Frequently Asked Questions

Why are the files organized the way they are?

In an effort to balance ease of use, ease of maintenance, and flexibility. In an ideal world, I’d
have one file per book and people could load whatever they want, but the nature of the files
prevents that. The problem is subclasses and spell lists; you can only have one of each class
and each spell in the files, but subclasses for a class can appear in several books. In other
words, since Rogue subclasses appear in both the Player’s Handbook and Xanathar’s Guide to
Everything, the rogue entry in a hypothetical XGTE file would replace the rogue entry from the
PHB, meaning each would have to duplicate all of the content from the other.

By rolling things up into three compendium files, users have some choice while making the files
easy to maintain, preventing errors and making it so it doesn’t matter what order you import
files.

There’s a much more complete explanation available in this folder, titled “A Note About These
Files”, if you’re curious.

Do you have/know where I can find Campaign files for GM 5

for the published adventures?
I don’t, sorry. I’m a player, not a DM, and my group plays the published adventures. I can
handle doing the monsters, items, and character options for them without spoiling things too
much, but there’s really no easy way to do encounters and notes and such without essentially
reading the adventure. I also haven’t found anybody else who has made any yet.

Do you have/know where I can find files for 3.5, 4e, or

Pathfinder?
I have some files for 3.5 and 4e, but they’re pretty incomplete. I didn’t play 4e and didn’t really
know what I was doing when I made them, so I can’t vouch for the quality, but I think I did most
of the powers for the first two PHBs and a smattering of others. For 3.5, I have basically all of
the official spells but nothing else. I don’t currently have any plans to do anything else for
non-5e apps. I don’t know of anybody else who has done them, either.

Where is [Add-On File I can’t find]?

It probably doesn’t exist anymore. Most of the add-on files have been incorporated into the
main compendium. Back before Fight Club and GM had good compendium searches, having a
more navigable list of items was more important, so a smaller main file and lots of add-on files
made sense. Now, though, it’s pretty easy to find what you want, so a more complete list and
fewer files is preferable. In particular, AdventuresAddOn.xml has been merged into the core
compendium.

What’s the deal with homebrew stuff?

Basically, it’s the same problem as I mention above explaining why the files are organized as
they are. Because so much homebrew involves subclasses and spell lists, they also need to be
rolled up into compendium files or they become a nightmare to maintain and would basically
always be out of date. Whenever I can make a separate file — for example, for something that
doesn’t contain character options, like a monster book —I do. But everything else has to go
into the compendium files. Right now, they work like add-ons, so if you normally install
Core.xml, you can add on Homebrew_Core.xml.

When are you going to add/update [item X]?

I try to have everything official out the same day it releases to game shops. Homebrew and
third party stuff is another story. I just don’t have as much free time to add it as I’d like, and the
quality of files varies pretty wildly, so it’s much slower going. Chances are, if it’s pretty popular,
it’s on the list.

Is there an easier way to import the files?

Absolutely! Send me an email (dave.rich@gmail.com) from the email address you use for
Dropbox, and I’ll give you direct (read-only) access to the folder. Then you don’t need to worry
about copying files anymore, and you’ll always have the latest version available to import in the
app.

How do I know when the files are updated?

Best way is to follow @FightClubXML on Twitter. I post updates there first, and most frequently.

Can I send you money/gifts/books/PDFs?

No.

You sure?
Yes.

But you have a Patreon, right?

No.

I’m just making the files I would be making for myself (because I’m anal retentive enough to not
be happy with somebody else’s) available to other people.

Part of this rationale that I particularly enjoy is that if somebody asks me to make something
and it’s stupid and terrible (*cough* DandDwiki.com), I just stop working on it. So if you ask me
to make something and I just stop talking to you about it, your homebrew is bad and you
should feel bad.

How do you make your files?

