Hey all,

I wonder if anyone have thought about runing SW campaigns with kid PCs? I'm inspired by things like Stranger Things , Tales from the Loop RPG, and the prologue to Solo: A Star Wars Story (although Rebels and the backstory in Rogue One to Jyn & Cassian and Broom-Boy & friends from The Last Jedi also works), and was wondering how to pull off playing children with the FFG rules. This could either be for a full children-in-SW campaign or possibly for a limited when-we-were-young type of prelude act.

How would you pull off playing kids, ruleswise?

Drop Brawn by one, possibly drop Willpower by one, cut starting XP in half (or more. Possibly drop it entirely), give them only as many credits as last months allowance. Then cut the number of free skills in half. Probably remove access to most Careers and Specializations.

Then add Setback to most social checks, probably 2 Setback, similar to how young Boba Fett was statted. I don't know if those stats were RAW or custom, but they were in Kualan's Heroes on Both Sides adversary book.

That'd probably do the trick. Possibly some more limitations, but that's probably decent. However, these numbers are more for 12-14 I'm thinking, if you went younger, you'd have to drop even more stats.

Of course, all of this varies on the situation of the campaign and the characters' backgrounds. A 13-year old Mando is going to be much skilled than a 13-year old Coruscanti human. But if that Coruscanti human grew up in the slums, a la Oliver Twist, he may have as much skill (albeit in different areas) than the Mando (Mandalorians are considered to be adults when they turn 13, and have gone through 5 years of combat training from the age of 8).

The big hurdle here seems to be the names of the careers and specialisations: soldier, assassin, doctor etcetera...

The easiest option is just make regular characters and narratively ignore the implied professional activities of said characters.

One thing you can do is create a couple of generic careers for young characters, and have them start out without a career and just one of those custom specs, and maybe later getting a career and proper first specialisation at an appropriate moment in the story?

I wouldn't bother with messing with their stats at all. It's not necessary. And in these kinds of stories, the kids tend to be more heroic and proficient than the adults anyway.

1 hour ago, angelman2 said:

Hey all,

I wonder if anyone have thought about runing SW campaigns with kid PCs? I'm inspired by things like Stranger Things , Tales from the Loop RPG, and the prologue to Solo: A Star Wars Story (although Rebels and the backstory in Rogue One to Jyn & Cassian and Broom-Boy & friends from The Last Jedi also works), and was wondering how to pull off playing children with the FFG rules. This could either be for a full children-in-SW campaign or possibly for a limited when-we-were-young type of prelude act.

How would you pull off playing kids, ruleswise?

I'd say pretty much play them as regular characters, with at most some situational penalties based on their youthfulness, inexperience, generally shorter stature than most full-grown adults, and adults not taking a bunch of "kids" seriously, typically in the form of setback dice but perhaps also the occasional difficulty upgrade for tasks that are made particularly daunting due to those factors I just mentioned. I wouldn't screw around with starting characteristics, and instead would just add setback dice to physical tasks where again a child's lack of height and/or muscle development would be a hindering factor.

As micheldebruyn noted, the main trick is starting specializations, as several of them don't exactly lend themselves towards kid protagonists. On that front, I'd say work with your players and try to avoid having any of them start with those specs that you feel really aren't germane to a kid, especially if they're in their pre-teens (or their species' equivalent for those with longer or shorter maturity cycles). Career-wise there's not a whole lot of problem, save perhaps for Hired Gun, though it's not impossible as the notion of child soldiers (sadly) is all too real a thing, even in the GFFA as the stories of Jyn and Cassian underline.

One possible option is to simply let the characters choose a career, but not a specialization, at least not right away, and thus only starting with two less starting skill ranks, It's similar a bit to how the Beginner Box pre-gens are built, in that none of them begin play with talents, and instead begin to acquire them during the course of the introductory adventure. After the initial adventure, then let the PCs choose a starting spec, awarding them the two extra skills that come from selecting a spec, but with the caveat of those ranks not being able to push the PC over a rating of 2.

What you might also consider is reducing their starting XP by 1/4 or 1/2, so that they don't have as much to spend on skills or characteristics, but allow them to instead spend a portion of their earned XP later to boost up characteristics, up to the same amount that you reduced their species' original starting XP by. This does kind of gimp the PCs early on, but it does make sense as they're still growing, both physically and emotionally.

