I know ideally you get together with a few people and play, but I’d like to know if there’s a way to play by yourself. I’ve tried doing this before by playing the role of DM and player, but it isn’t nearly as fun and honestly doesn’t really work. So I was wondering if there’s a website or a software that’ll DM for you. And if they exist, are they free? Or, is there some sort of method listed in the books that’ll allow you to play by yourself?
i had this idea once that you could dm and play but you write it down like a book but since you still have dice rolls it still pertains some of the randomness, but idk about rp and I’ve never tried doing that myself it was just an idea i once had, so maybe try and writing si and it might be able to play the character and you just plug in the dice rolls? I hope this helps and good luck on your venture.
I used to do this when I was young, with the random dungeon generator and four characters that I played. It was fun and I learned a lot, but it's mostly simply wargaming and some exploration without roleplay. You could do this with the random generator in the new DMG but it's dungeon generator isn't as robust.
Another great way is to play using the Fighting Fantasy books. I played many of these, and they include fighting, exploration, and roleplay to an extent. They aren't 5e but the system is robust and easy to learn. They are like Choose your Own adventures, but with character sheet and dice rolls. https://www.fightingfantasy.com/
Yeah, I mean, I think I could play with myself as the DM and PC.
Being a DM is its own challenge: creating branching plots and balanced combats. Then you can play those out, and depending on the dice, it might go one way or the other.
I would prefer not to do it, though, because DMing is a big time commitment, and it would feel like a waste if only one person enjoys it. The thing that keeps me prepping is that my players give positive feedback about the game. But I suppose if I couldn't find a game group, I might do it to pass the time, or prep for a future time when I might find a group to run.
In some sense, playing D&D with yourself is the process a writer uses to write a fantasy novel.
I remember having a DSA book a few years ago. Where every page had several small blocks of descriptions of what happens. When you get to decide something it tells you to go page A, B or C and continue from there.
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Nugz - Kobold Level 4 Bloodhunter/Order of the Mutant - Out there looking for snacks and evil monsters.
Ultrix Schwarzdorn - Human Level 6 Artificer/Armorer - Retired and works in his new shop.
Quercus Espenkiel - Gnome Level 9 Wizard/Order of Scribes - Turned into a book and sits on a shelf.
Artin - Fairy Level 4 Sorcerer/Wild Magic - Busy with annoying the townsfolk. Again.
Jabor - Fire Genasi - Level 4 Wizard/School of Evocation - The First Flame, The Last Chaos. Probably in jail, again.
Playing D&D by yourself is what they call "video games" these days. It's the equivalent of writing one of those "choose your own adventure" books and then playing it. No surprises. If you're just going to sit and roll dice for results and you already know what happens if you succeed or fail, you might as well be playing Yatzee.
If you figure out a way, I'd be curious to hear how much fun you had.
There are solo D&D adventures on Drive Thru RPG. I have one but haven't played it yet.
There are soloing systems ("DM Yourself," Mythic's GM Emulator, etc.).
Odds are though, you might be better off playing a game that was meant to be solo'ed, like Scarlet Heroes or Ironsworn. Those are not D&D, but their soloing features are pretty extensive and that you might want to solo them was considered and allowed for by the authors. In particular, Ironsworn is like this. But it is a VERY different system from D&D. SH is closer to D&D (it has hit points, AC, etc).
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BioWizard
I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Of course you can. It's just structured daydreaming/brainstorming/make-believe.
"yes, but there's no roleplay" - why not? There's nothing stopping you from making decisions from the character's points of view. Keep the party small and have some very distinctive viewpoints to make it easier to avoid melding into one person. Taking notes from each PC's point of view can help a lot.
"there's no surprises" - if you RP, the story can be emergent just as if others were playing with you. If you need to stop and work out the stats of something unexpected, you can - no one is sitting there waiting for you to continue.
My 5-year-old does this daily with stuffed animals. No one knows how the stories will end, including her. You can do it too. It's not as good as playing with others, but it engages your brain more than watching TV.
