FASA Games, Inc.

If you want to check out the generator it's here:
http://pliki.gildia.pl/rpg/gs/generator.exe

Personally, I think a character generator should be a web app.

Just chiming in out of curiosity. How would a fan-made FS3 character builder/generator work in regard to licensing or copyright?

I guess many players wouldn't only want to be able to select some rules elements, but also get a matching description right at the same place. So that they can build the character completely without having to hit the book. Which obviously was perhaps not quite what Redbrick wanted, especially when the builder/generator was a fan project and didn't net them any income at all.

However nice a fan-made/oss character builder may be, wouldn't it introduce the problem that you basically could only use the names but not the descriptions/stats of skills, items, special abilities, whatever? A character builder would be a really awesome tool, especially to help new players which often feel a bit intimidated by rulebooks, even more so when they are new to the hobby.

But if the builder could answer the question "okay, and what does thingy X do?" only with "see rulebook Y page Z" it wouldn't be that much of a help, since you would still need to browse through the book and need to constantly switch between the digital builder and the dead-tree books.

I guess there isn't a way to have a fully functional character builder including descriptions and stats for all rules elements without RedBrick getting the digital license and contracting some company like Lone Wolf (Hero Lab) to make one, is there?

There is totally a way to do it, just need to think outside of the box a bit.

10 years ago I would have coded something up in action script, but now people hate flash and I'm not a web developer anymore.

Seriously though, it's doable. If anyone can handle the backend coding I will host it and design the user interface.

Depending on how the web app is built, you might not have to be connected to the internet to use it.

To be frank, although JAVA is a multi platform language, it's really a bit of a dinosaur, and I think there will soon come a day when neither Apple nor MS support it. Today, the level of programming need to execute PC generator can be handled with scripting languages. Ruby on rails or even a little HTML5 wizardry is all it really needs. Most of the backend is just accessing a database, there is not a good reason to use JAVA. Adobe's Flash/Air platform would let you have an application that was both web and cross platform at the same time, but some people hate flash. Seriously, if you made an html5 web app, you could access it from your smartphone, the app could just email you a .pdf character sheet and you would just print it out when you need it.