the overwhelming majority of who they encounter are young adults or older (14+). Everything is geared to this scale, from Attributes, Encumbrance, and Combat to Skills and Talents. The granularity is the Attribute and Ranks range and the dice pools they generate. The average is for both Attributes and Skill Ranks are 2 (see the Skills Section in any of the CRBs).

With this in mind we have to look at a balance of what makes sense in regards to the System and Setting and what is fun and fair to all the Players.

So lets start with what makes sense. It's hard to argue that a child 10 or under is anywhere near an adult or young adult in any respect. They are simply smaller and less developed physically, mentally, less educated, and less experienced. This doesn't meant they aren't cleaver and resourceful and quick but in comparison to an adult they they just aren't a match. So this would mean that at the very least you'd half everything and not allow a Career.

That said we come to whats fair and fun. There are lot's of examples in film and literature of exceptional children including in Star Wars so it would hard to justify such a brutally realistic halving of of a PC's stats. However we have to do something to represent the real drawbacks of being a child because of the scale of the system and keep it fair for all the Players that are playing adults, who should be significantly better than the kid that's in their party. Lastly it must be simple and consistent across the board so that the Player playing the child PC know what to expect.

So here is what I suggest:

1. Make the minimum age 10. At around 10 children start to take off intellectually and emotionally, they're still kids but this is about when you start seeing real agency developing. If you look at the majority of children in books this is about the earliest they become a protagonist.
   
2. Create the PC normally.
   
3. Automatically treat every Opponent as if they have +1 Rank of Adversary and upgrade every Skill check by 1, until the PC reaches the age of 14. An automatic Red die represents the real problems facing a child in an adult world, their skills may be exceptional but their experience is very limited making it difficult to react to new problems and setbacks, and whereas an adult can absorb a failure and move on or take a blow in stride a child doesn't have that kind of resilience yet. No further Setbacks should be added because of the PC's age except in extreme circumstances.

I think this is a fair way to represent an exceptional child in this system. It balances realism, fairness and fun without getting into the weeds.

Just throwing something off top my head, maybe lower all the Characteristics by 1 (to a minimum of 1, obviously), and halve the skill ranks received by career and spec; sure, a prodigy kid might be just as good in a couple fields as an adult, but just wouldn't have had enough time to learn as many skills. Plus, setbacks where appropriate to say, social interactions, maybe combat, etc.

Just throwing something off top my head, maybe lower all the Characteristics by 1 (to a minimum of 1, obviously), and halve the skill ranks received by career and spec; sure, a prodigy kid might be just as good in a couple fields as an adult, but just wouldn't have had enough time to learn as many skills. Plus, setbacks where appropriate to say, social interactions, maybe combat, etc.

Ill repeat myself here, this is a bad idea for Meta game reasons

In the end you will be setting the difficulty of tasks for her character much lower just so she can pass, in which case you may as well have let her have the bigger dice pools to start with.

Just throwing something off top my head, maybe lower all the Characteristics by 1 (to a minimum of 1, obviously), and halve the skill ranks received by career and spec; sure, a prodigy kid might be just as good in a couple fields as an adult, but just wouldn't have had enough time to learn as many skills. Plus, setbacks where appropriate to say, social interactions, maybe combat, etc.

Ill repeat myself here, this is a bad idea for Meta game reasons

In the end you will be setting the difficulty of tasks for her character much lower just so she can pass, in which case you may as well have let her have the bigger dice pools to start with.

Yeah, that's legit and all... I was kinda thinking that the point would be that you wouldn't set the difficulties lower for the child character, they'd just be bad at more stuff than most characters. But that's maybe not ideal for a single character in the party.

As long as the kid doesn't make a point of elevating his/her threat level early in an encounter, and doesn't get trapped in an aggravated damage situation, the probability of death is pretty low.

Agreed, but have you read other possible characters for this playgroup? I wouldn't rule-out a player who uses a character's age as the best armor against Stormtrooper blaster rifles or against a GM who seems to struggle with adjudicating oddball requests before play begins.

If only it was just oddball requests.

I have a player who has switched careers about 10 times in the past week, questioning every single aspect of the rules along the way and trying to bend every possible rule there is, and even break most. Every concept he came up with for his character was so EVIL that I'm going to use a few as rivals/nemeses...

Just throwing something off top my head, maybe lower all the Characteristics by 1 (to a minimum of 1, obviously), and halve the skill ranks received by career and spec; sure, a prodigy kid might be just as good in a couple fields as an adult, but just wouldn't have had enough time to learn as many skills. Plus, setbacks where appropriate to say, social interactions, maybe combat, etc.

