There are many benefits to playing Dungeons & Dragons alone and players should try to do it at least once. Although the game is most often played in groups, with most campaigns being written considering four players or more, there are many resources available that make the game entertaining even without a proper group or Dungeon Master. And doing so allows players to test out new character builds, experiment with new homebrew rules, and become a better DM.
It's possible to play Dungeons & Dragons alone, with many resources available to make the experience as enjoyable and organic as possible. There are several adventure campaigns available throughout RPG stores that were made specifically for solo players, with the book serving the same function as the Dungeon Master in a regular campaign. However, there are also plenty of third-party supplements made specifically for solo D&D players, which may contain a variety of helpful resources like randomizing tables that determine the outcomes of certain events, what is present in certain locations, and what encounters are to be faced.
However, although there is little control about the campaign when playing alone, playing a solo D&D campaign has several benefits to the player, helping them become a better DM as they gain a better understanding of the workings of the game. Due to the lack of limitations about what can be done when playing alone, players can experience an infinitely diverse world without any boundaries, meeting other NPCs and progressing through the story. And because they’re not playing with other people with their own specific restraints, a solo session is the perfect environment for testing out uncommon character builds, with homebrew races and classes that wouldn’t necessarily be allowed at other tables.
Solo D&D Campaigns Have No Defined Bounds
When beginning to play in a group, the campaign is usually already laid out, with set objectives and story points. Players can use one of the official Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, like the one included in the Dragons Of Stormwreck Isle set, which has every town, map, encounter and general goal planned, or use a custom one written by the Dungeon Master. Either way, players and DMs need to prepare themselves - creating characters, balancing combat, and rehearsing NPCs. However, little preparation is required to play D&D completely alone.
Although the player can opt into using a specific adventure book and campaign setting specifically made to be played by a single person without a DM, it’s common to completely randomize every aspect of the campaign by using other supplemental books. When browsing websites like the Dungeon Masters Guild, players can find numerous materials with tables that predict most situations, as well as oracles that function as a Dungeon Master, leading them through an unknown campaign. This random factor in the game allows it to become endless, with an infinite world full of possibilities and quests for players to follow.
Create And Play As Any Character In Solo D&D
Sometimes, DMs can consider banning certain D&D character builds, often to prevent players from making mistakes or creating overpowered characters. DMs can ban certain races or classes that they’re not familiar enough with or wouldn’t fit in the universe they built, avoiding the extra preparation to learn these rules. Although these bans are justified, as it’s the DMs responsibility to make sure that everyone, including themselves, are having fun at the table, players can still fantasize about these characters that they won’t play at their current game.
However, banning races and classes is rarely a concern when playing Dungeons & Dragons solo. Books dedicated to written solo campaigns will frequently contain their own recommendations and rules about character creation, but there are rarely any limitations when running a completely randomized campaign, unless they were established by the player. This creates the perfect environment for experimentation with classes that aren’t often used in builds, such as playing as a plasmoid introduced in Spelljammer, or even use homebrew rules that they enjoy. And as the story progresses, players can also intimately know their character’s motivations and how their backstory will impact them during the campaign.
Solo D&D Is Good To Exercise The Imagination
Playing Dungeons & Dragons has several benefits to the imagination. Imagining the scenario that a character is in and reacting to it accordingly is one of the greatest parts of the role-playing aspect of the game, and it serves as a constant exercise in creativity. This is even more noticeable when considering the role of the Dungeon Master, who is the person that must imagine several concepts about each place visited in the session, from its basic appearance to its power structures and government. However, playing Dungeons & Dragons alone demands that a person fulfills both roles, which can be even more challenging.
There are many steps for a DM to create a balanced world in D&D or running a pre-established campaign, and one of them is to determine the reasons behind the events that set the adventure into motion. However, this becomes more difficult when the only person playing knows as much as the character, and hasn’t had an active role in developing the universe in which the campaign is set in. Frequently, solo D&D players will roll dice on keyword tables to determine these events, but it's their responsibility to make sure that everything makes sense when considering the context. This can be a very challenging exercise of creativity, allowing the player to easily understand certain situations and can gather experience in developing improvised encounters at random, as they would be required to when being the DM.
Although Dungeons & Dragons is a game intended to be played with more than four people, with players being able to find a group without leaving their homes, playing alone has several benefits. Not only it’s an exercise in being a DM and in storytelling, making it easier to test out the aspects of a campaign, it’s excellent to become accustomed to the workings of the game, play with homebrew rules that wouldn’t be accepted in other tables, and learn more about races and classes and how they function within the context of the game.
Source: Dungeon Masters Guild
