Space Opera (role-playing game)

Space Opera is a science fiction tabletop role-playing game created in 1980 by Edward E. Simbalist, A. Mark Ratner and Phil McGregor for the publisher Fantasy Games Unlimited. Its rules can model any science fiction genre, but the default setting is built around space opera adventures in the tradition of E. E. Smith and Star Wars. Fantasy Games Unlimited founder Scott Bizar recalled that the three authors, living in western Canada, Australia and the eastern United States, finished the project over more than two years entirely by correspondence, with Simbalist handling editing and coordination. Characters choose a class such as Armsman, Astronaut, Tech or Scientist, roll a twenty-sided check against fourteen characteristics generated on percentile dice, and can belong to human, humanoid, transhuman or several animal-descended races.