As long as UK stays in the EU (with a referendum due in 2 days) then there are no custom fees ordering in the the EU from the UK, so ita only shipping. Try www.gameslore.com or book depository ( do a search easy to find and has reasonable overseas shipping iirc.

I live in italy, in Rome

i got a LGS right outside my home, less than 20 meters from my door. He does'nt have FFG Star Wars RPG books

i asked if he could order, and he subtlety told me to buy from amazon

i have a friend who own a LGS, and told me "order FFG materials not distributed in italy is a pain in the arse, i dunno if i can order it, and probably i should charge you with my expenses"

i tried on other LGS and ULGS (where U means Unfriendly), and i got similar response (or, worse, something like "Star Wars FFG? did you mean IA? only RPG i got is d20..." and that from the ULGS ones... x_x )

i tried on ebay, cost is +50-200% than FFG cost (variable for different books)

i tried on an online shop where i bought IA-related material (and also many models/paint/brushes for WH40k) but he does'nt sell FFG Star Wars books

i also tried buying from US or UK shop, but custom fees are even worse than shipping cost and thus a single book will came around 200-300% cost than listed one

luckily, i'm part of a large and old "gaming group" so we share books and have several contact from sellers and distributors so we can cut the cost. However, most of the more recent books are only a mirage (one of my player is still waiting SM since... well... seems forever...)

i got very similar problem with almost every RPG that's not DnD, Pathfinder, and few others, but i could always buy PDF version for less cost, no shipping fee, no custom, and store them into the kindle/computer... (thus freeing space in the library )

Leisure Games in England still have Savage Spirits and should ship to Italy for a reasonable price. Nexus of Power and Special Modifications came and went fast and are sold out everywhere except for scalping prices on Ebay and Amazon.

As i said, i have way to pick book both cheap enough and faster enough to be reasonable. But i'm luck one

the problem is still present

main problem with FFG Star Wars is the incredible amount of book, and mostly the chaotic dispersion of equipment, ship, race, information. I'd like more a single book (or bookline) of starship and a single book(-line) of planets and races (for instances) than having to go pick one ship from book one, one from book 3, a couple of speederbike from book 5 and weapon from book 2, 6, 8 and 10... so long you need to bring along 10 book for just a couple of items.

same for planet information, races background, and like

i know FFG aim is to gain money with this game, but we NEED to use external, fan made website and external program just to have a single coherent source of material. And then again, probably you need to bring along a dozen of book and using only few pages of them.

PDF version would solve part of this "nuisance", but there is no (legal) pdf version of those books.

And this sucks

many other RPG product have similar issue, of course; even WEG had similar problem (but honestly in a minor way), but with 3 different bookline (EotE, AoR and FaD) that's really really really a pain in the bottom backplate of a R2 droid...

also, most of time every single EotE/AoR/FaD book has A COUPLE of ship (weapons, planets, race, background information, etc) and that's sucks more and more...

ok sorry for the rant; i'm gone also Off Topic, but this things is what i really hate of this game x_x

Perhaps you could do as I and others have done and maintain a spreadsheet that houses all the crunchy bits. I have all species, armor, gear, weapons, ect.. in one document. I have a similar document for NPCs, and I intend to draw up another document for vehicles.

Anytime a new book is released, I take some time to add it to my various documents.

I live in italy, in Rome

i got a LGS right outside my home, less than 20 meters from my door. He does'nt have FFG Star Wars RPG books

i asked if he could order, and he subtlety told me to buy from amazon

i have a friend who own a LGS, and told me "order FFG materials not distributed in italy is a pain in the arse, i dunno if i can order it, and probably i should charge you with my expenses"

i tried on other LGS and ULGS (where U means Unfriendly), and i got similar response (or, worse, something like "Star Wars FFG? did you mean IA? only RPG i got is d20..." and that from the ULGS ones... x_x )

i tried on ebay, cost is +50-200% than FFG cost (variable for different books)

i tried on an online shop where i bought IA-related material (and also many models/paint/brushes for WH40k) but he does'nt sell FFG Star Wars books

i also tried buying from US or UK shop, but custom fees are even worse than shipping cost and thus a single book will came around 200-300% cost than listed one

luckily, i'm part of a large and old "gaming group" so we share books and have several contact from sellers and distributors so we can cut the cost. However, most of the more recent books are only a mirage (one of my player is still waiting SM since... well... seems forever...)

