Sir Rgrove0172,

You have two options right now.

1) Wait for the end of the Fantasy flight game take on Star Wars so that they can publish one large index of every item/race/power/whathave you

OR, this is really hardcore but realistically the only thing you can do :

Do your own database. Make it a excel or some other stuff than you can edit on the fly when a new book shows up. Start it now while there is not 'that much stuff'.

That's it really. This way you actually use your books value AND have a handy tool for future reference.

Also when and if you do it send it this way --> Me. Because I'm sick of winging it as well.

Cheers,

Art

Thanks Artuard, Im actually considering it. I finally found the data sets for Oggdudes stuff but the zipped data files wont import into his program. ??

Ah well.

Im reading some scary things about the Vegomatic dataset, posts claiming errors and the like. I thought I might risk it but google cant seem to find it anyway.

I’ve had problems with it, yes. That’s why I won’t refer anyone to it.

You’re welcome to give it a try if you find it and you want to take that risk, but it doesn’t work for me.

Meanwhile, the best resource I have that doesn’t require Windows is the SWRPG index at http://swrpg.viluppo.net/

Thanks Artuard, Im actually considering it. I finally found the data sets for Oggdudes stuff but the zipped data files wont import into his program. ??

Ah well.

I was able to load it by selecting "Load DataSet" in the data editor and choosing the "*.zip" filter in the file selection dialog

I didn't know there were data sets for the character generator program that fill in data. Where can I find Vegomatic's data set and is it safe to import? I don't want to wreck my program or run into a bunch of problems. Are there other data sets I should try?

Please educate me about these and what they would add.

My lovely wife built this for us over the course of a couple of weeks last August. Any materials released after that point have not been added, but will be once we acquire them/the time to add them.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AMDzEISniM8A2SlCJ4Qa4QGL_8oNYDGbqrFL_mNonx8/edit?usp=docslist_api

It lacks all of the vehicles, but what do you want it's free.

Yes I see that but there are no descriptions of the various entries, just references to books and page numbers. I suppose that helps a bit and its a fine program but why not take that next step and make it all available?

It’s called “a license”. They have the license from Disney to produce materials for sale under certain very specific conditions. And there is no kind of “electronic publication” that falls under the license that FFG has. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

So, they can produce materials for free and release them as PDFs, which they do for some of the add-on adventures that go along with the respective Beginners Boxed Sets. And they can produce gaming accessories, like dice programs for iOS and Android.

But no electronic publications for sale, of any shape, form, or size.

There’s plenty of other threads in the forum about this subject.

and as evidenced by the fact that all the other rpgs they have ARE available in PDF they are more than willing to do PDFs when they are allowed... They just can't do them for Star Wars do to the terms of the License. That license was created for WEG and has not changed.

For GMing a self made game picking a single book to use for inspiration for a particular story arc is a good idea. A Career book is a good place to start, they have a lot of plot ideas and the equipment/ships and adversaries often are very thematic to that theme.

The NPC cards are great, if you can get them.

The Star Wars Index brad mentioned is great for finding something that you know the name of, giving you the page number for checking out the full description.

I don't really get why this is a problem. To view the sourcebooks as simply catalogues of equipment seems to be a very narrow focus. They are full of plot and location advice and ideas. The equipment section is usually the one I pay the least attention to.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! If you've been bitten by a certain thing in play, set aside prep time to make say, 5 of them to keep in your GM Holorcron for the next time it comes up. Eventually, you'll be prepared for just about all situations.

This index is actively updated: http://swrpg.viluppo.net/

I know you stated you have a difficult time with these, but I think they get more useful with practice. The onus of remaining prepared for any eventuality is the GM's, and maintaining this level of knowledge is no mean task. However, if you lean on your players a little bit, you can usually work through it. Ask them for details about a setting, a piece of equipment, an npc's garb. I run a pretty loose game and I'm often required to shoot from the hip for just such occasions! However, there is no substitute for good prep, and there's no easy way to skirt around it. If one has forgotten an important thing that one can't wing at the table, it's appropriate to call a nature break and get something put together while the players kibitz.

I don't really get why this is a problem. To view the sourcebooks as simply catalogues of equipment seems to be a very narrow focus. They are full of plot and location advice and ideas. The equipment section is usually the one I pay the least attention to.

plot and location advice are rather general and easily recalled after a brief read. The specifics of a particular weapon or piece of equipment or even a talent is something else. More difficult to even remember they exist too.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! If you've been bitten by a certain thing in play, set aside prep time to make say, 5 of them to keep in your GM Holorcron for the next time it comes up. Eventually, you'll be prepared for just about all situations.

This index is actively updated: http://swrpg.viluppo.net/

I know you stated you have a difficult time with these, but I think they get more useful with practice. The onus of remaining prepared for any eventuality is the GM's, and maintaining this level of knowledge is no mean task. However, if you lean on your players a little bit, you can usually work through it. Ask them for details about a setting, a piece of equipment, an npc's garb. I run a pretty loose game and I'm often required to shoot from the hip for just such occasions! However, there is no substitute for good prep, and there's no easy way to skirt around it. If one has forgotten an important thing that one can't wing at the table, it's appropriate to call a nature break and get something put together while the players kibitz.

