Freelance Traveller

Recreating Star Smuggler with Traveller, Solo, and the Mythic Gamemaster Emulator (and some thoughts on how to incorporate a large language model AI to turn plot hooks into a solo game experience)

by Conrad Spies

Solo gaming seems to be on the rise—at least in my little bubble. More and more board games now include solitaire rules right out of the box. A quick glance at BoardGameGeek shows that many top 100 games offer solo modes, either built-in or through expansions.

When it comes to classic tabletop RPGs, there’s no shortage of material for solo play either. A quick scroll through DriveThruRPG reveals plenty of PDFs aimed at GM-less gameplay. Modern systems (especially OSR-inspired ones ;-) ) like Forbidden Lands, Scarlet Heroes, or Ironsworn often support or revolve around that style of play.

So yes, it may seem like everything has already been said about this topic, but not by everyone. I definitely don’t claim to have discovered the holy grail of solo RPGing (I’d say Tana Pigeon already did that with Mythic), and most or all of these ideas aren’t entirely new. You can spot traces of them in various sources. But this is my attempt to play Star Smuggler as a solo Traveller game. Maybe it’ll help or inspire someone else’s campaign.

Basis

Star Smuggler is a 1982 game designed by B. Dennis Sustare and published by Dwarfstar Games.  It’s still available online for free. Just print it out and play. If you haven’t checked it out yet—you should.

The game’s subtitle, “A Complete Programmed Adventure for One Player,” is accurate. You take on the role of Duke Springer, a spacefarer trying to make a fortune with his ship. You travel across a sector filled with planets. Each planet offers locations like industry zones, ruins, cities, and more—where you roll dice, consult tables or paragraphs, and discover outcomes: trade goods, suspicious characters, potential hirelings. Your job is: Buy low, sell high, survive random encounters, and (hopefully) retire rich.

The format is a sandbox with paragraph-style storytelling. Events direct you to numbered entries, sometimes with multiple paths depending on your choices, similar to Fighting Fantasy books. For example, a drone might attack you, and you’ll have the option to flee or fight—with each choice sending you to a different paragraph. The game even includes a combat system. So in a way, it lets you do everything you’d do in Traveller, just pre-programmed—and sometimes cumbersome, especially at first, as you flip through different rule and event booklets.

What’s fascinating is how this concept didn’t catch on. It’s not a Choose Your Own Adventure book—it’s a full-on sandbox. Often a deadly one (for the player character), but it was 1982. Back then, most video games and pen-and-paper dungeons were death traps.
I  think it’s a fantastic concept. Sure, it‘s a lot of bookkeeping and a computer would happily handle it all for you, but I love the idea of opening up your old secretary desk in the evening, pulling out your game book, some sheets of paper, a pencil, and spending 20 minutes immersed in your hero’s journey.

Interestingly, playing this kind of game doesn’t make you feel like you’re controlling everything. That’s something I often dislike in solo RPGs—I end up controlling too much of the story. What I want is for the plot to happen, and for my character to move within it, influencing it through my choices. I don’t want to just “daydream” about what might occur. For me, Star Smuggler strikes a great balance between a paragraph-style adventure and the freedom of a sandbox game.

Sure, playing like this might sound like a dry, mechanical exercise. But I grew up during the golden age of German economic simulations on PC, and Mad TV by Rainbow Arts is still my all-time favorite game. So my tastes might not be entirely mainstream—but I know there are others out there who enjoy the same kind of games.

Roots

The idea of playing a roleplaying game solo is almost as old as RPGs themselves. TSR published Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, and by spring 1975, Gary Gygax wrote an article in The Strategic Review titled “Solo Dungeon Adventures.” In it, he noted that while solo wilderness adventures were possible, there wasn’t yet a standardized way to explore dungeons without a referee. So, he presented a method to generate dungeons on the fly: You start with a staircase, then roll to determine the size and shape of the next room, the number of exits, dead ends, and so on.

It’s a fascinating article if you’re curious about how the pioneers of roleplaying were thinking and playing back then.

Traveller came out in 1977, published by Game Designers' Workshop. Even in its earliest edition, the rulebook briefly mentioned the possibility of solo play—particularly for activities like character creation, mapping sectors, and so on.

