I had an idea this morning, it seems brilliant, but it could be terrible.
The core mechanics for the Star Trek rules currently cover just 4 pages, with pretty wide margins and a few examples.
I could format these down to my usual 6×9 format, add in examples of everything, and add an actual play of my mission to Iconia V. That would bump the page count up to ~24 pages, which would be enough to print it.
But, and this is the idea…
If I left it at 4 pages of US Letter, I could do two things with it.
Option 1
I set up the pages to be hole-punched on one side. These then become the first set of pages in a binder, the second set would be John Carter, Warlord of Mars, the third would be Conan, and so on. You would have a binder with each system, and you could add in any other random tables or whatever you need to solo the games.
Option 2
This is the one I am most excited about. I set the four pages up as GM Screen Inserts. DTRPG has a good-looking GM Screen, and Amazon stocks similar things as well. As with Option 1, each of these 2d20 solo sets would be in the same format, so you put the inserts in to match the game.
I can even combine the two and put an artistic border on the left-hand side so you can hole punch them for storage, or leave them intact and store them in sleeves.
The DriveThruRPG GM screen is pretty expensive to get delivered outside the US, but I could get these made Print on Demand so you get them premium color on card.
Outside the US, you can either buy the DTRPG screen or Amazon stock similar items or try Googling Acrylic Display Stands. These are single sheet clear plastic stands, typically used for menus.
The DriveThruRPG Screen can be seen here.
The acrylic displays that I am thinking of can be seen here, there are many different designs so you could pick whatever appealed.
In my grand plan, I started with just PDF solo rules, then I moved to print, I am currently doing print and I am just getting started with card decks. I was my intention to eventually create GM screens for the solo rules. I can imagine some players with their character and rulebook in front of them and a Solo screen and cards on the table alongside their dice and pencils. Others may just have the soul rules on their tablet and the game system on the GM screen, I would like to have the right options for whatever the soloist wants. If you cannot please all of the people all of the time, you need more options!
So that is my idea of the day.
What do you think? Pad it out to a book, reference cards, screen inserts, or all of the above with a card deck to go with it? (that last option is possibly a joke)
Take a look in the Work In Progress Folder for Away Team 1.pdf, just to keep you amused over the weekend.