No actually the index you linked is great, I have it saved to favorites and have printed out a few of the lists. The only complaint I have is the lack of a comments field. Something brief like "Typical blaster with increased accuracy" would be great, otherwise many of the entries have to be researched in their own rights to figure out what they basically are. "Hmm Ardos Disk? Whats that, guess Ill have to look it up?"

No actually the index you linked is great, I have it saved to favorites and have printed out a few of the lists. The only complaint I have is the lack of a comments field. Something brief like "Typical blaster with increased accuracy" would be great, otherwise many of the entries have to be researched in their own rights to figure out what they basically are. "Hmm Ardos Disk? Whats that, guess Ill have to look it up?"

That's what I mean by the onus of prep. We can't expect this tool to provide much more information lest it be in violation of copyright. However, using Rarity and the attributes shown I can peruse the list and quickly decide what is "a typical blaster pistol with increased accuracy" that could feasibly be in a Rival's hand and what is not feasible. Still, this is no substitute for doing GM homework.

I would have thought looking up the stats would be the home work. Give me a list of what's there and what it is and let me decide what to research the specifics on.

I would have thought looking up the stats would be the home work. Give me a list of what's there and what it is and let me decide what to research the specifics on.

Well, it kinda is. Rote memorization is only going to get a GM so far - a person can only remember so much! That's where the index I linked fits in. To use your example, a typical blaster does 6:3 with a Rarity of 4. So I sort the table by the damage column, then look around the 6 Damage mark for something that has the Accurate quality. Bingo! X-30 can do the trick. Sure it's only 5 Damage but it's close enough.

You know.... People used to be able to handle this stuff with 2nd edition AD&D and not complain. And they had more books and less you could do with computers and NO digital version at all. I hate to break it to you being a Game Master is work. Yes you can't really get digital versions of the books from FFG. But you know what? Prep requires way way less work. Need a specific weapon for a game. You could take a snapshot of the page and put it in evernote or onenote or some other tool. Use the computer tools you have to get what you want.

Geeze people, get a clue. Ive been GMing since 1980... D&D in the little white boxes. I think I understand that GMing requires a bit of research. Id stack any one of my 30+ years of campaigns against anyone here. I am not some 16 year old kid who just picked the beginner box off the shelf because the Xbox is on the fritz. I have a degree in pre-hospital medicine and another in Fire Protection and retired Chief and state instructor of a municipal Fire/EMS service. I know how to read, how to study and how to commit things to memory when necessary.

What I am complaining about, if it can be called a complaint rather than just asking for how others deal with the same issue, is the necessity to randomly scan a dozen or more sourcebooks to see what the publishers have come up with in order to refresh my memory each and every time I set down to prepare a session. In the past other systems published sourcebooks and add-ons certainly but they also included a more detailed table of contents or index so as to be able to pan through the book's contents at a glance. (a table of contents that lists "New Weapons" doesn't help much when you looking for something specific.)

I have a hard time believing other GMs don't find themselves setting at their desk and deciding they want to include an industrial landspeeder of some some sort in the next session, for example, and realizing they will have to paw through a dozen books to see if the publishers have already created one for the game.

Sure, I know, I know, I could just make it up myself... but then what the heck are the books for, why bother publishing them? Surely they are considered a resource for GMs like me. All Im asking is that they be a bit more user friendly.

I apologize in advance for the irate tone but please, read back through at some of the condescending comments and I think you will understand.

Geeze people, get a clue. Ive been GMing since 1980... D&D in the little white boxes. I think I understand that GMing requires a bit of research. Id stack any one of my 30+ years of campaigns against anyone here. I am not some 16 year old kid who just picked the beginner box off the shelf because the Xbox is on the fritz. I have a degree in pre-hospital medicine and another in Fire Protection and retired Chief and state instructor of a municipal Fire/EMS service. I know how to read, how to study and how to commit things to memory when necessary.

What I am complaining about, if it can be called a complaint rather than just asking for how others deal with the same issue, is the necessity to randomly scan a dozen or more sourcebooks to see what the publishers have come up with in order to refresh my memory each and every time I set down to prepare a session. In the past other systems published sourcebooks and add-ons certainly but they also included a more detailed table of contents or index so as to be able to pan through the book's contents at a glance. (a table of contents that lists "New Weapons" doesn't help much when you looking for something specific.)

I have a hard time believing other GMs don't find themselves setting at their desk and deciding they want to include an industrial landspeeder of some some sort in the next session, for example, and realizing they will have to paw through a dozen books to see if the publishers have already created one for the game.

Sure, I know, I know, I could just make it up myself... but then what the heck are the books for, why bother publishing them? Surely they are considered a resource for GMs like me. All Im asking is that they be a bit more user friendly.

I apologize in advance for the irate tone but please, read back through at some of the condescending comments and I think you will understand.

And yet you complained about not having digital books and kind of poo pooed the ones suggested. Soooo...

And those resources are skirting on the edge of copyright so no they can't give you anymore than they do. You the GM have to add the part you feel is missing because they cannot give you what you want with out getting a Cease and Desist from FFG and then us having nothing. All of the options mentioned do have the ability for you to add the part you want.

Since most of the books are career books I'd have to say no, they aren't meant for the GM. They're meant for the player who is looking to flesh out their chosen career, the gear inside included in that as it is typically themed towards those careers. If I actually felt the need for an opponent to have something unique I used my imagination and made it up, because pulling it from the book is just copying

I have a hard time believing other GMs don't find themselves setting at their desk and deciding they want to include an industrial landspeeder of some some sort in the next session, for example, and realizing they will have to paw through a dozen books to see if the publishers have already created one for the game.

I apologize if I came off as condescending, that was not my intention. I'm only trying to help.

Why do you care if the industrial speeder exists in books? Surely there are hundreds if not thousands of companies that make industrial speeders, so would it not be easier to determine a few key characteristics and then skin it however you like? One might even ask a player to describe the speeder and adjust the specs a bit depending on what they say.

I have a hard time believing other GMs don't find themselves setting at their desk and deciding they want to include an industrial landspeeder of some some sort in the next session, for example, and realizing they will have to paw through a dozen books to see if the publishers have already created one for the game.

Sure, I know, I know, I could just make it up myself... but then what the heck are the books for, why bother publishing them? Surely they are considered a resource for GMs like me. All Im asking is that they be a bit more user friendly.

I apologize in advance for the irate tone but please, read back through at some of the condescending comments and I think you will understand.

I understand the desire to have a more complete index, but we’re very much at the mercy of Disney and FFG here. And no one that has poured hours and hours of work over days, months, and years into these kinds of tools wants to have all that suddenly end with a cease-and-desist order from “Da Mouse”.

We’ve got a very fine line that we walk here, and we want these things to stay available and relatively useful for the long term. So, we restrict a bit the information that we choose to put into these kinds of tools.

I believe that the information contained in OggDude’s character generator and in the index at swrpg.viluppo.net are generally useful as they currently are, if you’re willing and able to put in a bit more work.

For example, if you want a landspeeder, then the category at http://swrpg.viluppo.net/transportation/vehicles/category/35/is the one you want. That’s a short list, and we tell you the book and page on which you can find more details. And if you click on the name of the object, you’re taken to a summary page that has the majority of information available for it — minus the fluff.

I know that it is precisely that fluff that you want, but mechanically that fluff is actually meaningless. The FFG developers have said on many occasions that if there is a disagreement between the fluff and the stats, then the stats are canonical and the fluff loses.

So, feel free to put in your own fluff. Or, go read that entry on that page in that book.

I’m sorry, I wish we could offer you a better resource, but FFG is unlikely to offer any complex indexes until such time as the line is complete and everything has been published, and all the rest of us are walking on eggshells around the 155.80 billion-dollar elephant in the room.

I have a hard time believing other GMs don't find themselves setting at their desk and deciding they want to include an industrial landspeeder of some some sort in the next session, for example, and realizing they will have to paw through a dozen books to see if the publishers have already created one for the game.

Maybe you're just very "equipment focussed". I remember running D&D, and sure, I'd scan through the "vaults" or whatever to find that special magic item, or use the various charts in the Dungeon Master's Guide to generate a treasure trove. D&D was *all* about equipment.

I find this game liberating in a lot of ways, and this is one of them. I mean, it's nice to see the various options and ideas in the sourcebooks, but there's not much difference between the options when it comes down to it. Most of my sessions have zero "equipment focus", and the ones that do have a specific purpose for the story, and when that happens...No, I do not find it difficult to skim through the books and find what I want. Maybe consider making equipment less of a focus?

I apologize in advance for the irate tone but please, read back through at some of the condescending comments and I think you will understand.

Just MHO, but it seems to me you're not absorbing a key fact: what you want is impossible, because it's illegal. You've been offered several alternatives, and you complain about them all. What are we supposed to do, join you in your misery? I don't really find your complaint all that worthy, and the existing tools you've been pointed to are more than sufficient.

Id stack any one of my 30+ years of campaigns against anyone here.

How interesting.

My thanks for you guys clarifying the legalities. Ill admit I somehow missed some of that. I will add however that my complaint was aimed at the publishers entirely, I don't believe I've degraded anyone's work, in fact I know I praised at least a couple examples.

Again, sorry for the explosion, bad timing after a ridiculously annoying day. I do appreciate your feedback and I suppose I am forced to acknowledge that it is, well, what it is. I'll continue to browse through the books, the contents do become more familiar with each repetition. If I still feel the need for a index of sorts, Ill get off my lazy ass and make one.

As far as "equipment focus", no not really. Ive mentioned gear and weapons but the same goes for alien races, creatures, planets and other tidbits parceled out in the sourcebooks. Great information all, if you remember its there to use.

Oops, on second thought I will have to admit that after a lifetime of reading military and pulp action yarns that include the manufacturer of every firearm used and the grain weight of every round sent down range, I am a stickler for such details in my game. Nobody finds a blaster... rather its a Blastech DL-18 or a Merr-Sonn Model 434.

So, you can make up a name while you are making up stats.