If I include the contents of the template in the same sections and orders, can I use a different page layout?
5.5" x 8.5" pages would be my preference.
If I do a solo module, it will be more like a 'choose your own adventure' and in order to do that in 2000 words, I will want to have terse blurbs on individual pages. I'll have a longer page count and like a 'choose your own adventure' style, the reader will flip back and forth as directed.
e.g.: "If you swim the river, go to p 21. If you try to make a raft and pole across, go to p. 13."
I think they call what I had in mind a 'signature pamphlet' (5.5" x 8.5" individual pages). If one was printing it, ideally it would, instead of having individual 5.5" x 8.5" pages, you'd have folded landscape 11" x 8.5" and you'd print most pages with four 5.5" x 8.5" pages with the right page numbering and then they'd nest into a pamphlet that staples in the center.
This is an experiment: I'm not sure yet whether a 'choose your own adventure' solo game is feasible in 2000 words as that definitely limits your number of steps, but I'd like to try and to not make it easy to see the next step, it has to be on another page and ideally not the following page as the late 1980s books did.