Ill repeat myself here, this is a bad idea for Meta game reasons

In the end you will be setting the difficulty of tasks for her character much lower just so she can pass, in which case you may as well have let her have the bigger dice pools to start with.

Yeah, that's legit and all... I was kinda thinking that the point would be that you wouldn't set the difficulties lower for the child character, they'd just be bad at more stuff than most characters. But that's maybe not ideal for a single character in the party.

This is why I just set everything to Upgrade the Difficulty by one across the board. That way the Player can build their PC normally and know exactly what to expect from every situation. It also takes the pressure off of you to adjudicate every roll the person makes.

A Red die is basically a Black die with a chance of a Despair. By upgrading every roll the child PC makes you eliminate having to put any restrictions on the character's build or hand out extra Sebacks all the time, which your Player will like and makes things easier on you, it is enough of a disadvantage to represent being a child which the other Players will appreciate, and you can use any Despairs that come up to represent cute and amusing child specific stuff. In fact you can add Boosts every once and a while for things that seem like a kid would get some advantage and the Player feels great about.

I think this is a win win.

Came here to suggest what FuriousGreg said so I think I'll just leave it with: I am in agreement with FuriousGreg.

Yeah this will be awesome.

The kid will be another player's little brother.

I'm not sure upgrading every check is very fair, Stealth? Charm? even Perception in some instances, Vigilance? Kids are ready for anything any time of day.

I think if you're wanting mechanical implications you are better sticking with Boost/Setback. Ask the player to come up with a list of common actions that would be harder and another that would be easier. Then GM in a similar way to GMing a Droid, present encounters where it's actually helpful being a kid, others where it's not. But it shouldn't be all bad, that's just going to stifle creativity at the detriment of the story.

I think we had that topic on this forum before, and the recommendation I had back then was asking them to put their starting XP into things other than Characteristics, and allowing them to spend XP on characteristics later (to represent growth.) A human kid character might start out with all twos, but a surprising amount of XP in the thief tree talents.

I also like the idea of the juvenile creature template, but I would not reduce WT, I don't want the character suffer a critical injury more easily than the adults. There are studies that say that under the right conditions, children are actually less likely to suffer from what we'd call "critical injuries" than adults.

Good point GranSolo. I think if I was using those Juvenile rules I would have to design the campaign to have a "coming of age" turning point where the kid grew up.

I'm set on the following:

He will have all 2s but a temporary 1 in Brawn. When the character grows up he gets the 2. He's 8 now.
Checks with upgraded difficulty:

Athletics (Br)

Brawl (Br)

Cool (Pr)
Discipline (Will)
Leadership (Pr)

Melee (Br)

Resilience (Br)

No Gunnery for him, those guns are too heavy.

Everything else as normal.

And I came up with a special mechanic:

Kids don't deal with failure so well.

So whenever he fails a check or gets a despair on one of those upgraded checks, I'll have him burst into tears, run scared and hide, etc.

This will give him a black die on anything he attempts on the next round.

That is really cool and narrative, I like it.

One thing though: If the kid gets into scraps with silhouette 0 opponents, I wouldn't upgrade the difficulty.

Have a couple of "little league" villains in every encounter (droid remotes, Jawas, senile Yoda wanting to steal his granola bar...)

The guy playing the kid says he doesn't wanna fight too much, so I thought about giving him scenarios where like, the group is trapped and he climbs up a vent and opens doors, things like that! Haha it will be great.

I'm not sure upgrading every check is very fair, Stealth? Charm? even Perception in some instances, Vigilance? Kids are ready for anything any time of day.

I think if you're wanting mechanical implications you are better sticking with Boost/Setback. Ask the player to come up with a list of common actions that would be harder and another that would be easier. Then GM in a similar way to GMing a Droid, present encounters where it's actually helpful being a kid, others where it's not. But it shouldn't be all bad, that's just going to stifle creativity at the detriment of the story.

I get what you are saying but I don't think a Setback is enough, you need the possibility of a Despair to represent the real issues of failure on a child. Things like Charm and Stealth can be those things that you add Boosts too to offset because of size and cuteness but as charming as a child might be an adult is still not going to let them get past a guard or negotiate a peace or whatever.

+ below

I'm set on the following:

He will have all 2s but a temporary 1 in Brawn. When the character grows up he gets the 2. He's 8 now.

Checks with upgraded difficulty:

Athletics (Br)

Brawl (Br)

Cool (Pr)

Discipline (Will)

Leadership (Pr)

Melee (Br)

Resilience (Br)

No Gunnery for him, those guns are too heavy.