We then find an article in the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, Issue No. 13, I think in 1982, written by Steven Sowards: “Ref’s Notes: Real Time Traveller”. It was later translated  and republished in the German Traveller magazine Explorer. In it, the author briefly describes how to play a Traveller session solo in real time. He gives ideas on what to do in jumpspace and how to play a trading game with some events. There’s something strangely compelling (and admittedly a little weird) about the idea of living a (virtual) parallel life every day.

Jump ahead to 2004, and Dave Cooper wrote an article titled “Travelling Alone”, which Freelance Traveller later reprinted in 2014. In it, he described an algorithm—or game loop—for playing Traveller solo, using just the core books. He explained how to handle purchasing goods and equipment, what steps to take upon landing, and when to roll on different tables. The system includes patrons and random events, but leaves most of the storytelling to the player’s imagination. It provides a framework for a trading game—and it works. You end up with a structure for trading and travel, peppered with surprises to build your own narrative around.

Now, about those Fighting Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure books: Starting in 1982, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone published a successful series of solo gamebooks. You play a character, read a paragraph, and then choose what to do next—“If you want to talk to the old man, turn to paragraph 29; otherwise, continue to paragraph 47.” Your decisions branch the story. Some books even introduce basic context mechanics: “If you have the magic purse, go to paragraph 127.”

These books were wildly popular, and many were incredibly clever in how they pushed their format to its limits. But as great and popular as they were, they weren’t really sandboxes. You followed a branching story, not an open world.

I’m sure there are more early articles and systems out there that explore solo RPG play beyond the paragraph driven mechanics. This was just a brief overview to give an idea of solo roleplaying. I would be super interested in articles that go deeper into the history of solo roleplaying (or maybe they already exist and I don't know about them).

Components

Here’s a quick rundown of the components I use in my solo game setup:

Traveller: My RPG system of choice is Traveller. There are a bunch of different editions out there (many of them available as PDFs), and honestly, I think any of them will do. The differences between Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller⁵, Mongoose Traveller (both 1st and 2nd edition), and Cepheus Engine aren’t huge when it comes to solo play—at least not for the basics like core mechanics or sector generation.

I pull pieces from different editions depending on what I need. Which specific books I use, I’ll explain a bit later.

These two books form the backbone of my solo setup: Star Trader (2013) and Solo (2017), both written by written by Paul Elliot and published by Zozer Games.

Star Trader is an official Traveller product and refers to Traveller books, but the same rules are also embedded in the Solo book for the Cepheus Engine. You'll often see it phrased as: “For Cepheus Engine and the 2D6 SF game it was derived from."

These books are excellent solo toolkits. Naturally, as with any RPG, there are a few things I personally tweak or disagree with—otherwise I would have almost no reason to write this article. I’ve homebrewed the system a bit (which I’ll describe), but if you’re totally happy with how Solo handles solo roleplaying, you could stop reading here and go play—it’s a solid and fun system out of the box.

(But my experience how it goes in this hobby: Teach three people a system and you’ll end up with four house rules, a brand new subsystem, and a new campaign world by next month.)

Mythic Game Master Emulator by Tana Pigeon (World Mill Games): The Mythic GME was released in 2007 and is based on the Mythic Roleplaying system from 2006. At its core is an “oracle” mechanic: you ask yes/no questions and get answers based on assigned probabilities. It also generates keywords (or clues) that help you interpret what’s going on, so you have to use logic and intuition to connect the dots. The rule for reasoning is “take the most logical thing you can think of”. Everything else handles the engine.

There’s even an “I dunno” rule for when the oracle gives you something too vague and you just can’t make sense of it.

That’s just the basic idea. The full system goes deeper and includes tools to structure scenes, track story threads, escalate tension, and more.

Word Mill Games also publishes a magazine that builds on these concepts and provides add-ons or variant rules. Personally, I still use the 1st edition of the GME, but there are some great ideas in the magazine issues if you're looking to expand things.

There are also other oracle-based tools out there—some of them use cards, others dice. You can totally swap them in if you prefer.

The GME really shines when handling unclear situations. Let’s say an event describes a “friend” warning you about cargo. In a regular session, the GM would decide who that friend is. With the GME, you can ask, “Is it Peter?” Assign a probability, roll the dice—and get your answer.

Components of My Game

Here’s how I personally use the above systems and tools in my solo Traveller/Star Smuggler game.

Character Creation: I use Mongoose Traveller for character creation, but the classic rules would also work just fine. As you may know, your character can die during creation in some editions—which I actually love. It adds tension and stakes right from the start. You either survive and grow stronger, or your character dies trying. If a character looks promising, I tend to play it a little safer, so it will survive the creation process.

