Recommend me a Space Opera RPG

[Umbran]

Ashen Stars, Gumshoe system, if you like mystery investigations.

Ashen Stars also does "sci-fi procedural" pretty well, by design. The typical "Hey, something is weird and causing a problem, figure out what it is, find a solution" that you see a lot of in Star Trek is not all that different from a murder mystery, except that nobody necessarily dies.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Though a number of other good ones have been suggested, in terms of generic ones I'd like to point at Cepheus Deluxe, which is an offshoot of Cepheus Engine, which is itself derived from original Traveller. The thing I like about it is that it hung on to most of the better elements of its origin without feeling a need to be wedded to everything (like random character generation).

If you're interested in something more off the beaten path, Fragged Empire 2e is now available; its a far future space opera/post-apocalypse game with some transhumanist elements.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I played the original version of Traveller back in the 80's and I would have never called it Space Opera, but maybe it has gotten less science and more opera over the recent decades, especially if influenced by the classic Space Opera setting of Star Wars.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I played the original version of Traveller back in the 80's and I would have never called it Space Opera, but maybe it has gotten less science and more opera over the recent decades, especially if influenced by the classic Space Opera setting of Star Wars.

There was a thread a while back that got into the weeds discussing different definitions of space opera, but I believe the OP is using the term in the broadest but also oldest sense, which is basically starfaring, nonhard SF. If you want to really get into things, a lot of folks would call Star Wars science fantasy, and it certainly wasn't the defining example of space opera.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There was a thread a while back that got into the weeds discussing different definitions of space opera, but I believe the OP is using the term in the broadest but also oldest sense, which is basically starfaring, nonhard SF. If you want to really get into things, a lot of folks would call Star Wars science fantasy, and it certainly wasn't the defining example of space opera.

Yeah, I make a distinction between space opera and science-fantasy.

 

[Mezuka]

A very good article about Ashen Stars:

Tabletop Review: Ashen Stars – Diehard GameFAN

 

[Mezuka]

Infinity the RPG 2d20 by Modiphius has a fully developed setting. The factions are well defined. I used to play the miniature game.

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[Mezuka]

I got a lot of mileage with D20 Future + D20 Cyber.

d20 Future (d20M) - Wizards of the Coast | d20 Modern Generic | Dungeon Masters Guild

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[aramis erak]

Star Frontiers was pretty easy to understand. Pretty simple overall.

ANd it's available legally on Drive Thru in PDF and POD.
It does, however, put ship-operations into the realm of "high level play only" - the prerequisites for ship operation skills are beyond starting characters.

Star Wars d6 was more complicated, not sure if you would consider it more or less complicated than 5e.

It's less complicated, even in it's most complicated version (2.0), than D&D (any but OE without supplements). But, it's alos out of print and no legal PDFs exist.
D6 Space is the current version of those rules, but lacks the specific Star Wars content. It's available legally in PDF. It lacks a decent trade system
D6 Star Wars content can be played with D6 space with no alterations at all.

The original Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader (this is NOT the FFG game, this is from a MUCH earlier period, it is the first WArhammer 40K book that came out, had army rules and such, but also a RPG option in it) had an RPG option that was actually pretty simple overall.

Not really true. It was a wargame ruleset with continuing leader characters, but no mechanics for any kind of non-combat actions.
It's very much shy of the cross over to actual RPG. Using it as an RPG is possible, but involves either writing rules for all the non-combat actions one might want to mechanicalize, and/or going "only combat is mechanicalized," and/or being one of those "rules are only guidelines, so just declare a roll vs a stat and move on" types.
That latter crowd can do just as much RP using just about any minis game, as the rules underlying don't matter at all to that playstyle.

 

[bxcorgi]

A number of great systems have already been mentioned. Here are a few that I didn’t see mentioned.
Frontier Space - Retroclone of Star Frontiers

These bolt together nicely or are standalone
White Star - White Box SciFi
Warriors of the Red Planet - 0e SciFi
Colonial Troopers - 0e SciFi
Dare The Stars - Pulp SciFi White Star Variant

Zines
Star Frontiersman - Star Frontiers & Frontier Space Zine
Frontier Explorer - Star Frontiers & Frontier Space Zine
Blaster Bolts - White Star Zine