Something that actually works is simply adding a bunch of setback dice. Sure, the kid has Brawn 3, but if he tries to wrestle an adult drop a bunch of setback dice on him. Or all npcs get bonus dice for the opposition being kids.

And then do this everytime they should be worse at something on account of being kids.

Works very well if they're growing up during the campaign.

Basically, dont shrink the PC, just grow the world around them.

2 hours ago, angelman2 said:

How would you pull off playing kids, ruleswise?

The same way you play everyone else.

Kid main characters in Star Wars are just as competent as adult main characters.

Anakin is introduced as a skilled mechanic, knows multiple languages, is very streetwise in terms of where to go and who to stay away from, and he's the only human who can podrace, due to his foresight in the Force. Let's not forget podracing is basically a high-speed death race. Later in the film he intuits how to pilot a starship after accidentally turning it on and destroys a Separatist capitol ship. And he's just 9 years old.

Where he was lacking was in his knowledge of life outside of his homeland and in his naivete regarding the legendary Jedi Knights.

So the only thing I'd do different is roleplay them as naive to certain things, maybe a little stubborn or quick-tempered, but also creative and energetic and somewhat mischievous towards the badguys.

If you're going to add setback dice, you shouldn't just blanket add dice in favour of the adults. There are plenty of situations where it wouldn't matter, or where, depending on the situation, the setbacks would be in favour of kids (Stealth, Deception, Charm, Ranged...). Adults underestimate kids.

I agree with GroggyGolem 100%. Being a kid is just a special effect. I would especially not impose setback dice for size any more than you would do that with a silhouette-0 PC who is small due to species (which is to say, not at all). Situational setbacks or boosts to social checks might be appropriate, but that's about as far as I'd take it in distinguishing a kid from an adult.

The only exception might be if you were doing a flashback or a prequel mini-scenario of the PCs as kids before you jump into their adult adventures. In that case, maybe nerf them a bit. But if it's a mixed party of kids and adults, or all kids and they'll always only be kids, just use RAW and say they're kids.

Just play like normal, only taking into account the narrative benefits and detriments to being a tween/teen; occasional boost to coordination and stealth, setbacks to some social checks

I agree with the others. Generally speaking, Ezra and Sabine are just as capable as Zeb and Hera.

Apply boosts and setback when appropriate.

Yeah I wouldn't really stress changing much. Maybe limit some of the Knowledge skills, to reflect them not having much of an education. But then you might have a bookworm 9 year old concept, and that one is all about Knowledge, but is terrible at physical stuff. So really just play it by ear. I would just ask the questions that I ask myself for every character I make. "Based on my PC's background, what are they good/weak at?" And then just apply stats reflecting that. Is the kid a nerdy archetype, and spent all his time playing holo-games and surfing the holo-net? Ok, high Int and Computers skill, but Brawn is probably 1, and no real investment in physical skills. Or he's a farmboy who frequently substituted for the yoke animal in their fields (because his species is naturally strong and brawny, even at a young age, so it wasn't a problem), so he's got a good Brawn, but he didn't really have much education, so low Int and no Computers, since he never saw one growing up.

As for specializations, yeah I would probably prohibit the ones that are combat focused, but that's not a really big issue, as there are plenty of specs that don't provide combat related talents. They are all about movement, or survival, or intelligence related things. Just let them use those. Fringer, Slicer, the social/diplomat style specs are all highly fitting for a kid. And maybe just prohibit investing starting XP into combat skills. Limit it to physical/mental/social stuff, of which there are plenty to buy into at generation. They can learn combat stuff, at least buy into the combat skills as the story progresses, but depending on how serious you are taking this, that Ranged Light skill might reflect their skill with a slingshot, not a blaster pistol.

I think the biggest adjustment, is scaling the story/campaign to that befitting children. It's unlikely to be a planet hopping epic, that will take them to the heart of a galaxy impacting war. Sure it might happen (Phantom Menace style), but the rest of the kids in that film, never left the planet. I would probably try and scale the conflict to something on the scale of a town, or a specific neighborhood. Perhaps the kids are part of a scrounger/thief collective, like the opening scene of Solo: A Star Wars Story. They are dealing with small scale threats, owners of local shops they try to steal from. The mean bouncer at the nightclub they try and sneak into, because one of the waitresses there is nice to them, and sneaks them food.

Basically, just think about the scale of threats in the classic kids films from the past several decades, and just run with that. The Goonies, Stranger Things, etc. And while Stranger Things is a great example, one thing to note, the children in that show, were frequently not dealing with any real life threatening stuff, until the climax of the season at least. They were usually dealing with a mystery. Trying to find information, looking for clues, avoiding adult interference, etc. There was little to no direct combat, or life threatening stuff, aside from maybe like a bully, or a very small monster, the size of a puppy or whatever. The majority of their contribution to the events, was finding information that the adults later used, finding locations of importance where something needed to happen, or providing infrastructure support to the adults (the ham radio tower stuff for example), which facilitated the more direct actions by the adults.

So try and take that into consideration when building your scenarios.

On the topic of running a PC as a youth, my quick answer is, Nope. Don't do it. The FFG rules don't work well to emulate that.

However, GURPS does that well . . . ( http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-lite-third-edition ).

And would you look at that. GURPS Basic is on sale right now. 10% off! (But I already have 2-3 copies).

But the one thing that I haven't found that GURPS does well is how to handle Star Wars Force powers. (Which is why I'm playing with the FFG rules). Maybe if I handle the Force Powers like a combination of Advantages and Spells? I may be able to adapt the FFG Force Power Trees but lock them in as advantages? Something I need to toy with later . . .

Thanks all. Great feedback here.

My very basic idea (which many have touched upon) was to:
--Reduce staring XP (leaving the "unused XP" for when the character grows up)
--Halve XP gain during play (tallying the second half for "adulthood")
--Allow the palyers to chose career & specialization as a sort of anticipation of what their kid-PCs will become, but possbily not allow any Talent Tree advances above XP cost 10 (or something)
--Simply ignore Duty/Morality/Obligation for now and wing that stuff
--And introduce some flat (but modified by common AND dramatic sense) modifier for tests performed agaisnt adults... something like "upgrade all difficulties against adults once" (except when it doesn't make sense), and possibly also some spending Advantage penalty or whatever vs. adults. But I havn't given this much thougth

6 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

--Halve XP gain during play (tallying the second half for "adulthood")

I wouldn't suggest this. I think that they should still gain XP at the same rate as adults, some might argue more as kids are able to learn faster than most adults.

One way to parse "adulthood" (though it depends dramatically on the ages involved) is to set an earned XP benchmark, and once they've passed that point, they lose the XP expenditure limitations, though they still retain the negatives for being kids.

I would suggest you try to balance the starting XP for the different species in play, rather than just a blanket -50%. For example, if you take the base human stats (flat 2s), they should probably be able to increase 2 Characteristics, but not be able to get to 4, so 60XP should probably be the correct tally.

9 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

--Allow the palyers to chose career & specialization as a sort of anticipation of what their kid-PCs will become, but possbily not allow any Talent Tree advances above XP cost 10 (or something)
--Simply ignore Duty/Morality/Obligation for now and wing that stuff
--And introduce some flat (but modified by common AND dramatic sense) modifier for tests performed agaisnt adults... something like "upgrade all difficulties against adults once" (except when it doesn't make sense), and possibly also some spending Advantage penalty or whatever vs. adults. But I havn't given this much thougth

These all definitely make sense, but I might suggest Setback rather than upgrade. Also some skills would grant Boost (or, if you are going to Upgrade difficulties, Upgrades) against adults. Some Skulduggery checks, Stealth, etc.

44 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

Thanks all. Great feedback here.

My very basic idea (which many have touched upon) was to:
--Reduce staring XP (leaving the "unused XP" for when the character grows up)
--Halve XP gain during play (tallying the second half for "adulthood")
--Allow the palyers to chose career & specialization as a sort of anticipation of what their kid-PCs will become, but possbily not allow any Talent Tree advances above XP cost 10 (or something)
--Simply ignore Duty/Morality/Obligation for now and wing that stuff
--And introduce some flat (but modified by common AND dramatic sense) modifier for tests performed agaisnt adults... something like "upgrade all difficulties against adults once" (except when it doesn't make sense), and possibly also some spending Advantage penalty or whatever vs. adults. But I havn't given this much thougth

If you're going to do any of that, better to just disallow kid PCs altogether. These restrictions will make playing kids not fun at all. Remember that this system is meant as a movie simulator, not a real-life simulator. In Star Wars movies and TV, kid main characters are heroes, not nerfed weaklings.

6 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

If you're going to do any of that, better to just disallow kid PCs altogether. These restrictions will make playing kids not fun at all. Remember that this system is meant as a movie simulator, not a real-life simulator. In Star Wars movies and TV, kid main characters are heroes, not nerfed weaklings.

I 100% disagree with this, although... I should probably mention that I play in very different RPG groups from yours, groups that favors challenges, RPG opportunities, and great dramatic tenstion in our games. You might want to have a look at Stranger Things or Tales from the Loop or similar to see what I mean, and also consider why Han runs away from gangster in the epiloge to Solo: ASWS , or why Broom-boy & Co can't justrise up against their adult slave-masters in TLJ . There's nothing wrong with playing games they way you do, but it is not the way we do it.

32 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

--Halve XP gain during play (tallying the second half for "adulthood")

17 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I wouldn't suggest this. I think that they should still gain XP at the same rate as adults, some might argue more as kids are able to learn faster than most adults.

Basically this. It's pretty well established that children learn things far easier than adults, so the idea that they would advance skills at half the rate of an adult is fairly contrary to actual science on the matter. If you absolutely MUST try and make this reflect reality (which I don't recommend, it's Star Wars), then I would let them earn XP at a regular rate (possibly increased if you want, like +1 XP to any amount awarded), but have them only be able to spend ranks up to say...3, at least for physical skills. I don't think there should be any limitation on mental skills at all, as children are freaking sponges for learning and adapting new stuff. So Knowledge: Academics/Lore/Military, etc and things like Mechanics, Computers, etc, should all be completely open to them for growth. I think the physical skills should probably have some limitation, at least as far as straight strength is concerned. Coordination and Athletics are much easier as a kid, so I'd probably not limit that, there is a reason most gymnasts are children and not middle age people.

Honestly thinking about it, I'd say limiting the Characteristics would be a sufficient limiting factor I think. Like, no "kid" can have a Brawn above 2, would instantly give any adult character of equal skill ranks, but higher Brawn, an advantage. And saying "yeah well, you're 10, you're just not as beefy as a 60 year old Trandoshan who weighs twice as much as you, sorry." is the in-game translation of "You have B 2, he has B 4, so he's using 4 yellow, you only get 2"

There's no need I think, to also limit skill ranks, especially since that's just not how learning works for kids. As it was mentioned above, kids in Star Wars are incredibly capable beings, given the world they inhabit. Yeah Anakin and the Padawan kids in that one Clone Wars episode all have the Force on their side to shore up any shortcomings, but there is a long standing tradition of children being portrayed as highly capable in stories where the children are the protagonists Goonies, the Harry Potter films, Ender's Game, just to name a few, show children of extreme capability, accomplishing dramatic stuff. And given the popularity of those bits of entertainment, I think it's safe to say that the majority of people are fine with the idea of hyper-capable children (wow, that phrase took on a different context in Star Wars now that I read the sentence again ) doing stuff. So I don't think it's necessary to really limit the PC's very much, just because they are kids.

Brute force/strength things I do think are reasonable to limit, as an 8 year old is just too tiny compared to older people. Age = Mass = Advantage in Brawn stuff. And possibly the more social skills and characteristics might be a good place to limit, reflecting the idea that children are still learning the whole "getting along with people, learning that people might lie, and do bad things, but also maybe aren't BAD people just because of that" that is the shades of grey nuance that is Being An Adult. Most of the social knowledge we have, we learn as we age, and only after becoming older, can we see how naive we were as children about things like motivations of the people around us. What Mom was really doing when she always made sure you went to bed before Dad got home from work, etc.

Ok wow, so I apparently could just keep going about this, as I find it an interesting topic, but to summarize with metrics!!:

Limit Brawn to 1 (allowing for higher Brawn based on species perhaps, a Wookiee kid would reasonably be stronger than a human kid for example, but no higher than like...2)

Limit the social skills, like Negotiation, Charm, Diplomacy, etc, to say, 2 ranks at most. An 8 year old is not going to be highly versed in the nuances of inter-galactic politics and negotiations, so they should probably have a limit to reflect this inherent naivety.

No limits on physical skills, especially agility type ones, as kids are crazy good at that, let the limitation of Brawn reflect the "you're a small, tiny kid" limitation for such things.

No limits at all on intelligence based skills, as absorbing and retaining and learning is what kids excel at.

Let them earn and spend XP as normal, possibly with a bonus, to reflect the "kids learn stuff quick" idea.

Regarding specializations, limit them to non-combat ones, as there are tons for them to pick that can give them cool abilities, that aren't something like ASSASSIN! Fringer, Scholar, Medic/Doctor, Analyst, etc. All of them can provide great abilities to a game, and aren't based around killing people.

Or, completely drop all this junk, and just play them with regular PC's because who needs to put more layers of complexity and micromanaging on a game system designed to be loose and flexible, and just ROLEPLAY the PC as a kid.

I see a lot of the additional rules and mechanics to simulate a kid as arbitrary and tedious. If someone in my games were to really want to play a kid with their lack of skill and naivete represented by game mechanics, then I'd just tell my player that after character creation, they can do that by only spending XP at specific story milestones or after story arcs finish. I'd leave it up to them though in how they spend XP, because they're asking to have a character that's worse than everyone else in the group on purpose, and that desire will only last so long before they want to upgrade.

So, I'd do absolutely nothing different as GM and leave the decision up to them about how much XP they want to stockpile and when they feel it's appropriate to spend that XP.

6 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

I 100% disagree with this, although... I should probably mention that I play in very different RPG groups from yours, groups that favors challenges, RPG opportunities, and great dramatic tenstion in our games.

*blinks* Yeah, those 3 things you described as being apparently unique to your groups, when compared to ours, are completely like, every gaming table I've ever played at.

The source material you cite ( Stranger Things , etc.) doesn't really disadvantage the kid protagonists that much in my view. If I were doing Star Wars Goonies , I wouldn't nerf the PCs at all and would instead just go with boosts or setbacks on social skills depending on the circumstances.

But, that said, if your goal is to make the game harder, sure, you can go with the ideas you've listed. If your group would enjoy a more challenging game (and won't be frustrated by the slower pace of advancement), reducing XP rewards and limiting talent acquisition are going to accomplish this.

But what about leaving rules as written and making kids a "species" instead? Maybe three options: Toddler, Kid, and Teen? That way you can set the attributes how you want them, maybe slap on some penalties, but also grant some cool special abilities. One of the special abilities might be something that requires the PC to "transition" to the next oldest species if enough game time passes, meaning that if you move from a Brawn 1 Kid to a Teen (with a minimum Brawn 2), you have to pay your next 20 XP to compensate for that bump. You might encourage a more diverse party in this way, like you see in Goonies or Stranger Things (with younger kids and teenagers adventuring together).

I'm doubtful that any game would run for long enough for transitions between age groups to matter much, though.

1 hour ago, SavageBob said:

I'm doubtful that any game would run for long enough for transitions between age groups to matter much, though.

Eh, there could be a time jump between major arcs in the campaign, assuming they keep playing the same PC's. And I've seen enough posts on this forum alone, of groups playing for multiple years with the same PC's, and thus running into the XP Bloat problem, that it's fairly reasonable, in my opinion, that it could be a factor. I mean, just use the prequel trilogy as an example. Campaign 1 at the table is the kid phase of Phantom Menace, then they go off between films and age up a bit, and so you add in the new stats and stuff. It's got precedent in a franchise like Star Wars.

Don't do anything mechanically. The system has no rules for aging or stated assumption of character age.

21 hours ago, NanashiAnon said:

Don't do anything mechanically. The system has no rules for aging or stated assumption of character age.

I'm definitely of this opinion if I was the GM. Because frankly I have a busy schedule, and I don't have a lot of time to build new rules, and frankly don't care to, especially for something so minor as...well, rules for minors

My group has a custom system using 5 age groups. Youth don't receive Careers, but everyone receives a Lifestyle "background" which gives some Career Skills.

my two cents...

also, start them with zero experience and give them less experience per session. They aren't career trained, so if they don't get all the cool upgrades as fast that'll force them to think more Kevin McKallister resourcefulness rather than their usual heroes...

but yeah, seriously ... younglings. XD