A few games are written with some vague suggestions as to how they can be played solo, but it's not common for these solo play rules to be much more than well meaning 'guidelines, hints & helpful suggestions' rather than a fully written yet simple system of solo play. Yet, as gamers, we all have days when no-one else is around to roll dice with us ...

However, the solo play rules presented here are a simple and clear means of handling typical games using writers own rules set - Stars & Lasers - but they could easily be used with other similar (or even not quite so similar) games without any major changes. These simple rules work by setting the behaviour of the opposition at 1 of 3 levels of aggression, and then providing tactical guidance as how to handle their units in play bearing in mind their level of aggression - as with many solo play systems a little bit of common sense is required to get the most from them, but they work fine and are easy to use and there's no requirement for endless & onerous dice rolls to make decisions randomly.

To prevent the oppositions behavious from getting too predictable, the writer also provides rules for some occasional and sudden changes in the oppositions aggression level, which in turn will change their behaviour in the game - this can mean that that enemy you were beating into running away might just turn round and counter-attack you without warning! Additional rules allow for other unpredictable (and sometimes alarming) events to occur, all of which cold very well change the games dynamic suddenly.

Using these will allow those of us who can't find a regular opponent (or are currently locked down and unable to meet old friends) to play against an opponent who can be rather unpredictable but not unbeatable!