2 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

How does double WT balance with medically inclined specialisations and healing powers, and what about Stimpack-based talents?

As it happens I have no players interested in PCs with those capabilities. Medicine still works as-is (PCs going to a doctor). The PCs can make one Simple Resilience or Discipline check per encounter (I call this Second Wind), which requires an Action. Also rather than the 1-per-day recovery of Wounds, they can make another Second Wind check after a full night's rest. I expect the healing powers still work as-is. Since I'm switching anyway to the Genesys way, having to think about swapping stim-Talents is not likely to be an issue for me, they just won't be available.

2 hours ago, Sturn said:

But, with the above change in titles, physically tiring things makes me think of Physical Strain not Mental Strain.

I have done things like cause Wounds if the activity is physically draining: say they are crossing some rugged wilderness area, and the Survival check means the trip takes longer or they arrive more exhausted. I generally don't do this if they've already been in a Wound-causing conflict because it feels like double-dipping, but given the additional Wound recovery options I'm not afraid to use it. I would certainly do it if there was a long foot chase, perhaps using 2-3 Threat per Wound (not sure yet, I'd have to try it out).

I should clarify that crossing the initial Wound threshold still results in a critical, and additional damage causes further criticals (with all that implies). In addition, depending on the situation the PC is may be Staggered or Immobilized for the rest of that turn (though they can still do the Second Wind action). It's a bit similar with Mental Strain, in that the PC is Disoriented for at least one turn, and they need to make a Discipline check to clear the condition. The players still avoid crossing their thresholds, mostly because of the crits, but at least they aren't twiddling their thumbs or asking if we've watched The Expanse yet...

I guess since it's somewhat on topic, I might as well rant 😬

<rant-on-healing>

I've disliked almost every wound-management system in RPGs I've come across. It all comes out of D&D, which came out of a system to play war-game miniatures. Wounds/hits, etc are fine for a skirmish game, where the life of the action is one battle and you're managing large numbers of troops. The Lord of the Rings game handles this well, with most troops being a one-shot kill, and only heroes have a couple of wounds to buffer fate.

But it breaks down entirely when you want your PCs to survive across the life of a campaign...not necessarily intact, but definitely a major part of some larger story. D&D "solved" this in two ways: first by adding HP so your 11th level mage couldn't be backstabbed by some lowly thief in a back alley; and second by introducing the "healer" class who could mitigate damage done (thus starting the arms race between GM and player...).

Healers are really a kludge, generally a bad idea, and do not lend themselves to "narrative" play. You have to invent a whole mythology just to support them. In D&D, healing is "magic" or "gifts from the gods". In this game, stimpacks, Force, and Medicine use just "magically" knit together torn flesh. Both, in other words, are nonsensical patches on a broken system. The only reason for the healer class to exist is to fix a problem of the game's own creation.

There are few "healers" in most of the epic-quest stories we know and love. In these stories "healing" comes when the PCs arrive at a haven. All the characters went through E4 without a single scratch, and it was still tense. In E5 Luke only loses a hand at the end (though he is clearly exhausted by that point), and it's only "fixed" in the med-bay of a Nebulon-B. Elrond "the Healer" didn't travel with the party, they only got to use his resources when they arrived at Rivendell. Frodo maybe had one or two shots of Miruvor to get himself through the darkest part of the struggle to Mount Doom: he was stabbed by a Morgul blade, poisoned by Shelob, clawed by Orcs, harassed by Gollum, and oppressed by the Ring...and yet, like a teeny tiny John McClain, he kept on crawling onwards to his fate (until eventually carried by Sam).

Wounds and hit points can't capture any of that, though crits come close. If I recall correctly, the original WEG game came closest to something approaching a quest-life mechanic...it was really hard to hit somebody, but when you did it was meaningful. Even Savage Worlds does it better (imho), by allowing a PC to shrug off "shaken" effects after an initial "hit", making actual Wounds become a big deal.