i got very similar problem with almost every RPG that's not DnD, Pathfinder, and few others, but i could always buy PDF version for less cost, no shipping fee, no custom, and store them into the kindle/computer... (thus freeing space in the library )

Leisure Games in England still have Savage Spirits and should ship to Italy for a reasonable price. Nexus of Power and Special Modifications came and went fast and are sold out everywhere except for scalping prices on Ebay and Amazon.

Amazon was £22 and still is , just prior to savage spirits hitting he uk it had it on amazon for preordwrs for £55, docsmagic was the vendor iirc and given that behaviour I wont buy from them although that vendor has dropped price now.

As i said, i have way to pick book both cheap enough and faster enough to be reasonable. But i'm luck one

the problem is still present

main problem with FFG Star Wars is the incredible amount of book, and mostly the chaotic dispersion of equipment, ship, race, information. I'd like more a single book (or bookline) of starship and a single book(-line) of planets and races (for instances) than having to go pick one ship from book one, one from book 3, a couple of speederbike from book 5 and weapon from book 2, 6, 8 and 10... so long you need to bring along 10 book for just a couple of items.

same for planet information, races background, and like

i know FFG aim is to gain money with this game, but we NEED to use external, fan made website and external program just to have a single coherent source of material. And then again, probably you need to bring along a dozen of book and using only few pages of them.

PDF version would solve part of this "nuisance", but there is no (legal) pdf version of those books.

And this sucks

many other RPG product have similar issue, of course; even WEG had similar problem (but honestly in a minor way), but with 3 different bookline (EotE, AoR and FaD) that's really really really a pain in the bottom backplate of a R2 droid...

also, most of time every single EotE/AoR/FaD book has A COUPLE of ship (weapons, planets, race, background information, etc) and that's sucks more and more...

ok sorry for the rant; i'm gone also Off Topic, but this things is what i really hate of this game x_x

You'll encounter that problem with pretty much any large line. Whether we are talking D&D or World of Darkness, unless the game line itself is small you'll reach a point that you're chugging a lot of books around with rules scattered all over the place. I mean it's somewhat easier when they do sell PDF's like WoD does now but in the case of FFG the lack of a PDF is due to legal reasons (they don't own the rights to make pdfs afterall). But overall this is a pretty standard problem for any RPG with any real life to it and Star Wars under FFG has been around 3 years.

As for a single book of thing .... single dedicated books don't do as well. A book of planets for instance only sales to GM's. By seeding material through many books they're able to maintain a healthy interest with reason for everyone to buy the book which in turn means we get more product. Remember Star Wars is not cheap. Also some of the material in the books is easily worked around with good pre game prep and Wookiepedia. You don't need to lug around books for planets when you can just go online or use the wookiepedia app to look up the information. Same applies for species in most cases. Unless I'm building a PC I don't need every book. And if I need an NPC there is nothing wrong with assigning stats on the fly and then modifying later when I have books handy. To be honest ......during most games there isn't much need to go into the other books. I only carry what I need with me when I game. Everything else can be dealt with post game.

Perhaps you could do as I and others have done and maintain a spreadsheet that houses all the crunchy bits. I have all species, armor, gear, weapons, ect.. in one document. I have a similar document for NPCs, and I intend to draw up another document for vehicles.

Anytime a new book is released, I take some time to add it to my various documents.

That's the idea; however at the moment is still a huge job to do, and very little time, so in the end i use what sw.rpg.viluppo.net and oggdude's char gen already did. That's not the ideal situation, 'cause they shows also items from book i don't own, but it's a work someone else did so i can't complain

You'll encounter that problem with pretty much any large line.

[snip and cutout]

Yeah i know. However, sometime FFG books are annoying, like 1 or 2 single ship in a book, and absolutely no reprint of that ship on other books,

just to say "hey you need to buy this one!!".

