18 hours ago, whafrog said:

This has already been suggested more than once already just in this thread, and summarily dismissed.

I really can't fathom the devotion exhibited towards this mechanic, and whether or not others use it. There's more addiction here than in the actual game!

If I see my neighbor using a wrench as a hammer, when he has a perfectly good hammer, I'm not being a good neighbor if I don't at least ask him why.

You don't like inventory management. You don't like "hit points" as being too artificial. In trying to understand the use of the wrench, I'm going to ask, what does injury and healing look like in your game? Do the PCs get injured? If they do, what healing is available to them? The "Rallying Surge" of earlier seems more inspiration than healing to me. Is there any "field medicine", or is only hospital care available?

Maybe you have a really good system/idea and I have not yet fully understood the benefits. I'd like to understand.

Double Post, apologies.

On 6/1/2020 at 8:27 PM, whafrog said:

That's exactly NOT the point. For me, "hit points" have never made sense anyway, whether in Star Wars or D&D or "real life", so having a game that requires one mechanic to cure the ills of another mechanic is a band-aid on a band-aid.

It also involves a pointless amount of time spent bean-counting rather than dramatic storytelling. I don't know about you, but I signed up to GM, not be a computer game interface; and my players signed up to engage in a story, not inventory management.

On 6/1/2020 at 11:31 PM, Daeglan said:

So what is your solution to tracking damage? While hit points are weird i havent seen a better way to handle it.

On 6/2/2020 at 1:11 AM, dreenan said:

But wether it is hit points, wound threshold, or other mechanics to determ hits on chars you always have to keep track of it, right?

Apart from this, I never got the feel that keeping track of this damaged the game flow in any way.

As the others above have mentioned, Hit Points/Wound Threshold is simply a means of tracking and quantifying damage. Every RPG has some variant of this basic concept. The better systems out there (including this one) also include a means of tracking “stun” damage separate from Wound damage. FFG goes a step further by breaking physical damage down into Wounds—for relatively minor injuries, such as scrapes, bruises, and cuts— and Critical Injuries—for the really serious or life threatening damage.

3 hours ago, RickInVA said:

If I see my neighbor using a wrench as a hammer, when he has a perfectly good hammer, I'm not being a good neighbor if I don't at least ask him why.

Dear lord, the sanctimony... 🙄 I think you are unable to recognize what is being built. I'm sure if I had a canoe, you'd tell me to put a motor on it "to get there faster", when the part of the joy of canoeing is the peace and solitude, and part is the challenge and skill required.

3 hours ago, RickInVA said:

In trying to understand the use of the wrench, I'm going to ask, what does injury and healing look like in your game?

This stuff has already been answered. Just like for your earlier "suggestion", I suggest you read through the thread before commenting further.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

Dear lord, the sanctimony... 🙄 I think you are unable to recognize what is being built. I'm sure if I had a canoe, you'd tell me to put a motor on it "to get there faster", when the part of the joy of canoeing is the peace and solitude, and part is the challenge and skill required.

This stuff has already been answered. Just like for your earlier "suggestion", I suggest you read through the thread before commenting further.

1) I have, and had, read the entire thread

2) I just re-read every one of your posts in this thread. Yes, you do offer (some?) mechanics of what you do. You also say, several times, that your game is probably different from those who disagree with your premise. As I am not dogmatic or wedded to a single method (although I do have an opinion and a starting point) I would like to know more about that difference. I gather that your players don't like to be encumbered, and have a high regard for their lives, resulting in a lot (not sure) of evasion and living to fight another day. What this doesn't tell me, which could be very useful for deciding to implement something similar or related, is how combat heavy your game is, do the opposition often have heavy weapons, what about grenades, do you have droid PCs, etc.

I understand that you may not want to take the time to explain all that. If so, fine. Time is valuable. If you are, I would welcome the information.

49 minutes ago, RickInVA said:

What this doesn't tell me, which could be very useful for deciding to implement something similar or related, is how combat heavy your game is, do the opposition often have heavy weapons, what about grenades, do you have droid PCs

No droid PCs. All human actually (unfortunately) as my players aren't really Star Wars fans. The setting is more of a backdrop for whatever the story is (smuggling, investigation, military missions, etc). Generally the sessions are not combat heavy, but they do like to kick butt occasionally (and I like to return the favour). Even so, we all seem to despise the "stand and grind" types of games, and much prefer "run and gun" scenarios. I do scale opposition weapon power accordingly, so it's run the gamut from thugs with pipes and chains (enough of them can be pretty mean) to auto-fire heavy rifles and higher, to grenades and the like...and one Inquisitor who definitely made them cry, both with his lightsaber and tossing them around with the Force.

