I am simplifying certain parts of the game since I am playing with younger kids (my sons) and one thing I am getting rid of is crits. To keep the possibility of death I was thinking death could be at wound threshold plus five.

Maybe while unconscious make a resilience check with difficulty equal to the number of wounds beyond the threshold or increase wounds by one.

sounds good for a kids game but wouldn't it also drag out combat a little.

If you have it, the crit table is much more simplified in the Beginners game.

I am simplifying certain parts of the game since I am playing with younger kids (my sons) and one thing I am getting rid of is crits. To keep the possibility of death I was thinking death could be at wound threshold plus five.

Maybe while unconscious make a resilience check with difficulty equal to the number of wounds beyond the threshold or increase wounds by one.

If you went with that I actually think you'd die more easily than the existing system, especially if someone was hit with something especially brutal (high damage piercing weapons come to mind). The Crit system in place actually makes it pretty hard to be killed unless you run around fighting after taking 3+ Crits or something.

It might be better/more rewarding to make the characters "unkillable" (although I wouldnt tell them that) if you are playing with your kids. Whenever they get incapacitated, just have some NPC rescue them (ala Han/Luke on Hoth or Obi/Luke after Tuskens, etc) or something. That way they can be kids and do crazy things and wont lose their characters so easily.

You still go unconscious at threshold plus one so I don't see it adding to combat length.

I wasn't going for unkillable. Both have D&D experience so are not strangers to PC death, but I don't want a lot of PC death.

Then don't spend those advantages on crits. Only crit on a triumph.

Seconding the fact that the Beginner Game has both simplified crit rules and also no rules for character death (basically, after four critical injuries, you're incapacitated until you've got that injury healed).

I wasn't going for unkillable. Both have D&D experience so are not strangers to PC death, but I don't want a lot of PC death.

If they have experience with D&D, then they will have absolutely no trouble with the crit tables. The system is pretty simple. It is just another form of currency, like barbarian rages or spells per day. You just only get them when you roll fancy symbols on your dice. This system is SO much simpler than D&D.

Don't take the system out unless they are having trouble learning. If you explain it to them while you play, I can almost guarantee they will catch on and love it a lot more than if you start stripping the system down.

Plus, the crit tables are soooo much fuuuunnnnn.

Go to Michaels. Buy a little wooden cube. Get a marker. Put things like "leg" "arm" "eyes" & "ribs" on it. Assign one of the six attributes to each. Critted parts have a -1 to the linked attribute. They can have fun getting their body parts mangled, easy penalties, easy to track.

Fourth crit kills.

The little bags of blank wooden 8d6 at Michaels are great.

How old are you kids? The modifications you make ought to be contingent on the age. I'd do something different for a six year old than I would a 10 year old.

Ages 7 and 11 (about to turn 12).

I will rebook at the BG crit table. Maybe death after 3 or 4 unhealed crits?

I seriously think your kids would love using the crit table. You could even turn it into a math exercise, to add up the +10s that they have from vicious and previous hits plus the dice roll. Or something.

The crit table is not something I would remove for simplification, perhaps how to calculate the crit values, but as others say it is a lot of fun to roll crits, and adding a death at the -5 makes combat less fun.

I decided to go with the BG crit table with the 4th consecutive crit resulting in death. Thank you everyone for the feedback.