Mongoose Traveller adds “Life Events,” which give extra flavor to your character. And when playing solo, every bit of background helps make things more immersive.

I roll up every crew member this way. You could also use prebuilt tables from sources like Citizens of the Imperium (CT Supplement 4) or BITS’s 101 Travellers to generate characters randomly—just as recruiting potential hirelings at a starport.

I also use the Life Events and Relationship Tables from the Solo book. Again, it’s all about adding more “flesh” to the character and their story, which really pays off during play.

World Creation: There are two approaches. You can use an official publication: For example, you could pick the Spinward Marches. Star Trader references GURPS Traveller: Behind the Claw, which gives detailed writeups for planets and systems. That gives you an in-universe “database” of planetary info.

The other approach is a DIY sector build: You can use the Mongoose Traveller rules to generate a sector, which work similarly across editions.

If I’m in the mood (and have the time), I go deeper, using the Scout books, GURPS Space, or even the German Traveller II (FanPro) to determine things like day/night cycles, atmospheric effects, and albedo. If I want hex maps, there are lightweight rules in MegaTraveller: World Builder’s Handbook or even algorithms from Traveller⁵. You’ll also find a web-based generator for this algorithm.

Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t discover Traveller when I was 13 or so. Back then, I spent entire afternoons prepping DSA (Das Schwarze Auge/The Dark Eye) sessions—drawing maps, rolling on travel encounter tables, rolling on weather charts. read town descriptions ... and I tried to cram everything into one afternoon game session. My players probably felt like they were trapped in the dentist’s chair from Little Shop of Horrors—but I had the time of my life preparing the stuff.

Trade and Spaceship design: I use the Mongoose Traveller rules for both trading and ship design.

Creatures: There are lots of sources for creature encounters. I mostly stick to Mongoose Traveller, but others are just as valid, for example: Classic Traveller: Animal Encounters /FanPro: Tierbegegnungen or the Creature Crafter from Word Mill Games.

Combat: I tend to avoid combat unless it’s absolutely necessary. When it does happen, I use Mongoose’s combat rules, supported by the GME. For more abstract battles, you could use the Mythic combat rules or Solo’s “The Plan” mechanic to resolve outcomes without playing every blow.

Encounters: This is where Traveller shines in solo play: it has tables for just about everything.

You’ll find tables for random encounters by location type, NPC reactions, personality traits. The Mongoose Traveller Core Rules offers the basics, but Solo expands on nearly all of them, with more nuance and detailed outcomes.

Patrons: For missions, you need patrons. Both Mongoose and Solo include random patron generators, but the Traveller library has more fantastic resources, especially the BITS 101 series: 101 Patrons, 101 Plots, 101 Cargos, and so on. But they’re all written for a GM, with everything laid out in one glance. Great for prep, not so great for surprise.

Prewritten adventures are a whole other beast. Some work reasonably for solo play. Dungeon crawls and hex crawls—like Mission on Mithril—are naturally structured for it. Move to the next room or hex, read what’s there, react, move on. But plot-heavy modules are a problem. Reading them spoils everything.

Right now, I rarely play full-blown “missions.” Most of my gameplay emerges from random events. When I do want a story arc, I take a mission seed and let the GME run with it. I treat it like a rough sketch and let the world fill itself in as I ask questions and react.

Later in the article I will describe actual approaches to handle that problems and share my thoughts on converting plot hooks for solo play.

Game Cycle

Here’s how I structure my solo Traveller campaign—the loop that turns all those tools and ideas into a playable experience.

Preparation: I begin by creating my character and at least a few crew members. I use the Solo book’s rules for this, especially the relationship mechanics. These help simulate emotional dynamics during high-stress moments, like during jumps or dangerous events. According to the rules, you roll reaction checks in those situations.

I also track my ship’s expenses: Monthly maintenance, life support costs, debt repayments.

In Star Smuggler, you owe 0.25% of the ship’s value every ten days—so 0.75% per month. The goal is to eventually own the ship outright and have enough credits saved to retire. Solo offers a cost table aligned with Traveller rules. It suggests starting with at least 100,000 Credits, whereas Star Smuggler gives you a meager 250–650. To be honest, I prefer Solo’s higher starting funds.

I use the Star Smuggler time table to keep track of how long each action takes. Every action for a character consumes time. Like in Star Smuggler, Solo gives you tables, so it's easy to keep track.

