Hello fellow GMs,

Recently I got thinking about the books and tools we have at our disposal and want to know what each GM has and what your favorite stuff to use is. What have proven to be invaluable resources?

For me, I have the F&D CRB, Allies and Adversaries and Gear and Gadgets. As well as 5 card packs. Imperials, Scum and Villainy, Force User and Hunters, Monsters and finally the Critical Injury Deck.

The CRB of course is my favorite and most used/referenced, it's a beautiful book. My second favorite is the Gear and Gadgets which I have found to be a nice resource to pull stuff from for the game or shops. Or if I need a quick reference at the table, it's easy.

What about you? What would you reccomend a GM pick up, something you use regularly and you find to be your go-to tool, printed or digital?

I have a dedicated backpack for my GM kit. The big main pocket can easily hold a CRB, a couple supplement books, and my master binder with character sheets and printouts. Side pockets hold dice bags, pencil bags, small notebooks, and other cards and accessories. It has a laptop pouch in the back.

I've made several cheat sheets for things like vehicle combat and lightsaber crafting to hand out when needed. I also have an initiative tracker and weapons & armor sheet. I should really post those for others to grab.

My big art tube holds battlemats if we're feeling the minis for a particular session. A tub of minis can slide in alongside the books in the backpack's main pouch.

For any given game, I've got an initiative tracker (a glorified ruler made out of cardboard, using the beginner game chips as tokens), the AoR GM screen for the cheatsheets, and one of the CRBs close at hand. Of course dice, pencils, scratch paper, and the like.

Sometimes I'll add other books to the quick-reference stack, but I take pretty detailed notes on the rare occasions that I feel need them and can't just run it in my head, so I rarely have to open books like Gadgets and Gear (a book I don't have yet, desperately want, and don't want to spend a fortune on) or Allies and Adversaries, though the latter is crucial to my prep work, and I substitute the actual splats for the former.

However, I made myself comprehensive spreadsheets of the gear I have the stats for, so I often don't need to crack the books to get that stuff.

As for recommendations:

1. Homemade initiative tracker. 10-15 slots should be enough, and if it's not you can just scrunch the tokens closer together.
2. GM screen or equivalent cheatsheets.
3. Allies and Adversaries for prepwork, Gadgets and Gear or spreadsheets for easy-to-access equipment.

8 minutes ago, rogue_09 said:

I have a dedicated backpack for my GM kit.

Same.

My toolkit is:

• Books
  • F&D Core RuleBook
  • Nexus of Power
  • Unlimited Power
  • Dangerous Covenants
  • Disciples of Harmony
• Decks
  • Hunters and Force Users
  • Imperials and Rebels
  • Creatures of the Galaxy
• Dice
  • 7 sets of system dice (some originally acquired in error, but definitely needed for a full party)
  • 3 sets of Poly 7 dice sets (some for percentage rolls, other for random targeting)
  • One "hit location die" which makes combat much more fun.
  • 2 dice rolling mats, because some people love to drop dice.
• Laptop
  • because paper doesn't have a Ctrl + F function
  • because the site https://star-wars-rpg-ffg.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_RPG_(FFG)_Wiki is too useful.

Hit location dice, for anyone that has never seen them:

Aside from books (EOTE CRB, F&D CRB, and the 3 era books), and dice (3 sets), I have a Surface tablet with multiple references pulled up/at hand, like:

1. a modified version of the Alexandrian's F&D reference PDF that I use basically constantly as a GM screen

2. several community-made spreadsheets and pdfs (Species and Talents/Powers trees, etc.)

3. a bookmark/link to viluppo's tables on the web archive, and the FFG Star Wars Wikia

...all that I use basically every session.

I no longer bring the books to my campaign sessions (or atleast seldomly) since we now use a own Campaign-Internal Wiki that holds everything from Talents to Gear etc..
My Toolbox has the following:

• Laptop for access to my own Campaign Wiki, Notes etc.
• My 70x140cm Galaxy Map Gaming Mat which has become a central element of our campaign.
• Literally Tons of Cheat-Sheets (Random Names, Crit-Tables the usual stuff)
• 6 Sets of Dice + 2 sets of Percentile Dice
• Card-Organizer with (I believe) all Adversary Cards (or atleast all I could get my hands on) excluding Clone Wars Era Stuff.
• Mini-Projector with swan neck stand for Images and Opening Crawl etc.

It amounts to alot, even without any Books xD

5 hours ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

Same.

My toolkit is:

• Books
  • F&D Core RuleBook
  • Nexus of Power
  • Unlimited Power
  • Dangerous Covenants
  • Disciples of Harmony
• Decks
  • Hunters and Force Users
  • Imperials and Rebels
  • Creatures of the Galaxy
• Dice
  • 7 sets of system dice (some originally acquired in error, but definitely needed for a full party)
  • 3 sets of Poly 7 dice sets (some for percentage rolls, other for random targeting)
  • One "hit location die" which makes combat much more fun.
  • 2 dice rolling mats, because some people love to drop dice.
• Laptop
  • because paper doesn't have a Ctrl + F function
  • because the site https://star-wars-rpg-ffg.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_RPG_(FFG)_Wiki is too useful.

Hit location dice, for anyone that has never seen them:

Care to share how you use the Hit-Location Dice? 😃

9 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

Care to share how you use the Hit-Location Dice? 😃

Sure.

