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After reading over at Stargazer's World about the D6 system, I went straight to DriveThruRPG and of free D6 joy.

In the "D6 Space" PDF, they start by explaining the basic game mechanics (rolling dice etc.), which is followed by a very short solo adventure (ok, all right, not much of an adventure, but you know what I mean). This is right at the beginning (page 6) of the book.

I haven't seen this before. I guess in normal cases you'd just print out a "Example of play" consisting of some dialogue between the GM and some players to show how to approach different scenarios and choices. The solo adventure-approach I felt was a bit more engaging.

What do you think? Is it worth "wasting" space/page count in this way? Could you see yourself explaining some part of your game mechanics with a (very short) solo adventure?

I've seen this before, in two much older products, and in contrasting styles no less.

The first edition of the WEG Starwars RPG (D6 space is essentially a variant of this, purged of George Lucas owned elements) had a several page "choose your own adventure" style story. Skill rolls occasionally came up and the story focused on the sample character from the creation chapter. However, the example was mostly about telling a Star Wars style story and creating branching adventures (did you set off the alarm in paragraph one or not, for example.)

A more linear concept was presented in one of the books from the Dungeons and Dragons Basic set. This was a series of encounters - each introducing a new mechanic as it went further. As the young fighter went deeper into the cave, combat became more involved. First was to hit, then tracking hit-points, then armor class, you meet a cleric and learn about turn dead, and so on. I seem to recall one of the other books having a longer dungeon mapping example, but this one just focused on combat step by step.

Whether it is worth the page space, probably depends on name recognition or if it is otherwise going to be picked-up by non-gamers. A licensed product like the Star Wars Game may also attract people who haven't played before, so you need to show them how its done. Back in the late 70s or early 80s when D&D was pretty much the only game in town - and rare at that - examples were needed, because you might not have someone who has already played to introduce you to the system.

Furthermore, as the two examples above show, it also varies with the game's focus. D&D dungeon crawls need to show off how combat works since that is their primary mode. A pulp fiction game needs to illustrate what fits in the setting and what doesn't.

Most RPGs seem to be targeted at people who already play the games, or are introduced by friends who are aware of the concepts behind them. Its also an item that won't see much use after the first or second read through. If an experienced player gets the game, then it might not even be used that first time.

Printing costs used to be pretty high, and the folio/Octavio system of books meant pages were almost always limited to some power of two with little ability to fit more in. (The 1st Ed SW:RPG was only 128 pages, the D&D module about 48.) Page counts and limits are a lot less draconian with electronic publishing. You won't be penalized for including it in a new game the way you would in an older one, where you would almost certainly be sacrificing other content to fit in examples.

I would say that a solo-adventure, even with the noble purpose of teaching the system, would be a bad idea if the game is a social game. In other words, if it isn't meant to be played solo, why introduce it using a solo adventure?

I am, however, all for the idea of a quick introductory adventure of some kind. The Haunting worked for Call of Cthulhu for years. For all I know, it may still be in the rulebook. I actually used it two years ago to introduce the game to a friend who had always wanted to play it.

Finally, this thread begs another question for me. What about "GM training scenarios" in your game? I don't think I have ever seen this done, but it would be cool. Think of them as essay questions or chess problems. Example: "Your players walk into a room they were expecting to be empty but which actually contained a red dragon that was napping. Does either get a surprise round?" You could put together 20 or so scenarios, some with tight, rules-oriented answers and some with more "it depends" kinds of answers. You could even prepare the GM to deal with social issues. "You have been playing for a few weeks and one player is hogging the spotlight. What method would you use to make sure others get their turn to shine?"

It would be an interesting approach.

CyberGeneration did that too. The whole of character creation was the opening adventure.

It was a pretty interesting idea, something that I've been rolling around in my head for nearly a decade.

First off, hello. I happened on this board yesterday and was going to lurk until I found this post. The topic has been on my mind recently because I'm building an rpg using a solo adventure as a tutorial of play, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

As a player, and someone who's been playing for awhile, I found that solo adventures let me check that I understood the rules and gave me a taste of the flavour of the game, but were not vital to playing. Also, if there are any mistakes in the solo adventure it can be quite confusing and very frustrating.

As a writer, I've found a solo adventure to be a good "test case" of how actual play might work, but as has been said, it's not the same as if the game was meant for group play. It also feels like a solo adventure is something I could give to someone and say: "try this out."

Some examples of games that have solo adventures that I've been checking out:
- A very short and simple solo adventure that I thought worked really well.
The Dungeons and Dragons Red Box - A more in depth adventure but I felt it had some errors (or points where I just said "What? What happened?) and was maybe trying to do too much without doing it well.
, which is probably more along the lines of what most people are doing here.

When I first read this thread, I thought BRILLIANT IDEA! And frothed for several minutes before my wife administered my medication. I think solo games are great and using them as a way of teaching the rules is brilliant. When I came to think how I would implement that for my games, I stopped suddenly. What would the solo mission look like? How big would it be? Would it be choose-you-own-adventure? Would I do all the mechanics? How would that work when used as reference?

Then, all of a sudden, I wasn't sure. So I frothed and had some more meds.

A solo adventure is one way to teach the rules but I am not convinced that it should go into the core rulebook. This is because it is not the best way to demonstrate the rules. The core rulebook should have as little fat in it as possible as it is used as both a read-through and a reference. Someone is going to have to print it, you know. The solo-adventure-to-learn-the-rules should be included alongside the rules, not as part of it.

CaptainPhoenix - welcome. 1km1kt is far too friendly for lurking to be worthwhile for long. It's good to have some more officers in here, it's getting a little too crowded with the ranks and hoi polloi.

We prefer the term "Other ranks", Sir.

The Pathfinder Beginners box has a great Solo intro adventure and an introductory campaign area. It would be cool to release a beginners guide to ICAR.

So what would the length of an introductory solo adventure be? It's only intended to give the player a feel for how the game runs so a single combat opponent is really all that's needed. It could include some other rules, like starting out hand to hand and then jumping in vehicles for a chase which would make it longer.

(Long time lurker, etc).

I created a solo adventure - The Sundered Tower - for my Heroes Against Darkness system to give players an introduction to the system, including Ability Tests, Combat, and Magic.

One advantage of a solo adventure is that a GM can play this to get an idea of how the system works before running the game for players.

The solo adventure for Heroes Against Darkness is 28 pages, and contains the following:

1. Three pages of introduction and rules at the front.
2. A 100 section non-linear gamebook style adventure section (like the Fabled Lands/Quest books).
3. Five combat encounters with maps.
4. Three pre-generated characters (warrior, hospiter, warlock).

For the gamebook section of the adventure, I first created it in Twine then transfered it into the adventure and formatted it. Twine allows you to create numbered sections and link between them, which is better than toing it by hand!

Check out the solo adventure on the website (linked in the sig), and hit me up if you have any other questions.

I don't think that it's a good idea to put such an extensive adventure into a core rulebook (because it's limited in its application), but I think they're useful supplements to have available as downloads.