I essentially play D&D by myself every time I prep a session. I usually think about what the players might want to do and how NPCs would react. I even sometimes come up with ability checks with DCs, and sometimes I play a simulated trial run of a combat to check its balance. It might not play out exactly like that on game night, but the trial run gives me some idea of what I need to prepare: what encounters and how many I'll need to fill the session, what NPC names and voices I need to plan, etc.
There are also card games with a D&D feel that work well for solo play. The Pathfinder card game is the only one I'm familiar with but there are others (I think with official D&D content). Anyway, you have characters that you can upgrade as you play and the game scenario is basically like the DM. It's still not D&D but it works if you really can't find a group and want an RPG fix.
I think the OP doesn't want to play a video game or a choose your own adventure book. They want to make a character within the rule set and play adventures and watch the character grow/level up etc., maybe someday integrate that character. with a multi player table. As Bio and Pang point out, D&D isn't necessarily the best system for solo play, but it can be done. Other editions actually published quite a few solo adventure modules. WotC hasn't put out any from the main D&D studio, but as. pointed out there are Adventurer's Guild and 3rd Party products you can find through searching either for "solo" on DMs guild or "solo 5e adventures in Google. There was a good discussion of solo play not long ago (so search solo play in this forum too) and someone I think linked a resource that explained how someone could actually use 5e output of adventure campaigns in a solitaire conversion.
Sorta to elaborate on what Pavillionaire was offering, there's also the whole "theory craft" thing where, among other things, folks will design characters and do battle simulations against a variety of encounters.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
D&D did have "solo" adventures. They required two people. The DM and one player.
There's solo play, DM and a player, but that was usually branded as tete-a-tete or "versus" adversarial two player product. There's also solitaire play, also branded as solo play with a player playing through a module on their own, without a DM receiving XP etc, and even spaces in the page layout for players to leave their PC's inventory to find if the PC dies. I think they even encouraged players to strike out from the text treasure looted and traps disabled. Oh, yes they did. Here's a reprint of my first D&D experience (solo) The Ghost of Lion Castle. It makes mention of the whole B/E/M-SOLO module series which is what I was talking about. No DM required, and play through is with a character compatible to be integrated into a regular D&D game. DMsGuild has the whole line available from what I can tell. If you play around with DMsGuild search engine, and select "adventures" as product type, "5th" for edition and type "solo" in the search bar gets you 164 results, by and far mostly meant to played by one player without a DM, some are even enabled for Fantasy Grounds. Quite a few are well rated and ranked sellers and are not bargain basement priced so there's evidently a market/playerbase for this style of playing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I can see why I'd never heard of the solo adventure "The Ghost of Lion Castle". I started with the first edition of AD&D, and I think what you're talking about was the rules in the red box or maybe far back as the blue one.
Does WotC have any published solo adventures of the kind where you just play through yourself? I wouldn't advice trying things that WotC didn't publish for the 5th edition, because how ever close to the published rules they might be, third party stuff makes allowances that might give a new player the wrong impression, and if they tried to play in a real game with other players it would be confusing.
To answer OP's question, there's The Saint's Tomb and A Miner Problem, which are both free web gamebooks that you can play solo. Neither are official WotC games, but they seem to use the standard ruleset.
Get hold of the old Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy adventure game books. That's essentially an RPG that you play by yourself.
You cannot play actual D&D by yourself, because it fundamentally requires 2 people to play.
Writing a book is nothing like playing D&D. D&D is the most sociable game you can imagine; writing a book is one of the least sociable activities possible.
Get hold of the old Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy adventure game books. That's essentially an RPG that you play by yourself.
You cannot play actual D&D by yourself, because it fundamentally requires 2 people to play.
Writing a book is nothing like playing D&D. D&D is the most sociable game you can imagine; writing a book is one of the least sociable activities possible.