For my setting, I usually use a sector from the Spinward Marches. That way, I can refer to the planet writeups in GURPS Behind the Claw for additional detail.

The Cycle Itself: My basic loop is adapted from Solo. Here's how it flows:

When I‘m looking for cargo, I roll on the random encounter table. When I got a vague result like “harassed by locals”, I use the Mythic GME to clarify: “What do they want?” (Complex question) → Response: “Increase anger.” → “Is it directed at the government?” (Likely?) → Roll: Yes. And so on.

The GME’s Fate Chart includes a Chaos Rank, which changes how likely things are to spiral out of control. I reset it to default when I arrive at a new planet (unless there’s crew/ship trouble carrying over).

Further events in the game are: starport event (on departure), space encounter (when engines start), NPC reaction roll and an onboard event (every week in jump space), and arrival starship encounter. On a planet, I can search for a patron to get a mission, trade, restock, explore, etc.

Unclear Events (Using the GME): Let’s say I hit an event that says:

“Your sensors are giving false readings. Or are they? If so, why?”

Instead of making something up, I ask the GME. It keeps me from biasing the story.

Example: I roll a mission where a real estate agent wants me to catch a creature. → What kind of creature? I roll on the animal table (in this case I would first use the GME to specify the kind of animal). → Then I use the GME for the rest: Is it carnivorous? Territorial? Where does it nest? → Final result: A slimy, 1kg nest-building creature (a Remover). Great—I’m a vermin hunter now.

Or, as another example:

Day 34: I reach Regina. Cargo’s intact. I roll for starport event: there’s a local strike. So I ask the GME, ‘Is it violent?’ → ‘Exceptional yes.’ Great. Now I can’t unload. I ask, ‘Can I bribe someone?’ … and things spiral from there.”

The GME helps flesh out the setting and keeps things logically consistent. If an NPC appears, I can ask: “Is this the same patron as before?” Or: “Who is warning me right now?”—and the oracle helps me piece it together.

This is why vague tables aren’t a problem with help of the GME. I don’t need to invent everything—the GME fills in the gaps and sometimes surprises me in great ways.

Incorporate Hooks and Books by Converting Them

One of the challenges of solo play is the lack of structured missions—stories with twists, climaxes, and narrative payoffs.

Solo addresses this with its “The Plan” mechanic. Technically it‘s a workaround: You read the mission, come up with a plan, assign a difficulty, roll the dice, and interpret the result. It’s a smart system, and it really does work well with the included tables. In essence, it summarises the outcome of your plan and describes the consequences for you and your crew.

For adventure books DM Yourself by Tom Scutt proposes some ways to “partially read” adventures so you don’t ruin surprises. I find it a bit fiddly and still too spoiler-prone.

An article in Mythic Magazine #50 outlines a more radical approach: tear the adventure apart and clue the puzzle pieces together while playing it. So, a new adventure develops, built from fragments of the orginal publication.

Star Smuggler offers a neat solution: short “choose-your-own-path” adventures, embedded within a sandbox. A couple paragraphs, some choice, a result—and then back to the larger loop. It’s elegant and modular.

There are probably other approaches I haven’t come across yet. If you know any—please share them.

So back to Traveller: Here we already have tons of plot seeds—especially in the rulebooks and the BITS 101 series. Usually, it works like this:

• You get a patron and a mission
• The GM rolls a d6 for a plot twist
• The GM unfolds the adventure from there

But when you’re playing solo, reading that paragraph spoils the whole thing. You already know the twist and the mystery is gone.

What I’d really love is to take something like a BITS 101 book and repackage it into a format that reveals information step by step, just when needed. So you’d only get the next narrative beat when the right condition is met. Something structured like this:

Patron Mission

Prerequisite: Must be at a B-class or better starport.

Mission: Text about “Deliver a sealed cargo container to a rendezvous point in another system.”

Process:

• If you choose to inspect the cargo: read “Info 1”
• Upon arrival at destination system: roll 1d6
• 1–3 → Go to Event A
• 4–6 → Go to Event B
• If delivery is late by 4 weeks: go to Event C

Each “event” could then include more branches, depending on choices or skill checks (and we have the great Universal Task Profile in Traveller). This structure would preserve the sandbox feel while introducing narrative beats and surprises—without spoilers.

So the story could continue to unfold in Event A: you arrive in the next star system, and the local authorities hail your ship. They want to inspect your cargo. Since you’ve already uncovered “Info 1,” you know you’re in trouble.