WEG SW had too an "large diffusion of equipment" but every book had several, or none, of one specific item type, sometime they where reprinted, and in the end they also published some collection of items (the one with droids, the one with general equipment, etc)

as for "only the GM buy it": in my long time experience, almost all book are bought by GM, or if there are a lot, they are shared between the player. So long if the planet books are "Gm Only", then plaeyr will buy something else (ie career book).

When i GM'ed DnD3, player bought class books, and i remember having 2 or 3 copies of Chromebook on the table while i was playing CP2020...

Yeah i know. However, sometime FFG books are annoying, like 1 or 2 single ship in a book, and absolutely no reprint of that ship on other books,

just to say "hey you need to buy this one!!".

Some material gets reprinted. And when it happens the customer base complains. Granted they also complain when it doesn't happen. But my overall point is that they have reprinted some material between different books when applicable and it's pretty much a lose/lose for them as they will always have a portion of folks who will tell them they did wrong.

WEG SW had too an "large diffusion of equipment" but every book had several, or none, of one specific item type, sometime they where reprinted, and in the end they also published some collection of items (the one with droids, the one with general equipment, etc)

From what I've learned of RPG book production over the years the grand books with everything collected tend to not be money makers. A company takes a huge risk when making such a book as if that single thing isn't appealing to the player base as a whole the company could end up with a lot of unsold books sitting in a warehouse. To lower the risk of having unsold product there seems to be a general push away from such books in an effort to give everyone a little bit of something with each release. This plan seems to work well for FFG as they sell out of almost every title so far. But based on what I've been told by friends who have worked on games when you make a single "Book of X" you run a very real risk of not moving that book.

From a pure business stand point (and lets be frank FFG is not in this for the good feels) they should go with the method that is actually making them money. Their current method is raking in money hands over fists. I honestly don't blame them for not wanting to take such a risk.

as for "only the GM buy it": in my long time experience, almost all book are bought by GM, or if there are a lot, they are shared between the player. So long if the planet books are "Gm Only", then plaeyr will buy something else (ie career book).

When i GM'ed DnD3, player bought class books, and i remember having 2 or 3 copies of Chromebook on the table while i was playing CP2020...

For an RPG to thrive though they need to have the players buying too. There is one GM for every three to four players. For them to make real money at this they need all four to five people buying the books, not just the one GM. Thus in order to get better player buy in they make books that offer player goodies so that they will want to buy them too. Again, FFG is not in this for the good feels sooooooo I can't blame them for wanting to get maximum buy in here. Player buy in is typical less but overall you can't fault them for trying to get as many people buying as possible.

To some extent this can be inconvenient (lugging books around sucks and remember where everything is also sucks and having to make reference sheets sucks etc etc) but in the long run I prefer a strong and healthy game line sooooooo whatever FFG's faults are with how this game is constructed in regards to book design it is at least done in such a way that is making them a profit which increases the odds that this game won't die before we saaaaaaaayyyy get all the career books.

From a pure business stand point (and lets be frank FFG is not in this for the good feels) they should go with the method that is actually making them money. Their current method is raking in money hands over fists. I honestly don't blame them for not wanting to take such a risk.

I can't disagree with you: FFG has to make money, and this publishing line is making more money

honestly, i disagree a little with the decision of making 3 different gameline for what's basically the same game, the same setting, the same materials. It would be maybe a better idea to create a single game line, with 3 different "genre book" for EotE, AoR and FaD (and basically adding a new genre book for new trilogy and anthology whenever the movies come out )

in the end is not this really a problem, so i don't complain

but, what i fell really sad, is they COULD gave us something to help. OggDude's char generator, or the list on sw.rpg.viluppo.net had to be an official one, and not a fanmade one

a software where you can found where are some items. It could be also helpful as a list of "what do you found on this book": if searching a list i see in the book ThatOfThem there are a good number of ships, i could be more interested on buying it.

Being just a list, there is no danger about diffusion of content to people who does'nt have books. Or they could give inside a book a "registration code" so you register wich book you have and see only content from books you own.

(i know, i understand they can't produce software for star wars rpg related product 'cause of a copyright issue; i said it would be cool and less fan-dependent...)