I know ideally you get together with a few people and play, but I’d like to know if there’s a way to play by yourself. I’ve tried doing this before by playing the role of DM and player, but it isn’t nearly as fun and honestly doesn’t really work. So I was wondering if there’s a website or a software that’ll DM for you. And if they exist, are they free? Or, is there some sort of method listed in the books that’ll allow you to play by yourself?
i had this idea once that you could dm and play but you write it down like a book but since you still have dice rolls it still pertains some of the randomness, but idk about rp and I’ve never tried doing that myself it was just an idea i once had, so maybe try and writing si and it might be able to play the character and you just plug in the dice rolls? I hope this helps and good luck on your venture.
insert original witty signature here:
I used to do this when I was young, with the random dungeon generator and four characters that I played. It was fun and I learned a lot, but it's mostly simply wargaming and some exploration without roleplay. You could do this with the random generator in the new DMG but it's dungeon generator isn't as robust.
Another great way is to play using the Fighting Fantasy books. I played many of these, and they include fighting, exploration, and roleplay to an extent. They aren't 5e but the system is robust and easy to learn. They are like Choose your Own adventures, but with character sheet and dice rolls. https://www.fightingfantasy.com/
Yeah, I mean, I think I could play with myself as the DM and PC.
Being a DM is its own challenge: creating branching plots and balanced combats. Then you can play those out, and depending on the dice, it might go one way or the other.
I would prefer not to do it, though, because DMing is a big time commitment, and it would feel like a waste if only one person enjoys it. The thing that keeps me prepping is that my players give positive feedback about the game. But I suppose if I couldn't find a game group, I might do it to pass the time, or prep for a future time when I might find a group to run.
In some sense, playing D&D with yourself is the process a writer uses to write a fantasy novel.
I remember having a DSA book a few years ago. Where every page had several small blocks of descriptions of what happens. When you get to decide something it tells you to go page A, B or C and continue from there.
Nugz - Kobold Level 4 Bloodhunter/Order of the Mutant - Out there looking for snacks and evil monsters.
Ultrix Schwarzdorn - Human Level 6 Artificer/Armorer - Retired and works in his new shop.
Quercus Espenkiel - Gnome Level 9 Wizard/Order of Scribes - Turned into a book and sits on a shelf.
Artin - Fairy Level 4 Sorcerer/Wild Magic - Busy with annoying the townsfolk. Again.
Jabor - Fire Genasi - Level 4 Wizard/School of Evocation - The First Flame, The Last Chaos. Probably in jail, again.
Plenty of products for solo and single player+DM games: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_0_45752_0_0_0_0
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Playing D&D by yourself is what they call "video games" these days. It's the equivalent of writing one of those "choose your own adventure" books and then playing it. No surprises. If you're just going to sit and roll dice for results and you already know what happens if you succeed or fail, you might as well be playing Yatzee.
If you figure out a way, I'd be curious to hear how much fun you had.
<Insert clever signature here>
There are solo D&D adventures on Drive Thru RPG. I have one but haven't played it yet.
There are soloing systems ("DM Yourself," Mythic's GM Emulator, etc.).
Odds are though, you might be better off playing a game that was meant to be solo'ed, like Scarlet Heroes or Ironsworn. Those are not D&D, but their soloing features are pretty extensive and that you might want to solo them was considered and allowed for by the authors. In particular, Ironsworn is like this. But it is a VERY different system from D&D. SH is closer to D&D (it has hit points, AC, etc).
BioWizard
I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Of course you can. It's just structured daydreaming/brainstorming/make-believe.
"yes, but there's no roleplay" - why not? There's nothing stopping you from making decisions from the character's points of view. Keep the party small and have some very distinctive viewpoints to make it easier to avoid melding into one person. Taking notes from each PC's point of view can help a lot.
"there's no surprises" - if you RP, the story can be emergent just as if others were playing with you. If you need to stop and work out the stats of something unexpected, you can - no one is sitting there waiting for you to continue.
