A dearth of sci-fi roleplaying

With the ending of the Star Wars roleplaying game, I have paused for a moment to consider sci-fi roleplaying in general. Worryingly, there is a severe lack of good, playable sci-fi games. The vast majority of games that do exist are old, poorly implemented, or incomplete.

Let's look at some of the games out there:

Flying about in ships games:

Star Wars: Still the biggest game in the field, despite being cancelled twice. Sadly, neither version was terribly good. The d6 version suffers from featuring a critical failure mechanic (a 1 on the wild die causes problems - so there's a 17% chance of screwing up royally, no matter how skilled you are?). More importantly, the implementation of Jedi and the Force left a lot to be desired as well. This doesn't hurt it as a game, and doesn't hurt it as a sci-fi game, but it hurts it really bad as a Star Wars game. Anyway, it's largely irrelevant - the game is long dead.

Star Wars d20 suffers from mechanics I have bemoaned at length here. The short version is that it doesn't do lightsaber duels at all well, and the startship combat rules suck beyond all telling, even in the revised edition. It's not a good game, never mind being a good Star Wars game. (Honestly, it's ridiculous: there are two things Star Wars needs to do to be Star Wars, and the 'Star Wars' game can't do either?)

Star Trek: Apparently, Decipher have cancelled the Star Trek RPG, which was at least the third bearing the name. It's odd - Star Trek should have been ideal for an RPG. Anyway, the only STRPG I've ever played was the ancient FASA version, a game which suffered from a bad GM and bad players. The mechanics were overcomplicated even then. I was unimpressed.

Apparently, the Last Unicorn version of the game was good, and was selling well. However, WotC bought them (to get the license), and a d20 version was mooted. At this point, the powers that be at Star Trek pulled the license, because they didn't want Star Wars and Star Trek under the control of the same people.

Babylon 5: In the words of G'Kar, "I like it". However, it suffers from the 'Dragonlance Syndrome', where the big story in the setting has been done. I'm not completely certain that the universe is really big enough for another sprawling epic (the way the Star Wars universe has become). I do think taking over the Crusade arc, or doing a Legends of the Rangers game would be cool, but neither is the focus of the game. I find this odd.

Stargate: I never got into the series, but this also seems ideal for an RPG. I believe (although I'm not certain) that the game is now out-of-print. However, of the games listed so far, this is probably the one with the most potential.

Farscape: Again, I never really got into the series. I also think this game is out of print. Sadly, I just don't see the same potential here as with Stargate.

Serenity: I've posted previously about how solid the set-up here is. This could and should make a kick-ass campaign. I haven't yet received the rulebook, so can't comment further. Watch this space for more.

Traveller: This game has so many editions, it's hard to know which is current. It's an old game, with a lot of history, and very well regarded. The only weaknesses are that it can be hard to find a game using a recognisable edition, and the fact that the universe isn't built for adventure. This is also the closest we have to a 'hard sci-fi' game, which isn't for everyone.

Cyberpunk Games:

Every game in this genre is built using assumptions about the future that are 20 years old. In some cases, this is to be expected - Shadowrun and Cyberpunk are products of the 80's after all. In the case of Cybernet, it's inexcusable. In any event, it's a major weakness in these games. As far as I'm aware, the three games I've mentioned are the big names in the field, with only Shadowrun being active in any sense (Cybernet was a one-book project from Mongoose, and Cyberpunk has been out of print for years, despite constant rumours of a new edition).

Oh, one more thing: the mechanics of Shadowrun, at least in the 3rd edition, were stupidly complex. I recall reading one passage in the combat rules that listed one exception after another, such that it was very difficult to determine what, actually, should happen. Plus, it was a dice-pool system, making combat encounters hard to balance. Hopefully, the new edition is simpler and quicker.

Other Games:

Armageddon 2089: A dark future d20 mecha game. This game has very complex mechanics, and an extremely compelling vision of future history. I like it, but would never play it.

I'm not aware of any other mecha RPGs that are currently in production.

d20 Modern/d20 Future: This is a nice game, but impossible to just pick up and use. Before running a game, you need to use which campaign modules your using, pull together some rules, FX abilities, and advanced classes, whip up a setting, and generally mess around for an age. d20 Future does cyberpunk, but with the same 20-year-old assumptions about the future as other games of the genre. d20 Future does mecha, suprisingly well, actually, in a slick Anime way, rather than a serious Armageddon 2089 way. d20 Future does flying around in spaceships, but it is saddled with the same starship combat rules as Star Wars, so might as well not bother.

The idea with d20 Modern/d20 Future was that Wizards would provide a toolkit for others to hang their settings and campaigns on. However, no-one has really seized that opportunity, perhaps because you can't actually do support for d20 Future without all manner of linguistic dodges (since a d20 product can't actually reference d20 Future by name or by page - slight mistake there by Wizards).

The Upshot:

I've listed a lot of games. However, the vast majority of them are out-of-print or badly flawed. Additionally, they're almost all licensed properties. Where is the Forgotten Realms of sci-fi? Where is our custom-built space opera setting? Where is the up-to-date cyberpunk game? Crucially, where is the adventure support?

Or is sci-fi roleplaying not worth bothering with?