So, to start, I'm not that creative and need things like this to help keep things fresh for me and my party. Most people would find probably find this unnecessary, so don't use it if it's not for you.

So during combat, I'll do the NPC rolls against the party, and then roll one of these to make the combat seem a bit more real and help me spin the narrative a bit. e.g.:

• Party is in a fire-fight with some villainous thugs, and our heroes are pinned down behind some crates trying to think of a way out. (NPC Minion group rolls Ranged Heavy and succeeds) "A hail of blaster-fire slams into the crates you're cowering behind..." (rolls hit location die: Head) "...and a shot makes it over the barricade and..." (rolls d4 to see who it hits) "... Gelnen feels a flash of pain on the side of his head. The blinding pain and smell of burnt hair lets you know that the bolt brazed the side of your head for 9 damage."

• Member of the party is in a saber duel with some nemesis. "You move across the bridge, exchanging blows with lightsabers. You're both evenly matched and know that one false move could end it all very quickly." (Rolls nemesis lightsaber and succeeds) "The flurry of his strikes begins to overwhelm your defenses, forcing you back." (rolls hit location die: Left Foot) "As you step backwards, one of his slashes reaches low to try and exploit your retreating footwork. The bright hum of his saber mixes with the sound of it tearing through the surface metal of the bridge, and you don't quite manage to step back in time as it whips through your boot and slices into the top of your foot. 8 damage, 1 breach. It hurts a lot whenever you put weight on it."

10 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

My 70x140cm Galaxy Map Gaming Mat which has become a central element of our campaign.

I'm intrigued by this. Do you have any images of it, or can you share a location where you got it?

10 minutes ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

I'm intrigued by this. Do you have any images of it, or can you share a location where you got it?

Measurements were slightly off (remembered them wrong), it's 80x120cm.

Galactic Map - Gaming Mat

I'm unable to find where I got it, but there are alot of similar online shops that print a given image onto a Gaming Mat.
Resolution was important , but the result was way better than expected 😃

Thanks alot for the elaboration on the hit dice, this is a very interesting idea.
I might steal that

8 minutes ago, Fl1nt said:

Galactic Map - Gaming Mat

I'm unable to find where I got it, but there are a lot of similar online shops that print a given image onto a Gaming Mat.
Resolution was important , but the result was way better than expected 😃

Oh wow! that's incredible! I need one.

18 hours ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

Hit location dice, for anyone that has never seen them:

How are the various locations allocated on those 1d12s?

2 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

Measurements were slightly off (remembered them wrong), it's 80x120cm.

Galactic Map - Gaming Mat

I'm unable to find where I got it, but there are alot of similar online shops that print a given image onto a Gaming Mat.
Resolution was important , but the result was way better than expected 😃

Thanks alot for the elaboration on the hit dice, this is a very interesting idea.
I might steal that

Nice!

What quality paper was used?

And where did you get the JPG file, for those of us who would like to do the same?

As far as player-made digital aids go, I am a huge fan of OggDude's character creation tool.

If I ever get my own tabletop campaign started, then I will be eternally grateful for the various fan-made supplements which deal with interplanetary trade (forgot the name) and running a starship (Operational Costs, etc.).

I have a magnetic initiative tracker from another game system which should work just fine with FFG's SW initiative system.

The three beginner boxes are a wonderful value for the special dice, destiny markers, and various character markers (pre-generated PCs plus various NPCs), etc., that come with them.

16 minutes ago, Bellona said:

How are the various locations allocated on those 1d12s?

1: Right Hand
2: Full Body
3: Right Foot
4: Chest
5: Right Arm
6: Left Leg
7: Right Leg
8: Left Hand
9: Head
10: Left Foot
11: Stomach (or Back if stomach doesn't make sense)
12: Left Arm

4 hours ago, Bellona said:

Nice!

What quality paper was used?

And where did you get the JPG file, for those of us who would like to do the same?

I found nearly 4000x4000 Resolution Galaxy Map on Google.

As for Paper, I'm not sure I follow.
The Mat I had printed for me is not paper, its a Gaming Mat, so Rubber with Textile on the Surface and that where the print goes.

As said I can't find the Site I got it from anymore, but Googling "Print Gaming Mat" brought up some result just like the one I had.

White board for maps and initiative, crit injury chart are my normal in game suppliers.

Pre game, the complete talent trees from the forums and the Master list on this forum (ML 9.5). It has most of books all in one spreadsheet. Great for finding weapons, ships and Mods.

One note is a good tool

On 7/25/2020 at 6:05 PM, Daeglan said:

One note is a good tool

For more longer campaigns, this is my primary tool. It takes some time to get used to and set up, but very handy.

Thought I'd share the GM board I made, cut from pieces of Maple that I glued together, stained and oiled. Hinged with black faux leather. Rule references attached.

Let me know if you want specifics on the build or if you're interested in getting one. This is what I use for every session, large enough to have nearly all the short hand rules behind, space to put sticky notes for various reasons. And tall enough to hide your notes, minis, maps etc, without being too tall that nobody can see you.

Cool Screen.

Among other things...

I used a template begun by GM Hooly and compiled all of the advantage/triumph/threat/despair charts, printed three copies of it on card stock, and had them spiral bound with clear front/back covers. Two copies are out on the table for my players, and I hold on to a copy for my own reference. (I actually made a second set for the GM of the games that I'm a player in, too.) It makes for a nice, handy reference for those moments when players are at a loss for how to spend these in different situations.