Hey Guys, Ive been GMing Edge of Empire (Well all of the corebooks actually, we use them all) for a couple months and we love the game. As a GM though I have more trouble prepping for this game than others in the past due to the amount of material available and how spread out it is.

Last night I was working on our next game and ...

SPOILER ALERT - IF YOU ARE ONE OF MY PLAYERS< GO AWAY< READ NO FURTHER!!!

Ok, that will certainly work wont it? Yeah, probably not, anyway...

Im creating a mid level crime boss, a Neimoidian negotiator who survived the Clone Wars and now runs a storage and fencing business from the wrecked Trade Federation Lucrehulk he served on in the conflict. (It is moored on the coast, providing a huge docking and storage facility) He doesn't trust anyone outside his own people and therefor uses only droids to run his operation. He also has a burning ate for the Emporer, who used his people then slaughtered many of them or ruined them professionally when he took power.

Ok, with just that as a description I spend a couple hours wearing out the binders of my books looking for Neimoidian stats (in one supplement) a host of appropriate talents (spread throughout 3 or 4) then some stats on some of his droids. (again spread throughout several books and supplements) and then some more research to work out a couple of his contracted freighters and their crew.

This little addition to the game and I spend hours flipping and looking at indexes and hunting. Would you guys just have winged it and pulled up stats on the fly? HOw they heck do you get anywhere with all the info scattered across everwhere? I like to browse my possibilities when working up characters and plot points. Im kind of having a tough time with that in this game.

Really feel free to just wing it when creating stats.

However, if you want to be accurate, here are my suggestions. These are all off the top of my head.

Stats for a Neimoidian can be found in the Age of Rebellion sourcebook for diplomats.

Talents are pretty easy, just look for specializations that would make sense with the character. (Trader from the core book, and Entrepreneur from the colonist sourcebook.)

The back of the core book (adversaries section) has stats for a battle droid.

Really, though, if you just give your best guess with stat blocks, odds are that you will be good enough.

And the index at http://swrpg.viluppo.net/ does have a lot of this stuff already, you just have to know where to look for it.

Yes, a lot of good work there and great when looking for a stat during your game. When browsing for an idea though its less so as there are no descriptions. If Im looking for something special for an encounter or something its the basic nature of the thing Im looking for, not necessarily the details of how it works. You know? You end up looking up every item on in the index for details. Still book flipping! Still, its a great reference.

So I deal with this by having a rough idea when I hit the index, then narrow it down. I sure don't want to have to sift through all the books if I have a specific idea in mind. However, just paging through the books is usually a good source of inspiration as well, and I work it from that angle as well. I'm not sure there's an easier way to prep, but I can say that applying mechanics to ideas does get better with practice.

Yes, a lot of good work there and great when looking for a stat during your game. When browsing for an idea though its less so as there are no descriptions. If Im looking for something special for an encounter or something its the basic nature of the thing Im looking for, not necessarily the details of how it works. You know? You end up looking up every item on in the index for details. Still book flipping! Still, its a great reference.

One shortcut here to determine if something is special or not is to look at its Rarity. While I can't scientifically prove without a doubt that higher Rarity items are "more special," it's at least a good guess.