Hostile vs. 2300AD

How many 2d6 science fiction games are there? Hostile is one of the best "hard science fiction" implementations of the 2d6 rule-set outside of the classic 2300AD. This has a rule book and setting book, and it is an amazing deep dive into a classic hard science fiction setting like Alien, Outland, Bladerunner, and other gritty, realistic science fiction universes.

At times this game can feel like the "not Alien" game, but you can play this without xenomorphs and just do dirty, hard-science, industrial, and corporate future games. There is a book devoted to xeno-lifeforms, and this gives a bunch of terrifying versions of the familiar monsters we see in the movies (including a xeno-snake), and is very imaginative for horror-based science fiction this game does so well.

Why play Hostile over something like 2300AD?

Well, my brother and I had a long-running 2300AD game, and that was amazing. I am getting the boxed set and will report back on that soon. 2300AD has its own flavor of hard science fiction, and it has this clunky, difficult travel, almost military operations feeling where you can't "land a starship on it" and there are the ways between stars and around planets is harder and very realistic.

A planet can exist and still be mostly unexplored, and you will need to fly a cargo plane out to a remote airstrip, unload a boat, move that to a river with a truck, and sail that up a river to get to an adventure site. In normal Traveller, you will have people flying their scout-couriers and landing them to use them as space RVs, and parking next to a dungeon to explore it. Hostile is also like this, where planetary travel requires a level of realism.

The 2300AD game explicitly says, "It (2300 AD) is not part of the Third Imperium universe. 2300AD stands on its own." This is also another major improvement, as the original game sort of had a giant Imperium out there ready to invade in a Frontier War, and this was all history anyways so nothing mattered.

Thank you! This feeling dogged us when we first got the game, and we had an agreement in place that "linking this to the main Traveller timeline is stupid, the universe its its own place and reality." We never looked back, and this is how it was. It was the right decision. 2300AD is its own universe, and own thing. 

If only the 2300AD core books were stand alone...

I ask too much. 

"Keep advanced alien races out of the setting." - Hostile, Setting Guide, page 10.

Hostile is humans only, with alien monsters and creatures. 2300AD has non-human intelligent aliens that are very different, even in outlook and physiology. Both games have more than enough room to add your own creations, but Hostile's assumptions assume humans are alone in the universe. 

If you want wolf-people and talking insects, play 2300AD or better yet, Traveller. If you want to convince walking cucumber aliens that active verbs are not verbal threats, play 2300AD.

You play 2300AD to love the universe and the original game. You are not expected to have xenomorphs. There is a cyberpunk edge to the urban centers. 2300AD is a game about first contact, reaching the stars, and a civilization learning to survive and adapt. It is a positive and hopeful game; it has its setbacks and bumps along the road, but the goal here is to build, adapt, communicate, and survive.

2300AD is perfect for hosting "first contact" games, even if they are your own.

You could do a "first contact" game in Traveller, but it would not be as intimate, close, and complex. 2300AD has hard limits on technology, and we don't have super-science. To access this new world, we need to use interface craft. We need to figure out linguistics and social sciences. We need to conduct archeological research to figure out who lived here 100,000 years ago and where they went. 2300AD has an action-movie side to it, but it is more nerdy and cerebral than Traveller. You can do scientific mysteries in  2300AD, because there are no easy answers.

Traveller enjoys the macro. 2300AD revels in the micro. 

Hostile is more of an homage to the classic 1970s and 1980s science fiction movies and those experiences. It is a retro-futurism game, cynical, dangerous, and industrialized in a human-centered universe. Hostile is a pessimistic and cynical game about how humans never change, how our weakness will destroy us, and the evil aliens of the universe exist as a form of puritanical punishment for our sins.

Hostile is a game where nobody wins.

 

2300AD is a hard-science look into a universe that tries to work together, yet keeps falling back to the Earth due to the human condition, divisions, and frailties. Even the art of 2300AD is cleaner and more positive-looking than Hostile. 2300AD is a lighter game in tone and outlook, but it still has that hard-science edge with backstabbing and betrayal possible. You can play an exploration campaign in 2300AD that does not always end in a 50-100% death rate, and have room to create new worlds and aliens to meet.

2300AD is like Alien meets Star Trek in tone and outlook, Alien in the technology level and Star Trek in the optimism and goals. We are exploring brave new worlds and making first contact with aliens. We are trying to work with our neighbors. We fight against the nature of man and our frailties, limits in technology, to try to be that better person and a better society.

2300AD is like a hard science fiction Star Frontiers, where the races have not yet learned to live together. You can meet intelligent life, and an entire campaign could be created out of a new jump route being discovered, and your brand-new alien race is on that next planet.

In Hostile, that does not happen. Hostile is like Alien meets Outland meets Blade Runner.

All of this is great 2d6 gaming, very close to Traveller, and it all plays well together. Or by itself. Both games are amazing and worth checking out; choosing which one to play comes down to personal preference and outlook.