To all the people who say amazon isn't worth buying from, If you have Prime and you are willing to wait about a month, you can get ~$10 off.

@kelpie regestration codes… really wish they did that.

I like to think that the fact that OggDude's generator and the Viluppo index is still around, is a silent appology to the fans for being unable to provide these sorts of tools in a more official capacity.

I know some of the folks at FFG are aware of OggDude's tools.

As long as UK stays in the EU (with a referendum due in 2 days) then there are no custom fees ordering in the the EU from the UK, so ita only shipping. Try www.gameslore.com or book depository ( do a search easy to find and has reasonable overseas shipping iirc.

And they left so....

As long as UK stays in the EU (with a referendum due in 2 days) then there are no custom fees ordering in the the EU from the UK, so ita only shipping. Try www.gameslore.com or book depository ( do a search easy to find and has reasonable overseas shipping iirc.

And they left so....

Not to bring politics into it but the negotiations will take approx 2 years. Also Amazons base of operations is in Scotland and dont take it as a given that when the time comes Amazon is going to be outside the EU.

62% of the Scottish people voted to remain, and one of the conditions that could bring a second Scottish independence referundum were if something major occured that would result in the will of the Scottish people being overruled. (Im not going to soapbox further here because its clear to me that the Scottish first minister herself does not want to go this route... yet .....because it makes more sense to choose when and where to have your battlefield and she is too cautious for that, however a lot of Scottish people will call for it and that pressure will be hard to ignore, as will the opportunity)

The basics of "FFG SW outside the US is bad" is pretty much the global standard.

The main problem with US based stores is shipping, the problem with book depository is stock...

I'm also pretty much with kelpie on the books, though I dislike the duplication of content. Does anyone not allow cross-over between the lines?

You just gotta check once a day between Amazon, Ebay, and the sites like warstore, coolstuffinc, Miniaturemarket or UK equivalents.

I picked Savage Spirits up for less than $25 free shipping last week, and Nexus of power for about $32 the week before that.

On a side note:

I've purchased stuff from German Amazon in the past because they were the only ones that had it, and shipping to the US was surprisingly cheap. We are not in a union together. Try the different amazons, they often ship internationally.

I order stuff from Japan all the time, the stuff I buy doesn't get any extra import costs if I keep the order under $200.

Maybe someone on the east coast could mail you one and you could paypal them money...

Or we could lobby/blackmail/harass Disney/LFL until they update the RPG license to include selling PDFs ... I don't know, perhaps by bombing them with emails? Start with the story people and creative people, they won't know what to do, but they'll see some enraged and/or irritated fans... then move on to the lawyers and executives ... it is in dire need of an update, and it seems FFG isn't trying to change anything, they probably have enough producing all this stuff (and rejoicing the fact that they have the license!) which I can understand, they have quite a schedule... so let's take on some responsibility and email this company (LFL) that prides itself on being dependant upon the fans, that they listen to the fans and all that PR-nonsense - that may or may not be true.

Or, we could just not... and keep on discussing this up and down about how it should be and why it is like it is...want change? Make it. Be it. Do it.

Or we could lobby/blackmail/harass Disney/LFL until they update the RPG license to include selling PDFs ... I don't know, perhaps by bombing them with emails? Start with the story people and creative people, they won't know what to do, but they'll see some enraged and/or irritated fans... then move on to the lawyers and executives ... it is in dire need of an update, and it seems FFG isn't trying to change anything, they probably have enough producing all this stuff (and rejoicing the fact that they have the license!) which I can understand, they have quite a schedule... so let's take on some responsibility and email this company (LFL) that prides itself on being dependant upon the fans, that they listen to the fans and all that PR-nonsense - that may or may not be true.

Or, we could just not... and keep on discussing this up and down about how it should be and why it is like it is...want change? Make it. Be it. Do it.

It likely wouldn't work. It's not a matter of updating the license but re negotiating the license. EA currently owns the rights to pdfs. FFG doesn't have the license because it's not updated, it's a matter of another company already owns it. So in otherwords Disney, EA, and FFG would all need to sit down and come to some sort of agreement. And from what I've gathered these are not cheap kind of meetings.