My 5-year-old does this daily with stuffed animals. No one knows how the stories will end, including her. You can do it too. It's not as good as playing with others, but it engages your brain more than watching TV.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I essentially play D&D by myself every time I prep a session. I usually think about what the players might want to do and how NPCs would react. I even sometimes come up with ability checks with DCs, and sometimes I play a simulated trial run of a combat to check its balance. It might not play out exactly like that on game night, but the trial run gives me some idea of what I need to prepare: what encounters and how many I'll need to fill the session, what NPC names and voices I need to plan, etc.
Baldur's Gate 3.
I guess you can play by yourself, but I probably wouldn't call it D&D then.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
There are also card games with a D&D feel that work well for solo play. The Pathfinder card game is the only one I'm familiar with but there are others (I think with official D&D content). Anyway, you have characters that you can upgrade as you play and the game scenario is basically like the DM. It's still not D&D but it works if you really can't find a group and want an RPG fix.
I think the OP doesn't want to play a video game or a choose your own adventure book. They want to make a character within the rule set and play adventures and watch the character grow/level up etc., maybe someday integrate that character. with a multi player table. As Bio and Pang point out, D&D isn't necessarily the best system for solo play, but it can be done. Other editions actually published quite a few solo adventure modules. WotC hasn't put out any from the main D&D studio, but as. pointed out there are Adventurer's Guild and 3rd Party products you can find through searching either for "solo" on DMs guild or "solo 5e adventures in Google. There was a good discussion of solo play not long ago (so search solo play in this forum too) and someone I think linked a resource that explained how someone could actually use 5e output of adventure campaigns in a solitaire conversion.
Sorta to elaborate on what Pavillionaire was offering, there's also the whole "theory craft" thing where, among other things, folks will design characters and do battle simulations against a variety of encounters.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
D&D did have "solo" adventures. They required two people. The DM and one player.
<Insert clever signature here>
There's solo play, DM and a player, but that was usually branded as tete-a-tete or "versus" adversarial two player product. There's also solitaire play, also branded as solo play with a player playing through a module on their own, without a DM receiving XP etc, and even spaces in the page layout for players to leave their PC's inventory to find if the PC dies. I think they even encouraged players to strike out from the text treasure looted and traps disabled. Oh, yes they did. Here's a reprint of my first D&D experience (solo) The Ghost of Lion Castle. It makes mention of the whole B/E/M-SOLO module series which is what I was talking about. No DM required, and play through is with a character compatible to be integrated into a regular D&D game. DMsGuild has the whole line available from what I can tell. If you play around with DMsGuild search engine, and select "adventures" as product type, "5th" for edition and type "solo" in the search bar gets you 164 results, by and far mostly meant to played by one player without a DM, some are even enabled for Fantasy Grounds. Quite a few are well rated and ranked sellers and are not bargain basement priced so there's evidently a market/playerbase for this style of playing.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I can see why I'd never heard of the solo adventure "The Ghost of Lion Castle". I started with the first edition of AD&D, and I think what you're talking about was the rules in the red box or maybe far back as the blue one.
Does WotC have any published solo adventures of the kind where you just play through yourself? I wouldn't advice trying things that WotC didn't publish for the 5th edition, because how ever close to the published rules they might be, third party stuff makes allowances that might give a new player the wrong impression, and if they tried to play in a real game with other players it would be confusing.
<Insert clever signature here>
To answer OP's question, there's The Saint's Tomb and A Miner Problem, which are both free web gamebooks that you can play solo. Neither are official WotC games, but they seem to use the standard ruleset.
https://sayeth.itch.io/
Easy solution: write a book
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXI?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
Get hold of the old Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy adventure game books. That's essentially an RPG that you play by yourself.
You cannot play actual D&D by yourself, because it fundamentally requires 2 people to play.
Writing a book is nothing like playing D&D. D&D is the most sociable game you can imagine; writing a book is one of the least sociable activities possible.
Sociable… by playing alone?
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXI?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature