The CRB says you shouldn`t limit yourself to the species in the book(s).
I like that they included that note, as there always is someone who say not following all the rules or using anything homebrew is an insult to the writers and publishers...
Or is that just some D&D forums I used to be a part of, not that long ago?
However, are any of you playing a homebrewed or reskinned published species, ones not out yet or that you made up yourselves? Do homebrew species appear in your game as NPCs?

EotE CRB page 43:

In Edge of the Empire, players have a wide variety
of options to choose from when choosing a species
to play. The billions of worlds of the Star Wars galaxy
confer nearly unlimited possibilities. The diversecrowd in the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in Star Wars:
Episode IV A New Hope offers but a glimpse at the
sapient creatures that inhabit this faraway universe.

This section provides detailed rules for eight major
species types, though this should not dissuade players
choosing species not listed here. Star Wars is not
Star Wars without its aliens. Players should be able to
encounter new life forms in their asventures and also
have the opportunity to roleplay them. The very nature
of the fringe is to break boundaries and find new
possibilities - the only limitation is imagination.

I don’t personally permit anything that’s not official. ( Though I do play with the cultures of existing races to fit our view of the campaign.)

'Reskinning' is an absolute no-no for me - if you want the stats of a wookiee, you have to look and speak like a wookiee, not a jawa. You want a disruptor, it will look like a disruptor that is instantly recognisable as 'Restricted' with its iconic fins.

However, I don’t think using them is an ‘insult’ to the game designers and things like the Unofficial Species Menagerie are clearly very well-done and a fantastic resource for those who allow them. Kudos to those who created it.

'Homebrew' can mean a lot of things,. I've seen stuff that's well-balanced and creative, and things that are ludicrously overpowered wish-fulfilment.

Making up for stats for an existing Star Wars race that hasn't yet been covered? I can see the point in that. Magical talking ponies or sparkly vampires? Not unless you want to play a parody game.

For me, the biggest issue with many “homebrews” in this space is that the way they’re usually done, they end up being so much better than everything else in the Universe that there is no sense in anyone ever being anything else.

The other major problem with most “homebrews” is that they tend to be things that are completely and totally inappropriate for use in a Star Wars type of setting.

Even if you were properly balanced, but you weren’t appropriate to the setting, then I would not be interested in seeing that in my game. In particular, Star Wars is not Star Trek, nor is it Lord of the Rings, nor is it Marvel Superheroes. Don’t bother trying to bring into my game any iconic species from any other major property.

The Unofficial Species Menagerie is a good example of creating a variety of species that are known in the Star Wars universe, but which had not yet been officially given stats and descriptions by FFG. You could find plenty of information about them in Wookieepedia and elsewhere, but they weren’t official in-game species.

FFG has since released their own official versions of some of the ones from the USM, and so in that case I think that validates what the USM developers were trying to do. Even if the official FFG writeups are different, that’s okay.

In this forum, there is a thread entitled “The Great Movie Alien Compendium”, which I generally refer to as “The GMAC thread”. See https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/128736-the-great-movie-alien-compendium/#entry1361216

In this thread, StrangeBob goes through the process of creating new species for FFG’s SWRPG, and he gives detailed information on all the sources he uses, all the choices he makes and why, and detailed fluff to go along with all that.

IMO, I like many of StrangeBob’s writeups better than the ones that FFG produces, precisely because of all of these out-of-game details and references. I personally believe that most of his species are at least as good as, or better than, the ones from USM, if not also some of the ones from FFG themselves.

So, if you can create a “homebrew” that is not an “auto-win” species, and therefore is properly balanced compared to all the other species that FFG has created, or found in the USM, or in the GMAC thread, then that’s a really good start.

And I’m assuming that this species in question is one that would be appropriate in a Star Wars type of game.

If you can do all that, then I’d seriously consider letting you bring that into my game. I do allow the USM and GMAC species in my game, so if you can create something that is equally appropriate and equally balanced, then I see no reason why I shouldn’t consider your proposal.

Mostly I encourage my players to stick to published species, but I allow my players to use the USM, I just need to give them the OK first.

One of my players is playing a homebrewed Sith Pureblood, and she seems fine with how it turned out, though we have some tweaks to make for next time someone wants to play one.

I allow it using re-skinning an existing species. No cherry picking ideal features of multiple races. No coming up with custom stats. If a PC wants to invest the time in a back story I'm not going to poo poo RP creativity, but we aren't engaging in mechanical creativity. That's why I want to see if Besalisk handles 4 arms like Xexto, for that baseline in someone coming up with their own idea. 69 million inhabitable worlds, more than plausible in my mind.

I have a hard time seeing homebrew "auto-wins" in this system. And playing species, and characters for that matter, that fits the setting goes without saying for me.

That being said, Anything from Hutt to Chiss and between are official species in Star Wars. To me, all near-human species feel like Star Trek and not Star Wars to me and other species might not feel my vision of Star Wars either.

That doesn`t matter that much in my Star Wars game however, because Star Wars might mean something different to everyone at the table and existing Star Wars species have not all been created by the same guy with one narrow vision of the universe. They were created by multiple writers and even fans at different stages. Even a lot of what Lucas ended up making later doesn`t match my initial, narrower feel of what Star Wars was and should be.

Too much great art out there to not have custom looks. If a PC is that excited and wants to do it, suppressing that enthusiasm is a bad move imo. Anything that brings more RP enthusiasm to the table and isn't mechanically unbalancing is a good thing.

Probably to no one's surprise, I'm playing a Vratix. The storyteller and I made up the stats based on the Ashern NPC presented in Strongholds of Resistance, making really sure it would not be overpowered. (If anything my Vratix had less starting XP than it should, which I don't mind, as long as I can play my critter. FFG Star Wars is more about narration than minmaxing anyway). Finally the storyteller asked the group if anybody had any objections and only when no one had was I allowed to play.

The rest of the group is human, Zabrak or Mirialan.

Also we had a joint session for character generation where we all built our characters together to make sure we would fit as a group. It made a lot of sense and was fun, too.

Probably to no one's surprise, I'm playing a Vratix. The storyteller and I made up the stats based on the Ashern NPC presented in Strongholds of Resistance, making really sure it would not be overpowered. (If anything my Vratix had less starting XP than it should, which I don't mind, as long as I can play my critter. FFG Star Wars is more about narration than minmaxing anyway). Finally the storyteller asked the group if anybody had any objections and only when no one had was I allowed to play.

The rest of the group is human, Zabrak or Mirialan.

Also we had a joint session for character generation where we all built our characters together to make sure we would fit as a group. It made a lot of sense and was fun, too.

Cool species to play! What would make them overpowered? I don`t really see it as easy to unbalance and make overpowered species in this system, if your aren`t really trying to do excactly that.

Take a human or other published species as a starting template, add starting 20xp for reducing a characteristic to from 2 to 1, take away 30 xp for upping a characteristic from 2 to 3 or .

add a narrative ability to take away black dice or add blue and/or innate talent. If the abilities you add seems too good, I guess you can take away a little more xp from the starting number.

I agree with you, this is a narrative game that isn`t about min/maxing and balance.

The new player in my group of players with over 200 xp kept up with the rest and she was even a better commbatant than the guy with the most xp.

So what does "better" really mean in this game? All the characters seem to be good at different things.

This isn`t D&D where everyone has to be good at fighting for the game and group to have balance. Those games can be very fun, but this game isn`t one of them.