They don't come out of these things unscathed, and they definitely have scars they remember (crits, etc). But I think we have far more fun dealing with "situational complications" than simply watching the WT meter go up and down. Crits still count after all.

I'm sure none of that is specific enough...you seem to want hard examples but that would take a looooong time to write up (if I could even remember everything) and I doubt it would be useful to you. Plus, I have this feeling you're trolling, because nobody should care this much about what other people do at their table especially when they say they like it. But even if you're not, there's this: I've been doing it "your way" for literally decades, as nearly every other game I've played uses hit points. It's grown increasingly dissatisfying and I'm playing with alternatives (part of the reason I'm somewhat vague is it's a constant work in progress). How you can have a chip on your shoulder about that is beyond me.

21 hours ago, whafrog said:

🙄 I think you are unable to recognize what is being built.

Exactly! It could be that when I go over I find that there is a perfectly good reason for what my neighbor is doing. It could also be that I stand there still mystified. I'm unsure what I have said or done to generate such irritation from you. Yes, I did not embrace your point of view. Yes, I pointed out what I considered some flaws with what I perceived to be (I may have been completely misconstruing, and freely admit that) your reasoning. People can disagree and still be civil, I hope.

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

Yes, I pointed out what I considered some flaws with what I perceived to be (I may have been completely misconstruing, and freely admit that) your reasoning.

That's not what you're doing. What you're missing is the flavour of what some of us are trying to achieve. Reskinning/renaming the mechanical aspects are only a part of what's of interest. Another is the narrative flow...but that's already been belaboured.

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

Yes, I did not embrace your point of view.

As you should have noticed by now, I have no interest, and never had, of converting you to my point of view. I've never said you're doing it wrong or anything like that. I have only explained why I don't like the RAW mechanic and what I do like about doing it differently, how it helps me with pacing and many other benefits to the player's engagement as well.

You, on the other hand, have extended no such courtesy. And so this:

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

People can disagree and still be civil, I hope.

...is just a bit disingenuous.

21 hours ago, whafrog said:

...is just a bit disingenuous.

To be sure, I just re-read all of my posts.

I have clearly asked why you feel the way you do.

I have offered alternative ways of looking at the mechanic.

I have expressed that I don't understand your motivation.

I have expressed interest in how you run your game.

I have admitted freely that I may well have misunderstood any of a number of things.

But, I have not said anything like, "You are wrong", "That is a terrible idea", "That will break so many things", or anything that I feel can reasonably be interpreted as such. Unless you view mere lack of agreement as uncivil I challenge you to quote me being rude, insulting, dismissive, or uncivil.

2 hours ago, RickInVA said:

Unless you view mere lack of agreement as uncivil I challenge you to quote me being rude, insulting, dismissive, or uncivil.

I'm not accusing you of being rude, insulting, or uncivil. Dismissive...that's how it feels, but I don't have a problem with that.

But your second last response convinces me that there's nothing going on here but T-word stuff. You ask questions that are already answered. You ask things that you could figure out for yourself given a modicum of thought. But most importantly, when answered, you don't acknowledge or discuss, you just pick out a snippet and steer the conversation in a new direction. Out of a three paragraph response, you picked out the one irrelevant part to the topic under discussion, and never mention the rest. The only thing you've actually disagreed with is the basic premise, and I have zero problem with that...how could I? It's your table. But since that's already hashed out, there's little point reiterating our preferences.

So that's what's disingenuous: I don't think you really want an answer...or perhaps (being charitable) you simply can't accept that how I run the game works for me.

On 6/1/2020 at 7:43 PM, RickInVA said:

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but it sounds like "if it didn't happen on screen that it doesn't exist", which, IMHO, is too strict an interpretation. Not much ends up on screen, there is a whole universe out there!

Man, I'm glad someone else is saying it. When they released a unit of Wookiee Warriors for the Rebels in Legion, people couldn't seem to wrap their mind around the fact that a galaxy-spanning insurrection can probably get 3 or 4 (or many more) Wookiees together. They really genuinely think that because Chewbacca is the only one we see on-screen that he must be it, and there's no chance whatsoever that another one or 10 could possibly be in the Rebellion. People need to pull their heads out of the movies on occasion and realize that it's a big galaxy! Now back to our scheduled "two angry rude people duel to the (thread) death" programming.

I'll chime in with an experience and GMing preference similar to Whafrog's.

My table, 4 years strong this month, has players who are really into Star Wars and love FFG's dice, but have shown very little interest in any of the game's more structured elements. From the start we used limited custom talents, so house rules have been easy to implement.

Frankly, I think the array of weapons and armor would perfectly fit a Borderlands adaptation in its variety. For my group, though, a blaster's a blaster -- it may be bigger or smaller or maybe high-quality but details beyond relevance to the story don't interest them.

Nobody minded the removal of Stims. Early on, I allowed Strain expenditures to mitigate damage but realized even that was too much -- so weapon damage consists of Boost, while Soak and Armor are replaced with simplified parameters for Setback. Everything's contained within a dice roll, which feels right for our group, and the modified scale of damage to WT/HT corresponds to my old Strain mitigation setup. (Enemy Wound/Trauma is lowered for pacing.) A few additional rules cover the rest of combat.

Players like to get out of scrapes and focus on problem-solving with their entire spectrum of skills, so it works well for us.

So in the end it always comes down to the same conclusion. If you are a GM with a certain mindset to a setting you need a bunch of players who think the same as you or do not care.

And that´ is the overalll rule for all the (heated) discussions here, right? If everybody has fun on the table you are doing it right. If not you find a common ground.

Personally, I always felt that Stims give too much bang for your buck. So I increased the cost to a base value of 100, and stores and medical facilities have limited stocks for sale.

And in more remote places they are even rarer and more expensive. Seems to have done the trip for me.

Also, on another note... I had my first PC death as a GM.

The Nautolan Guardian hit 160 on the Critical Injury Chart trying to defend the team while they attempted to raise Ray shields to protect a remote Mining Town. Crazy and powerful moment.

Edit - OH, and he died by being mauled to death by Wampas.

Late to the party and still reading, but I think your getting caught up on the word wound. Wounds aren't wounds for PCs. They're plot armor, luck, moxie, endurance, etc. Crits are the only actual wounds. Characters aren't standing around tanking blaster fire, they're barely dodging but hitting the ground with a thud. They're having the blaster hit the wall next to them and getting a mild flash burn. They're taking that glancing blow off of their paldron. Or they're simply getting lucky with that plot armor but their luck won't hold.

The problem isn't really how you define "wound", I find, but rather that the stims changes the dynamics of the mechanics. With these super-handy recovery items in play, it downplays the importanse of Wound Treshold, armor, cover, healing skills & abilities, etc., and turns the game into a logistics competition where having the greatest supply of stims ready becomes the forcus of a fight and wins the day...

I suggest just putting a one-per-24-hour cap on stims, and you're good to go. Has worked great in the couple of SWRPG games I'm involved with, at least.

6 hours ago, angelman2 said:

The problem isn't really how you define "wound", I find, but rather that the stims changes the dynamics of the mechanics. With these super-handy recovery items in play, it downplays the importanse of Wound Treshold, armor, cover, healing skills & abilities, etc., and turns the game into a logistics competition where having the greatest supply of stims ready becomes the forcus of a fight and wins the day...

I suggest just putting a one-per-24-hour cap on stims, and you're good to go. Has worked great in the couple of SWRPG games I'm involved with, at least.

there is already a per 24 hour cap

10 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

there is already a per 24 hour cap

A 5-per, not a 1-per.

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

A 5-per, not a 1-per.

with diminishing returns

Just now, Daeglan said:

with diminishing returns

I know. But the guy said he put a 1-per day cap on it.

I do have to question how much combat are you doing if you are having a problem with stim packs.

Especially if a heavy blaster rifle can cause 11 wound on its own, minus a 5-6 soak and you are already getting hit the amount you can recover max. And ita gonna be less and less perturn. You can't just outheal proper damage with stimpacks, that's not how it works. Maybe in a tavern brawl, but definitely not a shoot out.

On 8/22/2020 at 1:46 AM, Rimsen said:

Especially if a heavy blaster rifle can cause 11 wound on its own, minus a 5-6 soak and you are already getting hit the amount you can recover max. And ita gonna be less and less perturn. You can't just outheal proper damage with stimpacks, that's not how it works. Maybe in a tavern brawl, but definitely not a shoot out.

The fact that RAW you could stand up after that rifle shot appears to be part of the issue here.