Everything else as normal.

And I came up with a special mechanic:

Kids don't deal with failure so well.

So whenever he fails a check or gets a despair on one of those upgraded checks, I'll have him burst into tears, run scared and hide, etc.

This will give him a black die on anything he attempts on the next round.

What I've tried to do is balance letting the Player build a PC normally and make up for that by adding a simple, across the board solution that adequately represents being a child in an adult system, if it's everything it won't seem subjective or arbitrary and there won't be the need to argue each one individually, if the Player has a problem tell them you'll give them Boosts if a particular situation comes up. As I said earlier it eliminates having to judge negative effects each time the Player wants the child PC to do something and allows you to instead add Boosts when it's appropriate. This makes your job easier and keeps you from looking like the bad guy every time you drop a Setback "just because he's a kid". Trust me he's going to feel great, and you're going to feel better, when you can say "Okay for this attempt I'm going to give you a Boost(s) or even drop the Upgrade" and as manipulative as it may sound, positive actions work better than negative ones at the table. The truth is every skill on the list has drawbacks for being a child, even Stealth, because being a kid is more than just being a small adult.

However, if you do go with a limited list like you have above add both Ranged Combats (I've seen kids with hand guns and rifles larger than a .22, you don't wan't them anywhere near them...), all Knowledge rolls as kids just don't have the learning and don't even understand that they don't know stuff.

Good luck, have fun.

The truth is no matter how you slice it being a kid is not a bonus and there will be very few situation where it's going to be a plus and in those situation you can add Boosts.

All knowledge skills really?

How many adults do you know with an encyclopedic knowledge of Dinosaurs? or Planes?

Kids with an interest can be a lot more knowledgeable than you think!

Personally I would say only 30% xp can be on characteristics (most of which should be on mental stats. Pres for real charm, Will for those "I don't wanna" moments etc.

No skills above 1 at start without background justification. ie:if kid is a bounty hunter fan then Know:underworld 2 could work.

In game bonuses/setbacks for being a kid.

At the end of the day don't forget rule 1. we game for fun. Putting bad stuff on top of bad stuff just because is, in my view, just saying "I did not want you to play that toon I'm gonna make it unplayable".

edit for autocorrect.

Yeah here's what we ended up doing.

120 XP (With the +10xp option)

All 2s, Brawn 1. Coming of age will give him Brawn 2.

Spent 60xp on Agility 3 and Cunning 3.

Picked up only 1 rank in every skill he gets for free from race/career/spec, and bought one rank:

Athletics (1/2 Human skills)

Computers (Bought a rank)

Coordination (2/2 Human)

Deception (3/3 Sentinel)

Perception (2/3 Sentinel)

Skulduggery (3/3 Sentinel)

Stealth (1/2 Shadow)

Streetwise (2/2 Shadow)

65xp spent, 55 to go:

Misdirect 15xp

Enhance 10xp

Influence 10xp

Move 10xp

45xp spent, 10 left:

Sleight of Mind 5xp

Street Smarts 5xp

All knowledge skills really?

How many adults do you know with an encyclopedic knowledge of Dinosaurs? or Planes?

Kids with an interest can be a lot more knowledgeable than you think!

Personally I would say only 30% xp can be on characteristics (most of which should be on mental stats. Pres for real charm, Will for those "I don't wanna" moments etc.

No skills above 1 at start without background justification. ie:if kid is a bounty hunter fan then Know:underworld 2 could work.

In game bonuses/setbacks for being a kid.

At the end of the day don't forget rule 1. we game for fun. Putting bad stuff on top of bad stuff just because is, in my view, just saying "I did not want you to play that toon I'm gonna make it unplayable".

edit for autocorrect.

Too complex and too limiting to the Player, plus it just shuttles all those extra EXP to Talents and Force Powers. Better to just let the Player make the PC normally and add the Child penalty after.

I think you're overvaluing a Red die, it's really just a bit more than adding a Setback so you can get a potential Despair. Plus as I mentioned it's much easier and there is less potential for arbitrary feeling rulings then when you add Setbacks, which will make the game feel less fun if the GM is always having to add them rather than having it built in.

As for children and Knowledge, well, ask a child about Paw Patrol or to play some game on your iPad and you'll be astounded at their skill and depth of knowing. Ask them about the history of European colonialism or how that iPad works and that lives depend on their answer, and they'll cry.

I think increasing the age to 12-13 would be the easiest solution. Instead of limiting attributes, you could just handle most things situationally with boost/setback dice as appropriate.