Best SF system to introduce girlfriend to

[Tiew]

Hey everybody, I'm trying to think of a good way to introduce my girlfriend to roleplaying. My only experience is with D&D 3.0 and I'm the all-time DM among my friends now. She watched a game I was running for 1 and 1/2 hours and said it didn't seem bad but she would probably get bored.

I want to run a game for her sometime but I'm thinking it might be best if I tried a SF game rather than D&D. She really likes star trek, star wars, and I think she watched some Babylon 5. (She also likes buffy but I'm not sure if that's relavant.) I don't want to run a game that specifically tied to the star trek or star wars universe. I really enjoy reading SF and would like the chance to create my own world and aliens and such. Does anybody have any recomendations for a system to use?

Thanks,

 

[HellHound]

For Sci-Fi, I'm a BIG fan of MegaTraveller.

The system is simple and uses a unified 2d6 mechanic, and chargen is organic so the player gets a feel for the character even before gameplay begins.

AND, you can use just about any setting with it, really... I ran a Star Wars-based setting without the Force using the system for years.

 

[Crothian]

d20 future isn't bad and it being d20 based it won't be a system you have to learn as well.

 

[Ranger REG]

I want to run a game for her sometime but I'm thinking it might be best if I tried a SF game rather than D&D. She really likes star trek, star wars, and I think she watched some Babylon 5. (She also likes buffy but I'm not sure if that's relavant.) I don't want to run a game that specifically tied to the star trek or star wars universe. I really enjoy reading SF and would like the chance to create my own world and aliens and such. Does anybody have any recomendations for a system to use?

Try Star Wars d20. It's the easiest SF RPG to get into, and you can use many [non-gaming] reference sources, with more coming soon to coincide with the opening of the third and final Prequel film.

Personally, I stick to medieval fantasy game, it's the easiest to learn. As intimidating as the D&D 3.5e rules are now, it's best to make it a learning experience for her, let her learn new things (rules or features) about the game gradually. After all, you can't teach a kindergarten what's a quadratic formula immediately, so stick with basic arithmetic and go from there.

 

[Aussiegamer]

For ease of game play get Star Wars RPG.

 

[Skywalker]

The Buffy RPG is an excellent system and very friendly to beginning RPGers. The Serenity RPG (based on Firefly by Joss Whedon) may be suitable when it is released in August this year.

As for straight Sci Fi RPGs, I recommend going beyond d20. Decipher's Star Trek is decent. Jovian Chronicles is great if you are OK with a dash of Mecha action. However, overall White Wolf's Trinity is very good. It draws on a number of sources and the feel of B5, Star Wars and Star Trek are all included. There is a d20 version which looks pretty good.

 

[JEL]

Star Frontiers. Best SF game ever and a simple system to learn as a bonus.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

I'll not-so-humbly recommend my own Dawning Star: Operation Quick Launch. It's the only full-scale campaign setting built on d20 Modern and powered by d20 Future, so from your end it won't require learning a whole new system. And, OQL comes with a complete, introductory adventure.

 

[DeBracy]

Again, Buffy's pretty good.

For SF - D6 Space is nice, quick pretty simple rules, but the book contains no setting at all. Fuzion is another simple system (used in Bubblegum Crisis and Usagi for example), it's generic and available for free. Again no setting though... both of these systems would work fine for generic "non-Jedi" Star Wars though (Star Wars was originally a D6 RPG after all ).

 

[HellHound]

I'll also second the call for Star Frontiers. However, it is hard to get a copy of the game with all the fiddly bits still intact.