So I would have preferred in this game, given its narrative core, to have seen a more cinematic damage system. I'm not going to invent a system here, but something like "damage exceeding Soak" causes a Disoriented/Staggered/Immobilized condition until cleared (by Resilience/Discipline/Cool/DP flip); damage exceeding 2x Soak is more serious, possibly a crit; crits could still be triggered normally. Anyway, something I might work on later, curious if anybody has thoughts on it.

</rant-on-healing>

14 hours ago, whafrog said:

So I would have preferred in this game, given its narrative core, to have seen a more cinematic damage system. I'm not going to invent a system here, but something like "damage exceeding Soak" causes a Disoriented/Staggered/Immobilized condition until cleared (by Resilience/Discipline/Cool/DP flip); damage exceeding 2x Soak is more serious, possibly a crit; crits could still be triggered normally. Anyway, something I might work on later, curious if anybody has thoughts on it.

My concern with these kinds of proposals is that PCs really do need plot armor--another thing you never see in movies is a main character getting blasted by a mook for no good plot reason. I think the best thing to do is basically what you've done already. Keep an equivalent of "hit points" but treat them like "ablative plot armor" (a term someone here once used referring to WT). Once the plot armor is gone, the character is literally hit by the next blast and drops, as you should when you're shot by an energy weapon.

For example, if I were GMing the fight between Kylo Ren and Finn in Ep VII, Finn would be taking "wound damage" with almost every attack from Kylo as Kylo progressively gains the advantage and forces him to retreat. He takes one critical hit, when Kylo burns him with the crossguard, deals one lucky crit himself when he grazes Kylo's arm, and then his WT runs out and Kylo's final hit knocks him unconscious and deals him a second crit.

The system as written can definitely be used to reproduce that cinematic feel.

17 hours ago, whafrog said:

I guess since it's somewhat on topic, I might as well rant 😬

<rant-on-healing>

I've disliked almost every wound-management system in RPGs I've come across. It all comes out of D&D, which came out of a system to play war-game miniatures. Wounds/hits, etc are fine for a skirmish game, where the life of the action is one battle and you're managing large numbers of troops. The Lord of the Rings game handles this well, with most troops being a one-shot kill, and only heroes have a couple of wounds to buffer fate.

But it breaks down entirely when you want your PCs to survive across the life of a campaign...not necessarily intact, but definitely a major part of some larger story. D&D "solved" this in two ways: first by adding HP so your 11th level mage couldn't be backstabbed by some lowly thief in a back alley; and second by introducing the "healer" class who could mitigate damage done (thus starting the arms race between GM and player...).

Healers are really a kludge, generally a bad idea, and do not lend themselves to "narrative" play. You have to invent a whole mythology just to support them. In D&D, healing is "magic" or "gifts from the gods". In this game, stimpacks, Force, and Medicine use just "magically" knit together torn flesh. Both, in other words, are nonsensical patches on a broken system. The only reason for the healer class to exist is to fix a problem of the game's own creation.

There are few "healers" in most of the epic-quest stories we know and love. In these stories "healing" comes when the PCs arrive at a haven. All the characters went through E4 without a single scratch, and it was still tense. In E5 Luke only loses a hand at the end (though he is clearly exhausted by that point), and it's only "fixed" in the med-bay of a Nebulon-B. Elrond "the Healer" didn't travel with the party, they only got to use his resources when they arrived at Rivendell. Frodo maybe had one or two shots of Miruvor to get himself through the darkest part of the struggle to Mount Doom: he was stabbed by a Morgul blade, poisoned by Shelob, clawed by Orcs, harassed by Gollum, and oppressed by the Ring...and yet, like a teeny tiny John McClain, he kept on crawling onwards to his fate (until eventually carried by Sam).

Wounds and hit points can't capture any of that, though crits come close. If I recall correctly, the original WEG game came closest to something approaching a quest-life mechanic...it was really hard to hit somebody, but when you did it was meaningful. Even Savage Worlds does it better (imho), by allowing a PC to shrug off "shaken" effects after an initial "hit", making actual Wounds become a big deal.

