I really love Rules Lite style games.

I'll also say I'm good when it comes to swords, magic, and dragon fantasy games.  I may even say I've got too many of those. 

But Sci-Fi is my real love. 

So if you had to run a sci-fi game out of the blue, with minimal setup time for making a character for everyone, and easy to learn rules, what is your pick?

Traveller is my go to sci fi game.  It is easy, has a ton of adventures, and very small rulebooks.  Even newer traveller is easy-ish.  But if you want simple, but well thought out, check out Classic Traveller.

If you are into B/X D&D, check out Stars Without Number.  Easy, and the skill system is compatible with Traveller, so porting adventures is no problem.

If you don't mind .pdf's, check out Star Frontiers.  A classic game, uses percentile dice.  Easy system, so long as you stick to basic rules.  Very hard sci-fi, no artificial gravity.  Be warned that if you want to have the characters crewing spaceships, then that is a different supplement (Knight Hawks). 

RPG Pundit put out Star Adventurer.  I haven't looked at it yet.

What would the focus be? A reskinned dungeon crawl? Crash survival on an alien world? Negotiating an advantageous trade deal with the alien ambassador?
Pregen characters or fast creation? 

My go to system is Fate Accelerated Edition since you can hack it to do any genre in about a minute.  It is aspect based which means the descriptions on your index card sized character sheet actually become actionable items that interact with the game mechanics.  You can get a similar ease of use with the PDQ system.

I have a preference for Cepheus Engine over Traveller since you don't have the baggage of the implied Imperial setting.

Those Dark Places looks like a lot of fun for blue collar sci-fi, but I have not gotten it to the table yet.

Daniel Bayn's Wushu might sound like it is martial arts only, but it is a cinematic system were the more details you give help to build your dice pool.  So, if you want a big damn over the top action game, it will do sci-fi just as easily as gun-fu or car-fu.  [I've used for alien wizards and dogfighter games ala Crimson Skies.]

I would probably use Tiny Frontiers. I did a quick Halloween game last year using Tiny Cthulhu, the horror version of the Tiny D6 system. We had a good time.

Quote from: Greentongue on June 03, 2022, 01:28:04 PM
What would the focus be? A reskinned dungeon crawl? Crash survival on an alien world? Negotiating an advantageous trade deal with the alien ambassador?
Pregen characters or fast creation?

If I could pick a specific sci-fi genre, then it would be Mecha pilots.  Tiny D6 Mecha vs Monsters I already have, and am waiting for MvsM Evolved to come out in what feels like 2167 AD.

Sadly, we have others in the group who prefer not to be pilots, so some sort of exploration theme might do better. 

With little prep time which has to include character creation...

For mecha sci-fi I'd use The Mecha Hack.

For other flavors of sci-fi I'd probably go with Tiny Frontiers, Scum and Villainy or Orbital Blues.

If I wanted fantasy sci-fi (Thundarr the Barbarian, The Herculoids, etc) I would go with Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells.

I think the key words here are "quick" and "pick-up." With that in mind, I'd suggest some variation of West End Games' D6 system - either D6 Star Wars, D6 Space (I think that's what it was called), OpenD6 or Mini Six for something extremely rules-light. They can all easily be tweaked to whatever sci-fi subgenre or concept you want to explore, and they're very easy for new players to pick up, because "number on your character sheet tells you how many dice you roll, more dice is better," and that's really the core of it.

Mekton Alpha
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1398203372387.pdf

That is the free introductory version of Mekton Zeta which is what you should be using. Accept no substitutes. Many games have tried to imitate the same feeling of anime mecha that Mekton did, and all have failed.

Pundits Star Adventurer is a good bet.

Grab the GURPS Starship Crew pdf and use the templates as characters.  Pick a template and play.

Alternately d6 Star Wars is fast.

Mechanoid Invasion Book 3 pick, race roll stats, pick class, pick skills is pretty fast.

Death In Space would be a good one if you like a dark 80's sci fi vibe. Character creation is simple as its similar to Mork Borg.

Traveller takes a bit to generate characters, so I'd pass on it for a pick up game. Stars Without Number is a good choice, as PC creation is quick, and being a pure OSR game is easy for most gamers to understand.

There is a game that exists named StarHedge. It's good fun. You would need probably some paragraphs from some of the other sets in the series but you could just fabricate the encounters and just use the rules to create a kind of Star Trek feel sci-fi RPG.

Not that you could find anything on it anyways xD

Quote from: David Johansen on June 03, 2022, 09:05:03 PM


Alternately d6 Star Wars is fast.

On d6 Star Wars being fast and effective.....I once had a bar full of drunks, characters ready and rules understood in 15 minutes by using the Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game (which is the d6 Star Wars version of Basic D&D).

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on June 03, 2022, 08:45:43 PM
Pundits Star Adventurer is a good bet.

I have this one.  It's very good, but we have yet to play it.  Star Wars is on the to-do list, but I'm always ready to check out more games too.