And it's worth pointing out ...... the cost of a re negotiation of the license would likely be passed onto us. The fact that this likely wouldn't be cheap is likely why FFG hasn't really done much to change the situation. It may be a matter that the cost of going through all of this will not be outweighed by what they'd make back from selling pdfs.

So unless this email campaign is also going to be a fundraising campaign to pay legal fees it likely isn't gonna work out. Because lets be honest ..... EA is not going to give up anything related to Star Wars cheap. They are not a company known for being generous.

Well, let's kickstart it

Well, let's kickstart it

Exactly what the folks making Star Trek: Axanar said. And we've seen how that ended up working out for the entire Trek fan-film community.

So, not sure a Kickstarter built around funding a change to the status quo of a large, lucrative licensed property is such a great idea right now.

Well, let's kickstart it

Exactly what the folks making Star Trek: Axanar said. And we've seen how that ended up working out for the entire Trek fan-film community.

So, not sure a Kickstarter built around funding a change to the status quo of a large, lucrative licensed property is such a great idea right now.

Well, in the case of Star Trek, it's more a case of the suits at Paramount having their heads lodged squarely up their ventral exhaust ports.

Lucasfilm was a lot more understanding, and even encouraged fan films to the point of having an annual contest to determine the best of a year's offerings... provided the filmmakers weren't trying to make money. Not sure about Disney's attitude, but given there's still Star Wars fan-films being circulated, seems that the House of Mouse doesn't mind so long as there's no profit being made from said fan-films.

Well, let's kickstart it

Exactly what the folks making Star Trek: Axanar said. And we've seen how that ended up working out for the entire Trek fan-film community.

So, not sure a Kickstarter built around funding a change to the status quo of a large, lucrative licensed property is such a great idea right now.

Well, in the case of Star Trek, it's more a case of the suits at Paramount having their heads lodged squarely up their ventral exhaust ports.

Lucasfilm was a lot more understanding, and even encouraged fan films to the point of having an annual contest to determine the best of a year's offerings... provided the filmmakers weren't trying to make money. Not sure about Disney's attitude, but given there's still Star Wars fan-films being circulated, seems that the House of Mouse doesn't mind so long as there's no profit being made from said fan-films.

True enough, but also keep in mind that CBS/Paramount was fine with ongoing fan productions like Star Trek Continues, with Trek actors and writers occasionally being involved, and so forth. Why, they even invited a fan film/series producer/writer/director to pitch for the new series about a year ago.

Until Axanar actively and very publicly solicited donations for production.

Regarding LFL re-negotiating with EA, I should point out the license EA has is for ten years, starting in 2013. Any re-negotiation won't occur until then. Even in 2013, PDFs were widely used to distribute content. It's obvious to me that LFL (not even going to bring Disney into this) either didn't see the utility PDFs have and didn't redefine "electronic media" or LFL just didn't care to redefine "electronic media" so long as money was made. This is the kind of detail that only a low to mid level staffer would think of and it would get lost or ignored on the way up the food chain.

Lucasfilm was a lot more understanding, and even encouraged fan films to the point of having an annual contest to determine the best of a year's offerings... provided the filmmakers weren't trying to make money. Not sure about Disney's attitude, but given there's still Star Wars fan-films being circulated, seems that the House of Mouse doesn't mind so long as there's no profit being made from said fan-films.

Last I checked, they still hold the Annual Star Wars Fan Film contest.

I love a good fan film. I also love some of the bad ones too.

Well, let's kickstart it

Exactly what the folks making Star Trek: Axanar said. And we've seen how that ended up working out for the entire Trek fan-film community.

So, not sure a Kickstarter built around funding a change to the status quo of a large, lucrative licensed property is such a great idea right now.

I'm talking about kickstarting to get funds for the meetings involved in renegotiating the license, and only to get PDFs included.. problem is, we'd need FFG, EA and/or Disney and/or LFL to agree on going for this... hehehe... and it's not like that's likely now, nor in the future... also, I'm not sure a kickstarter for a meeting of lawyers would generate a lot of interest or cash from the community... do you?