Hiya.
Star Frontiers, no contest.
It's dead-simple mechanics; Roll d100, get low. Stat check? D100, get low. Skill check? D100, get low. Ranged or Melee attack? D100, get low. As a GM, the simple mechanics makes it dirt simple to make adjustment calls on the fly with consistency. That frees up my brain to focus more on the story, setting and other creative aspects of actually *running* a game.
Setting: Humans are not the most populous race...but they are the most prevalent in terms of being the movers and shakers. Humans get along with all the other 'core' races (Dralasites - blobby amoeboid guys with a penchant for bad jokes; Yazarians - hot-tempered, violent 'flying squirrel monkey men'; Vrusk - analytical 6-legged 2-armed bugs). The main bad guys are Sathar - disgusting, psychopathic slime-worm guys. They have advanced bio-cybernetic weapons and tools they use...including a rather perplexing natural "hypnosis" ability to brainwash others to spy, terrorize or otherwise carry out their dirty work (especially when these "spies" are implanted with their bio-cybertech stuff!). Best thing about the Sathar is that they are specifically *not* detailed alot; this leaves it up to the GM to decide exactly how they are or aren't. This makes it easy to run very different style campaigns whilst still being able to use all or most of the info that is presented for them. Oh, and the whole thing is a "not-faster-then-light" space travel setting...sort of. When ships get to 1% the speed of light they enter "the void" which screws with time-space, allowing faster than light travel. However, it takes days and days for a ship to reach that speed. Oh, and there is no 'artificial gravity'.
Lastly, there is a vibrant and fairly active Star Frontiers community on the net. You can also get all the SF stuff, for free, *legally* online. There is a "remastered" rules system (typo's fixed, a few minor editor changes, a couple additions, etc.) called, appropriately enough, "Star Frontiers Remastered". I *highly* recommend downloading them. You can even get them in print via Lulu (I bought my group each the core book ("Alpha Dawn") and the space/star-ship book ("Knight Hawks")...and I have 6 people in my group...for pretty dang cheap, really). I also picked up the "Gamma Dawn" book...it takes the Gamma World setting/rules and "Star Fronter'izes" them; something I had haphazardly done back when the original game came out.
Oh, here's the link:
http://www.starfrontiersman.com/downloads/remastered
^_^
Paul L. Ming
