Modules

[Talmor]

Anyone have an experience running pre-published modules? How did you go about running these? 

I've had some success with those that are, more or less, "sandboxes" but anything with a defined story, such as a mystery or the like, tends to just not quite work.

[Teviko604]

While the only published adventures I have played through are one-page dungeons and a 5-Room dungeon (both of which are very vague and leave a lot of room for solo creativity), I have come across a few resources that give the solo player suggestions or tools to help play through published modules.

Article: How to Play Through A Published Adventure On Your Own Without a Dungeon Master

Product: DM Yourself

Article: How to Rewrite an Adventure - Part 1, Part 2  

Additionally, a lot of other ideas can be found by doing a Google search for "play a published module solo".

Hope this helps.

[Talmor]

So, I've actually used most of those, to some degree or another. I actually found and saved the Lone Crusader site back when it was still active, and still rather miss that site. The problem, if one could call it such, is that almost all the advice for running a module solo is heavily geared towards D&D.

Now, this makes sense, given that D&D is by far the largest RPG out there with the most players. But actually, D&D modules are probably the easiest to run Solo. Most of them you can get away with just running it with minimal prep and making decisions as you read through it. I've had quite a few fun games playing the modules, though I tend to prefer the "old school" ones that are even more "sandboxy." One of my favorite games was playing B2, until I got setup by a bunch of cultists I thought were my friends and led into an ambush. Ah, good times.

But, there's a ton of other modules I'd love to play, that I can quite figure out how the best way to do so. Specifically, some of the classic Call of Cthulhu ones. These are very different style beasts than how D&D modules are organized. Less "do you take the left corridor or search the door to your right?" and more "do you know how to do an investigation, and can you make sense of the various clues you have found and figure out what is going on and how to stop it?" I've had some success taking various characters and plot threads from these style of modules and feeding them into tools like The Adventure Crafter, which resulted in something fun and similar to, but different, from the original. But, that's not exactly what I'm hoping to achieve. Fortunately, CoC has some top notch solo modules, but, man, I really want to solo something like Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Right now I'm playing around with adapting the SOLO rules from Zozer games for interparty drama and the "strip the parts and plug it into AC" that I've done before, but I'd love to see if there are any better ideas out there.

[Teviko604]

I would check out some of Gerard's playthrough over at alea ictanda est. He has posted playthroughs of a few CoC and Silent Legions games. I've only read some of his Silent Legions stuff, but maybe you can get some ideas from him. He's pretty good at showing his gameplay while telling a good story. Here is a link to his index. Just scroll down to the CoC and Silent Legions games.

http://aleaiactandaest.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_15.html

[gororules]

I run DnD modules as a dispassionate observer/referee.
I read through the published module and use the maps.
I use DnD's dungeon crawling and wilderness travel procedures, combat, wandering monsters, and core mechanics.
I create characters, and assign a UNE personality trait.
I ask questions regarding what the characters do:
Q Does the group want to check out the kobold caves? (50/50)
A. 35 (Yes)

"Does Bob use his 10-foot pole to check for traps ahead?" Wisdom check or Mythic fate roll.
"Does the party want to check for secret doors in this dead end?" Likely