When Paul Elliott (Zozer Games) announced he was working on an update for SOLO (the Traveller/ Cepheus solo rules) I was looking forward to it with real anticipation. SOLO works really well and I used it to run The Currents of Space solo Game for 3 years. I thought that it would be an update and revision, removing Jump Drives and redesigning ship encounters (etc.) to match the gritty, retro-80’s feel of Hostile (and also planet design; something which is often missed is that the planet design system is not the same as in Traveller/ Cepheus; for example you can’t generate a multi-billion population on any of the colony worlds, neither can you generate a Class A starport, the best you can get is a Class B.) SOLO clocks in at 153 pages of excellence, but you do need setting rules and Game-system.

Paul has delivered big-time.

Hostile: Solo is an impressive 230 pages and offers a complete Game-system, task resolution, setting details and six campaign styles. A lot has been streamlined (character generation and world generation) but it is all 100% compatible with the Hostile Rules and Hostile Setting and all of the published setting books. The book is packed with fantastic artwork and plenty of examples. There are design notes and tables to quickly create bases, outposts, space platforms, starships and encounters.

Character Generation – I have put together a crew of 6 to try out a Shipping Campaign (Number 1 in the book – each campaign type has its own section with a set of dedicated tables.) Character creation for all six took 30 mins in total and already threw up some ideas and potential conflicts.) It is a design system rather than a ‘roll lifepath’, but as I said, you can use the full system if you want to.

The PDF is available now on DrivethruRPG, the Softback and hardback comes out in September from Zozer Games.