Data conversion. I paste text into Excel spreadsheets I’ve built that add the markup, and then
run VB scripts that build and export the files. This makes things really fast and lets me build a
bunch of different files from the same data, but it makes it just about impossible to collaborate
effectively. If I need to manually edit something, I use Espresso on a Mac. It’s a great plain-text
HTML/XML editor with useful stuff like structure highlighting, close tag completion, code
snippets, and autocomplete. I can’t recommend it highly enough if you do any HTML/XML
development.

Can I help? Don’t you use GitHub/other code depository?

Not really, no. See above. My background is in competitive systems data conversion, not web
development. I’m much more comfortable cobbling together jury-rigged tools to turn X into Y
than I am working collaboratively on a codebase. Not only are my tools in an embarrassingly
unpolished and user unfriendly state, but they do things like write directly to my local hard
drive. About the only way I could meaningfully collaborate would be to employ somebody for
plain old data entry, so unless you feel like pasting monster data into CSVs, it’s probably faster
and easier if I just do it myself.

Why don’t you include [assorted fluff/tables/etc.]?

I’m really concerned about making files that let people use the books they own while not
making something that replaces those purchases. I want the files to be complete enough that
they’re useful and they save you having to look up stats or features, but not so complete that
they replace the books entirely. There still aren’t a lot of great digital character sheets out there
(though Beyond is getting there), so I want to make it easier for people to use Fight Club as it’s
far and away the best option. There are a lot of reasons digital character sheets are amazing
and make the game so much better, but “I don’t want to pay for the content” isn’t one of them.

I found an errror! Should I report it to you?

Absolutely! I’m the sort of person who corrects typos in paperbacks, so please believe me that
there is not an error so minor that I won’t fix it. You can email me (dave.rich@gmail.com) or
send me an @ or DM on Twitter and I’ll get it fixed. Please note that I usually save up a batch of
these and post them all at once alongside a content update — some people with shared
access to the folder have notifications turned on for changes, so I try not to push too many —
so don’t be too worried if it seems to be taking a while to show up.

And yes, ‘error’ is misspelled above. That’s the joke. Believe me, it pained me to tyype that.

Are you planning to add content from The Mike Mearls Happy
Fun Hour?
Maybe? I’m a big fan of the show but not too many of the projects have ended up in much of
a finished-enough-to-be-playtestable condition, and the quick turn-around of the Order domain
gives me hope that they won’t take too long to make their way into Unearthed Arcana. But if
you’re interested in seeing any of it, please let me know!

Any general troubleshooting advice for installing the files?

Make sure the right kind of file is being imported in the right place — compendium files into the
compendium and rules reference files into rules reference. If you don’t have direct folder
access, try deleting and redownloading the files. If you’re on an older device and the import is
crashing, try the “legacy device” files which break the compendium files into smaller pieces.
Always replace duplicates. If you don’t have custom content other than my files, consider
deleting your compendium before importing — it will prevent orphan entries if something gets
renamed. Always import a compendium file first, then the matching homebrew file if you use it,
and then any add-ons. Don’t hesitate to contact me via email or Twitter if something isn’t
working or you need more help; I really don’t mind.

Tell me about your characters

..said no one ever. So far in 5e, I’ve played a cowardly half-elf bard in a homebrew setting, a
demonically possessed fiend warlock who was a shameless mashup of Wild Flower from Jade
Empire with Catch from Practical Demonkeeping in Tyranny of Dragons, a thuggish dragonborn
sorcerer in Princes of the Apocalypse, a lecherous elven eldritch knight in another homebrew
campaign, and am playing a cranky and egotistical rock gnome artificer/war magic wizard in
Storm King’s Thunder. He’s a recreation of one of my favorite 3.5 characters and he used to be
a cleric of Gond. He’s delightful. I’m also playtesting a lizardfolk witch, using my DM’s Guild
class, in an alt campaign. She’s basically the scariest grandma imaginable. She wants to feed
you. You don’t want to eat it.

I have another dozen or so concepts kicking around for future characters, including a kobold
swashbuckler who is vaguely patterned off of Reepicheep from the Narnia books and who was
named by Ed Greenwood himself on Twitter. Oh what a world we live in.