I like almost everything I see from the new SW RPG. Even the taste of force powers (where you can invest XP into them) is great.
But for the strain mechanic.
This is a terribad mechanic. I got to see how painfully pointless it was in the Warhammer game (where it was more complex).

If you haven’t read it:
Basically, some situations will cause your characters stress and that will be applied against your Strain. Effectively, there is a hit point mechanic for your character’s stress.

Why it’s bad:
Because it is far too easy to get rid of. To the point that it serve virtually no effect in the game. Players can remove strain casually. Additional ‘boons’ on their rolls can remove strain. They get to attempt to recover strain after every encounter. And…after a good night sleep, it all goes away anyway.
There are several talents that provide a bonus if your character take’s strain. Things that will come up between interesting sessions, so they pose no actual impact to the character’s life, since they will recover all the strain gained before they actually could suffer from any ill effects.

Why it’s terrible:
Because when you take all your strain, you pass out. Solidifying this as your mental hit points, which is unbelievably dull. Also, not terribly thematic. I don’t really remember any character passing out because they had too much stress, but even if my memory doesn’t serve, it’s a dumb mechanic to have in an RPG.
To quote the Simpsons: You know what’s better than nothing? Anything.
Nothing is as boring as your character passing out. There are no more options available to them. There is no more role playing to be had. The player waits until they are told they are allowed to do anything.

Why it’s terribad:
Because it’s quite easy to avoid strain, the GM has to go out of their way to have it stack up, such as putting the characters into situations that keep stressing them out and not giving them any respite. This requires the GM to be a **** to the players. All for the purpose of throwing enough strain at the characters…to have them fall unconscious and unable to affect their surroundings or reflect upon their miserably situation.

What it should have been:
This could have been a perfect mechanic for engineering some more story, such as encouraging the players to make bold mistakes or foolhardy acts of heroism, to ‘buy’ off (manage) some of their strain.
One thing, as a long term GM, is that it is often hard to split a ‘party’ up. Yet the SW universe does this often and regularly. Luke goes one way and Han goes another. What strain could have been is a mechanic where you make these ‘bold mistakes’ because it seemed good at the time. It allows the character to be a master of their fate, makes strain something other than mental Hit points and gives strain some actual meaning to game.

My $0.02

Have you thought through all the implications of strain? Just because you've hit your threshold doesn't mean you're "knocked out," though in cases like stun damage, this is exactly how it plays out. But there are other ways a character can suffer strain that leave them just as good as "knocked out." Being brow-beaten by a senator or security guard and simply standing there in shock, sputtering in anger, unable to act. You could be reeling from finding out a secret from your past that knocks you on your arse, fighting to come to grips with it.

That's strain.

This is the realm of social combat.

A fantastic example is the scene in The Magnificent Seven, when Chico comes to see Chris about the job for the first time. Chris absolutely humiliates the poor kid, causing Strain with his actions. Chico can't handle it and storms off, unable to continue the confrontation, only coming back when drunk, trying to recover some of that strain. He comes back again, and is further humiliated when Chris won't even look at him, much less give him a chance to get even. He stands there in shock, looking about the room at the men who he longs to be like. Mechanically, he has hit his Strain Threshold and can't continue acting. Cinematically, he passes out from the drink.

This is why Strain is a good fit for a Star Wars game. This is why it was included in the game.

I think it might be appropriate to have intense strain cause a severe debuff to a character rather than actually taking them out entirely. Perhaps a fully strained character can only take a maneuver every turn or takes a 3 die negative to all actions. Having wounds be the thing that actually puts you out of a fight and strain just -effectively- put you out of a fight does seem more fitting and genre appropriate than making you passed out or perma-stunned on the spot

I'll admit, I starting reading your post expecting to not agree with you, but you actually raised some interesting points.

For some perspective, our group has found that strain should not be considered as a pool of "mental hit points" but more of a dynamic currency that allows a player to take additional maneuvers, perform special abilities, etc. Based on your post though, yeah, there are some issues:

• It is too easy to replenish them. In WHFRPG3e, it takes two boons to recover a fatigue or stress, here only one. And advantages are downright plentiful in this game.
• The threshold before a penalty is incurred is too high. It takes a substantial amount of work to reach the strain threshold, which are roughly twice as high as the thresholds in WHFRPG3e
• The penalty for FINALLY exceeding that threshold is pretty sh*tty: Unconciousness.

Thinking back, The only time I've really noticed my players accumulating strain to levels that are even remotely consequential was when our doctor got pimp-slapped by a hutt.

You mention strain being similar to a more complicated and useless part of warhammer, I assume you mean the WHFantasy RPG. I can say, from personal experience, it makes it pretty interersting… my waywatcher almost got his ass handed to him because he had built up a lot of fatigue and had a series of boon-free rolls. It fits that setting and this one fairly well. I always appreciate a good resource management system in a game.

Possible solutions? First off, increase the cost of 'healing' strain with [Adv], probably up to 2. Beyond that? Characters are disoriented after they exceed 1/2 their strain threshold? Maybe decrease thresholds, but that runs the risk of making stun weapons too good. Probably a better solution is to increase the strain cost (double them… ish, add one?) to make them more likely to accumulate. It may also be more interesting to inflict minor or moderate critical injuries on the players for exceeding their thresholds, instead of knocking them out.

I think the system as part of the game is fine, it just needs adjustments. Anyway, I'm glad you brought this up. It got me thinking, hopefully it will get the devs thinking too. It may be something I play with after a run a few more RAW sessions with my players.

-WJL

Compared to WFRP I like that we only have one pool to manage versus the two. I'm also not a fan of "when you reach half of <X Game Resource> you suffer <Y Drawback>." Just give me a considerable hiccup once I've run out of <X Game Resource>.

I also agree that having characters described as being incapacitated ( either taking a battle nap or being mentally dumbstruck ) upon exceeding their strain threshold does not jive with the way strain resets after the encounter. At the same time you don't want to create a scenario where characters fear strain damage more than wounds because they don't recover quickly. Otherwise you may as well just pile the whole thing together into the same pool and let characters spend wounds/vitality/gummybear points to do extra stuff. But that would be less ideal in my opinion. Having a physical damage pool like wounds and a flexible pool like strain is a nice duet. I just think we can improve upon it. Definitely something to consider house-ruling if Strain hits the shelves as-is.

Strain works well as a parallel resource divorced from wounds, and is a good voluntary "this for that" player resource. That being said, the main reason to have characters be incapacitated is that you want Strain to have a real drawback. If characters know they are free to spend 12 strain per encounter with nothing but a high five once they've exceeded their threshold it stops being a functional "give and take" system. It just becomes bullets in the gun and they'll have no compunction about pulling the Strain trigger until it goes click. A middle ground between John-Woo action and "oh dear me *hits the deck plating*" is possible with the rules we have in the game.

Once a character hits their strain threshold they could simply be Staggered. Sure it sucks, but they can still take maneuvers and they can interact with the scene. If they are hit with another effect that would Stagger them then simply knock the bugger out with Incapacitated…at least there'll be a narrative reason based upon the effect rather than "oops there goes my strain g'night guys."

Add in a maneuver called "Take a Breather" ( … wait…is there a maneuver like that already? ). Let a player make a <Something> test to regain a few points of strain and potentially get back in the action ( Against a Difficulty of 1 +any situational mods that may be relevant ). Worse case scenario they roll more strain or add setback dice to their next check and need to spend a couple more rounds regaining their composure, or having another character assist them in some way.

I dunno…I'm just spit-ballin'. I like that Strain mechanically allows for in-game effects apart from wounds. And it's better than "per encounter" or "per day" abilities as a player resource. I also don't think that something like a cinematic/narrative mechanic of "you are out of this scene" would necessarily be any better (from a player perspective) than having your player stand there drooling/lay down and go night night.

I'm just not a fan of " you…go get us some lunch while we finish this encounter ." or " okay I know you are trying to fight the bounty hunter goons but you need to break away and heal your friend if you want some continued help ." I think the Staggered condition is pretty gnarly but more fair than being benched, as long as there is a methodology added within the maneuver system to attempt to reduce strain thresholds. But even if a character didn't choose to attempt to reduce their Strain to get back at it, they could still open doors, stumble down hallways, call out to friends, assist a friend, do some tests, etc. It also more accurately lends itself toward the existing mechanic of reducing your strain total at the end of an encounter…as you are clearing your head, assessing the situation, etc…instead of waking up or suddenly being able to interact with the world again.

Outside of combat? Yeah I've got nothin' at the moment. Mostly because I can't remember off hand if there are any talents that let you spend strain on out-of-combat game effects.

Do you think it could be possible for them to split Strain into different types of Stress… like Physical Strain and Mental/Emotional Strain? And I would see Physical Strain differently than Wound Points, which is actual damage.

Stacie_GmrGrl said:

This is exactly what is done in the Warhammer Fantasy RPG: Stress (mental) & Fatigue (physical). It works there, but I don't think the EotE needs it, we have strain which is in effect, both.

-WJL

I like the idea of a strained character being staggered or only able to take one maneuver a turn and nothing else. It basically makes your character leave a fight but it doesn't mean that you have to leave the table.