Other event activation conditions are possible: in 6 hours, when you leave the complex, when you enter your ship, …

It would be perfect if the missions/plots/etc. could be converted in such a linear way, that one can print them out on a card. So you can take a card from a stack, put it in an opaque sleeve to hide future stages. When it’s time to reveal the next part of a mission, just slide the card out a little. If a card doesn’t apply (prerequisites), draw another (up to 3 or so).  You can line up open missions in their sleeves next to your notes in the order in which they will pop up.

The same goes for published adventure books: Imagine being able to play through Prison Planet—not just as a backdrop, but because your character actually got captured. Or running a pre-scripted mission on a planet’s surface, deep in a dungeon, or across some desolate wasteland.

To make that work in solo play, you’d need tailored card decks for different contexts—maybe environment-specific cards, or a rumor deck you draw from during a McGuffin hunt. Something modular and context-aware. A system like that could unlock endless variations and new ways to structure your journey.

Alternatively, it would be possible to use a format like Star Smuggler, where everything is organized into numbered paragraphs. When a condition is met (e.g., “6 hours have passed”), you simply jump to the next paragraph (say, e73). Ok, you’d need to keep good notes to track timing and conditions—so there’s some bookkeeping involved.

Experiments

Let’s face it: no one is going to officially release a prebuilt deck of mission cards or an event book that blends Traveller, Solo, and Mythic GME into one seamless solo package.

I’ve been experimenting with using large language models (AI) to help convert classic RPG content into solo-ready formats.

The simple idea is like that:

• Take adventure hooks, events, or full missions (from every book you have)
• Feed them to the AI
• Ask it to break them down into modular, time-sensitive steps
• Format them as mini-sequences with choices, checks, and consequences
• Leave open details vague enough to be resolved later using the GME and its deduction rule

This could allow a solo player to use existing Traveller content—without spoiling themselves or needing to improvise every detail.

A few months ago I’ve tried feeding an AI with finished adventures and setting books (in PDF form). Then I’d prompt it to act as the GM for a solo session.

At first, it worked surprisingly well. The AI understood the setting and spun up a strong beginning in a Fighting Fantasy style format. I had my bluetooth headset and talked directly with the AI as I would do with a GM.

But eventually, it lost the plot. The longer the session went on, the more it forgot about key plot or setting elements or NPCs. It began to “hallucinate”—inventing new elements that didn’t fit. The root of the problem seems to be the token limits. AI can only “remember” a certain amount of words at a time before it starts improvising too freely and goes rogue.

For this Star Smuggler kind of solo game I’ve experimented a bit with converting Traveller-style missions and plot hooks into that “sequential” card-like format—using AI to help structure them. The results were… decent. Promising, but not quite there.

I think the issue lies in the prompt—I still need to refine how I ask for things. I don’t mind if the AI hallucinates a little along the way. A few surprises more or less can actually enhance the solo experience.

Further Components for Future Gaming

Of course, there are plenty of other solo RPG systems and tools I haven’t explored yet—like Ironsworn, Scarlet Heroes, or even some of the mechanics from Gloomhaven. I’m pretty sure there are some great ideas hidden in those systems that could really enhance the solo experience.

Word Mill Games also offers a whole suite of useful tools: Location Crafter, Creature Crafter, and especially Adventure Crafter. That last one is particularly intriguing—it helps you track NPCs, tasks, and narrative threads, and keeps weaving them together as you play. It’s like having a GM behind the scenes, quietly making sure your story stays connected.

You could also dive into “GM Toolboxes” or campaign guides packed with plot hooks, character ideas, and more, but I wanted to keep my setup compact (ok, that seems like an obvious lie, when I look at the number of components I described).

Conclusion

Solo roleplaying can offer a unique experience that stands between traditional RPGs and choose-your-own-adventure games. By combining the structured framework of Star Smuggler with the rich systems of Traveller and the flexibility of the Mythic GME, I’ve found – for me – a nearly satisfying way to enjoy complex gaming narratives.

The integration of AI tools presents exciting possibilities for transforming existing adventure content into solo-friendly formats. While the technology isn’t perfect yet, it offers promising directions for solo gamers looking to expand their options.

Whether you’re interested in trying this exact approach or adapting elements to your own solo gaming style, I hope this article has provided some useful ideas. The solo rpg community seems to be quite active and I’m excited to see how techniques continue to evolve.

 

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