So I would have preferred in this game, given its narrative core, to have seen a more cinematic damage system. I'm not going to invent a system here, but something like "damage exceeding Soak" causes a Disoriented/Staggered/Immobilized condition until cleared (by Resilience/Discipline/Cool/DP flip); damage exceeding 2x Soak is more serious, possibly a crit; crits could still be triggered normally. Anyway, something I might work on later, curious if anybody has thoughts on it.

</rant-on-healing>

You'd love Cyberpunk then. In that system, there is no "magical" healing at all, and even with medical care, healing takes time; a lot of time. Medical care simply speeds the process up a bit .

Episode VIII of the Mandalorian

@kaosoe that's disingenuous based on what I said above. As noted, I'm fine with the occasional healing event, I never made an "all or nothing" statement. It was a one-shot that served a story purpose, and that resource is no longer available. It's not a daily or encounter-ly event. I presume (hope?) that resource is difficult to get and you can't just find a couple on every stormtrooper.

Baby yoda's abilities are a bit OTT, so I do have a problem with that, but there's probably (hopefully) a story reason.

Anyway, my only point is you shouldn't have to incorporate a "healer" into your campaign just to mitigate this basic flaw in game design (speaking generally in the industry, not specifically against FFG). I'm not saying there should be no healing resources...that would be dumb.

I think you are inferring a lot from my single sentence. Relax, my guy. I'm just offering an alternative perspective.

I do agree that a good system shouldn't rely on a healer, and FFG Star Wars does not. I also feel a good system should allow for the healer role if that's a player's jam. I say that as someone who really does enjoy playing a support/healer role in RPGs.

2 hours ago, kaosoe said:

I think you are inferring a lot from my single sentence.

Perhaps I was too terse, though I do believe you did some inferring of your own.

2 hours ago, kaosoe said:

I do agree that a good system shouldn't rely on a healer, and FFG Star Wars does not.

If there is physical conflict in the game, I think it does require a healer, or constant healing resources like stimpacks, which is the same thing imho.

2 hours ago, kaosoe said:

I also feel a good system should allow for the healer role if that's a player's jam. I say that as someone who really does enjoy playing a support/healer role in RPGs.

I have enjoyed that too, but as a GM I'm having a change of heart in that I don't want to run campaigns that need a constant supply of "magical healing", whether provided by a PC or a backpack full of stims.

Lots of good alternatives out there to hit point systems. Check out Masks: The New Generation, for example. The way it allows people to be punched in the feelings and that having mechanical weight would be perfect for SW.

On 1/3/2020 at 12:16 PM, Daeglan said:

John McClain Damage basically.

My go-to example is Indy and the truck full of Nazis. All the punches and bumps and scrapes and whatnot from being dragged behind a truck - that's all wound. The Nazi who snuck up on Indy and shot him in the arm? That's your crit.

7 hours ago, kaosoe said:

Episode VIII of the Mandalorian

If you feel that Stimpaks do not feel like Star Wars, then you might not like the Bacta Spray that IG-11 uses on Din

I saw that and instantly went "Hey! Stimpack!"

1 hour ago, Desslok said:

My go-to example is Indy and the truck full of Nazis. All the punches and bumps and scrapes and whatnot from being dragged behind a truck - that's all wound. The Nazi who snuck up on Indy and shot him in the arm? That's your crit.

I saw that and instantly went "Hey! Stimpack!"

Yeah Indy is an excellent example.

On 1/3/2020 at 5:02 PM, whafrog said:

I suppose it works as well as "hit points" in D&D, though you need to get to about level 4 in that game to have enough HP to change your tactics if you see you're getting into trouble.

I'm a bit fast and loose with Wounds. First, I dislike the very idea of stim-packs (what is this, a video game?), except as the occasional mystery-tech/story-based buff. Second, I really dislike incapacitating PCs, partly because as a player I don't like being left out, but most because as a GM there is nothing worse than a player with nothing to do So I've removed stim-packs, doubled the threshold and added in "second winds" and other ways to keep going. Even hitting thresholds doesn't necessarily "incapacitate", though the PC can still rack up crits when taking damage after crossing their threshold. @Daeglan 's comment about "John McClain damage" is poignant, as that's pretty much the feel I'm going for.

Oh I agree, it's not a great system, because it's trying to reverse engineer narrative logic for injuries (which don't actually follow any rules other than the plot/script of the story), into something codified, structured, and repeatable. No game has ever, or will ever actually work that perfectly to reflect narrative injuries, because it's an entirely different medium. The term "lost in adaptation" comes to mind to reflect this. It's just too big of a gap in how things work. I mean if you actually took the original trilogy, as a gaming session, then NOBODY ever took a single point of injury/damage in the ENTIRE campaign, for multiple gaming sessions, possibly entire campaign arcs, which would span months, if not years for a regular gaming group, except for 2 situations. Luke getting his hand chopped off in Empire, and Leia getting shot in Return. I guess you could count Ben in New Hope, but he felt more like a Mentor NPC than an actual player character to me. But yeah, that's just not a realistic gaming table. Multiple combat situations, running gun fights from location to location, over and over, and only twice does the GM roll a hit on one of the PCs? That's just crazy talk! But in the films, that's how it should work, because the primary form of tension isn't "will the PC's all survive this fight" it's "Will they save the day by the climax of the film?" But in a gaming group, the idea that Luke, or Han, or Leia, might just flat out die mid-combat, is a reality of the style of entertainment. But movies don't do that. You don't have a "party wipe" mid film, because then the films over. But party wipes happen all the time in gaming groups.

So yeah, no system that is trying to replicate a narrative, storytelling style flavor, is going to have a good combat system, or at least most won't make what I think would work, because the mindset of your average gamer is too linear, analytical, and rigidly structured to like it. Let's face, most gamers are math/science/engineer geeks, who obsess over minute details, and try to optimize every aspect of the game. It's why the term min-maxing exists, and that type of analytical approach to gaming, is directly contrary to a narrative story, because narrative stories don't actually follow any rigid rules. They follow the plot/script. That's it.

4 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

So yeah, no system that is trying to replicate a narrative, storytelling style flavor, is going to have a good combat system, or at least most won't make what I think would work, because the mindset of your average gamer is too linear, analytical, and rigidly structured to like it.

Good points, and of course I'm not looking for it to be "just like the movies" or something. Player agency means risk, and risk means consequences, so some form of damage or incapacitation is called for, even essential.

I don't know, our game has going semi-weekly for around six months without a single medicine check until last episode where I finally used my three remaining (out of four) stimpacks and clone trooper IFAC in one heavy battle. No else has any.

I like the Wounds system as-is, but I had an idea for how to handle it in the more narrative fashion people are talking about:

First, change "Wounds" to "Plot Armor", or, if you want something less meta, "Luck" or something.

When a character gets "shot", this is a narrative miss and doesn't affect them other than chunking their plot armor. The only time a "hit" affects them is when it causes a crit. This is a narrative minor wound, like Leia getting shot in the should in RotJ or Kylo Ren getting shot by Chewie in TFA.

When the character goes over their PAT (Plot Armor Threshold), they receive a crit and are incapacitated. This is a narrative major wound, like the last strike that put Finn down in TFA, or the shot that dropped Captain Rex in "The Deserter."

23 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

First, change "Wounds" to "Plot Armor", or, if you want something less meta, "Luck" or something.

I liked the old RCR term Vitality.

On 1/6/2020 at 3:50 PM, Desslok said:

I saw that and instantly went "Hey! Stimpack!"

And wouldn't it be dramatic if every character did that 5 times per day!