Not sure if this should go into the Beginner Game forum, but I just started a F&D:BG adventure with my (young) kids and it is going over great. I know that starship combat is something they want, but I really want to try and use the Beginner Game rules as much as possible for the younglings. My question is: Does the core rulebook allow for Starship combat? Because if it does, I want to also know: Is it easy enough to simplify any uber-complex rules to make it fit a little closer into the Beginner Game complexity without losing a lot of theme?

19 hours ago, schuwa said:

Not sure if this should go into the Beginner Game forum, but I just started a F&D:BG adventure with my (young) kids and it is going over great. I know that starship combat is something they want, but I really want to try and use the Beginner Game rules as much as possible for the younglings. My question is: Does the core rulebook allow for Starship combat? Because if it does, I want to also know: Is it easy enough to simplify any uber-complex rules to make it fit a little closer into the Beginner Game complexity without losing a lot of theme?

Best way to simplify it, I think, is to put it on rails. "This turn you need to pilot. This turn you need to shoot. This turn you need to plot a hyperjump."

The starship combat is included in the core game, but it is one of the most complex, talent demanding and controverse thing of the whole RPG series. Coming from a space combat sim background, I think it is brilliant, but it comes with the "downside" that losing a ship is just one good opponent roll away. Some people don't like this, especially those who come from a DnD background in which combat becomes a sluggish giving and taking.
Furthermore FFG ain't good at writing complex rules in a way that they are easy to understand and FFG left out parts which they meant to include, important parts like that the Damage Control action can restore one strain per success and not just one strain per action or that GtA will allow yourself to get into the six o'clock position of an opponent, etc.

Anyway. Going with the one rails approach might work fine.

Going with the full rules set might actually work fine too if you make a sheet sheet with the potential actions and are prepared for an adventure on a planet or moon after a spectacular crash. Space combat will see destroyed ships from time to time, that is not a problem because important characters can always survive their exploding ships. Crash landing or escape pods are always a classic star wars option and the Rogue Squadron comics for example are full of ground action, because the squad always needs to recover pilots or ships from the ground to get back into the space action. So crashing a spaceship is not the end, but the start to a new adventure. Your kids might actually like that part.

Digging around on the web and the forums (especially the EotE forum) will almost certainly net you some space-combat cheat sheets.

I find that using minis to indicate relative positioning is handy. Most of us - not being fighter pilots - lack the ability to carry on a conversation and/or play a game while simultaneously tracking a 3D dogfight in our heads. If you're not into X-Wing or Armada, you can certainly find 2D ships that can be printed out and laid on the table top. It lacks some of the "cool" factor, but still serves the purpose. It doesn't need to be exact - this isn't a wargame - but if your kids can see that "this group of TIE fighters is getting closer" and "that asteroid will give us some cover from that frigate's guns" then I think it will let them worry a little less about the rules.

The only problem with tactical games like x-wing, is that it is like playing chess, you are playing in 2D , hou can take account of this in the RPG as it is narrative and only your relative positions are important.

2 hours ago, SFC Snuffy said:

Digging around on the web and the forums (especially the EotE forum) will almost certainly net you some space-combat cheat sheets.

I find that using minis to indicate relative positioning is handy. Most of us - not being fighter pilots - lack the ability to carry on a conversation and/or play a game while simultaneously tracking a 3D dogfight in our heads. If you're not into X-Wing or Armada, you can certainly find 2D ships that can be printed out and laid on the table top. It lacks some of the "cool" factor, but still serves the purpose. It doesn't need to be exact - this isn't a wargame - but if your kids can see that "this group of TIE fighters is getting closer" and "that asteroid will give us some cover from that frigate's guns" then I think it will let them worry a little less about the rules.

Target and Toys'R'Us sell those Hot Wheels size Star Wars fighters, x-wings and ties. They're only a few dollars and are a pretty snazzy way to help with this visualization.

Space combat is terribly convoluted with plenty of crap to track if you do it correctly (like speeds, individual ships, etc) on top of the regular stuff. I've found it very tedious to run as a GM and at times to play through as a player too, particularly if you don't have any characters in your party particularly suited to doing actions in space (pilots, gunners and mechanics are about all I can think of). I try to avoid making it an integral or lengthy part of any campaign/scenario I personally write and if I am not mistaken it doesn't feature in too many of the campaigns written by Fantasy Flight either (Friends Like These exempt) probably for similar reasons.

As above: running it on the rails is probably your best option if you really want to include space combat in a campaign, I'll personally recommend you avoid including it as a scripted thing unless you really have a character in your party fixated on space combat (they'll burn out quick enough) or if space combat is the focus of the campaign.

I think that a groups ability to have fun with the space combat rules depends on the players and the characters they've created. I ran a campaign that had a fair amount of space combat and what I found was that fighter combat could be fast and dangerous, but didn't really subtract too much time or enjoyment to do it correctly. Capital ship combat on the other hand, is slow and tedious if you have more than one or two cap ships per side. I found that only the group's Ace was really invested in capital ship combat with the Engineer the only other one really paying attention at times.

So what I would suggest is either go with fighter combat, or silhouette 4 ships (maybe occasionally a silhouette 5 ship), or keep it small for capital ship combat 1 ship on one side, and 2-3 on the other (like a Gladiator class star destroyer vs. 3 rebel ships).

I second on the note of capital ship combat. We have lead by example for capital ship combat, mass combat rules to deal with the grand picture and substraction cap ships from each side, while the group itself still operates in their scene on smaller scales and just does something. That suits the game rather well.

Still, if you have a carrier like a MC80 against another one like imperial star destroyer, you can go ahead and actually play it by the book. Group the guns into large enough groups to make it quick, use concentrated barrage or blanket barrage actions when fitting. Blanket is devastating against against incoming minion fighter groups while concentrated barrage is a good tool for smaller ships to break the armor of larger ships AND sums up their shots in a single roll.

And don't be shy to use squadron rules and/or minion groups of fighters on both sides. Makes bigger battles still rather quickly done.

I handle starship combat sequences in an almost entirely narrative manner, playing with my young son. He describes what he wants to do, and I help him build a dice pool for the check, or point out a talent that might be useful for the situation.

Fairly new to the system, I hope to learn the crunchier aspects by the time he's ready for them.