Why Play Dungeons & Dragons Solo?

Dungeons & Dragons is a social game. You gather around a table—or meet online—with friends, create characters, roll dice, and build a story together. The conversations, unexpected decisions, jokes, and shared memories are a huge part of what makes the game special.

So why would anyone want to play it alone?

I asked myself that question before my first solo session. Since then, solo D&D has become one of my favorite ways to experience the game. It does not replace playing with a group, and I do not think it needs to. It gives me something different: the freedom to play when I want, explore the books at my own pace, and experiment without worrying about whether my choices will affect anyone else’s campaign.

This article is the first part of an updated series about how I play D&D solo. I have written about my approach before, but the way I play has changed. I use fewer tools, worry less about hidden information, and change the size of my adventuring party depending on the kind of session I want.

Before explaining those rules, I want to start with a more fundamental question: what do I mean when I say solo D&D, and why do I play it at all?

What Is Solo D&D?

When I talk about solo D&D, I mean playing without another player or a separate Dungeon Master. I control the player characters, read and interpret the adventure, run the monsters and NPCs, and decide how the rules apply.

This is not a GMless format officially defined in the D&D rulebooks. The game normally divides those responsibilities between a Dungeon Master and a group of players. Solo play keeps most of the familiar pieces—character sheets, classes, spells, monsters, ability checks, combat, and published adventures—but puts one person in every seat.

I like to compare it to an older strategy video game. In Warcraft III, I could play a multiplayer match with other people, or I could play through the campaign by myself. Both modes used the same basic game, but they produced very different experiences.

The analogy is not perfect, but it captures how I think about solo D&D. Playing with friends is the multiplayer experience. Playing alone is closer to working through a campaign: I follow the story, make decisions for my characters, and discover how the adventure unfolds.

That comparison feels especially appropriate now that World of Warcraft is officially coming to D&D. Still, the important part is not the specific video game. It is the idea that a game can be enjoyable in a social mode and a single-player mode for different reasons.

When You Do Not Have a Group

The most obvious reason to play solo is also the reason I started: you want to play D&D, but you do not have anyone available to play with.

Maybe you do not know other people who are interested. Maybe you are uncomfortable joining a group of strangers when you are still learning the rules. Maybe you know people who would enjoy the game, but aligning everyone’s schedules feels like an adventure more difficult than anything in the books.

That was my situation when I first became interested in D&D. I wanted to understand the game before joining a group, but I had no one sitting beside me to teach it. I could continue reading rules and watching videos, or I could create some characters, open an adventure, and start rolling dice.

I decided to play.

Learning the Game by Playing Every Side

My first solo campaign was Dragon of Icespire Peak, the adventure included in the Essentials Kit. I wrote more about that experience in When It All Started, as well as my thoughts about the box in my Essentials Kit review.

I created four characters, read the adventure, ran the encounters, and tried to roleplay how each character would react. At the same time, I was learning what the rules meant.

I made mistakes. I misunderstood abilities. I probably interpreted encounters in ways that an experienced Dungeon Master would not. I also spent plenty of time flipping between character sheets, the adventure, and the rulebooks.

None of that prevented me from having fun.

Building the characters was fun. Reading the adventure was fun. Running monsters and discovering how combat worked was fun. Even though I experienced a famously social game alone, that first playthrough made me want to learn more about D&D’s mechanics, settings, monsters, and history.

Solo play can be a useful way to learn because you experience both sides of the table. A new player can learn how ability checks, spells, and combat work. A player who has never been a DM can practice reading stat blocks and running encounters. A forever DM can finally try the character build that has been sitting in their head for months.

It is not the fastest way to learn, because you are responsible for everything. But it lets you stop, look up a rule, replay a situation, or admit that you made a mistake without slowing down anybody else.

Playing When Your Schedule Allows It

Even when you have a regular group, scheduling can limit how often you play. People have jobs, families, appointments, and responsibilities. A campaign might meet every two weeks or once a month. A cancelled session can turn that gap into six weeks surprisingly quickly.

Solo D&D does not require everyone to be free on the same evening.

If I have thirty minutes, I can organize my character sheets, resolve a social scene, or explore a few rooms. If I have an hour, I can run an encounter. If I have an open afternoon, I can settle in and complete a larger part of the adventure.

I can also stop whenever I need to. There is no pressure to reach the end of a dungeon before the session ends because four other people are waiting. I can pause in the middle of combat, take a picture of the battlefield, write down whose turn is next, and continue another day.

That flexibility is one of the biggest reasons solo play continues to work for me. It fits around my life instead of requiring my life to fit around it.

Exploring More of the Books I Own

Published campaigns can take a group months or years to complete. That means a person can love D&D, own several adventures, and still never see most of what is inside them.

Solo play gives me another way to enjoy those books.

Maybe my group is already committed to a long campaign, but I want to see why everyone talks about Curse of Strahd. Maybe I bought an anthology and want to try a short adventure written for a higher-level party. Maybe I am curious about a monster, dungeon, setting, or encounter that is unlikely to appear in my regular game.

I can open the book and find out for myself.

For me, reading a published adventure is already enjoyable. It is not exactly like reading a novel—the book is written as material to run at the table—but it still contains characters, locations, mysteries, and a story waiting to happen. Playing it solo lets me do more than read the description. I get to live through it, make choices, roll the dice, and see what happens to my party.

So far, I have not played a published adventure that I completely disliked. Some themes, villains, or locations appeal to me more than others, but I enjoy taking my time and experiencing the journey without worrying about whether an adventure has the perfect reputation online.

Trying Characters and Rules Without Consequences for a Group

Solo play is also a great laboratory.

In a group campaign, everyone contributes time and energy. Players create backstories, choose abilities, and try to build characters who can participate in the story. Even when nobody is focused on optimization, I do not necessarily want to arrive with a joke character or an experimental build that could make the game less enjoyable for everyone else.

When I play alone, I can try anything.

I can build a party made entirely of Wizards and discover how fragile they are at low levels. I can play without a spellcaster. I can give a Barbarian terrible Intelligence and make that weakness part of the story. I can test a subclass, feat, spell, magic item, or piece of third-party material that would not be allowed at my regular table.

I can also change a rule halfway through the session if it is not working. There is no debate and no risk that another player built their character around the rule I just changed. I only need to be honest with myself about what kind of experience I want.

That does not mean every decision has to make the game easier. Sometimes the fun comes from testing an intentionally strange party or allowing a bad decision to have serious consequences. The important part is that the choice belongs entirely to me.

Experiencing the Player and DM Roles

Sometimes a person already has a group but wants to experience the other side of the table.

A player might be curious about running monsters, adjudicating rules, or managing an adventure. Becoming the DM in an existing campaign is not always practical, especially if reading the book would reveal secrets they are supposed to discover later.

A forever DM may have the opposite problem. They spend years introducing villains and controlling monsters but rarely get to build a hero and follow that character through a campaign.

Solo D&D gives both people room to experiment. A player can practice the DM side with a different adventure. A DM can finally play a character—or an entire party—without waiting for someone else to run the game.

It also allows very specific experiments. If I want to see how a high-level monster actually feels in combat, I can build an appropriate party and run the encounter. If my regular campaign never reaches level 12, I can still try those higher-level class features, spells, and stat blocks.

Solo D&D Does Not Replace Group D&D

I do not see solo and group D&D as opponents.

Playing alone is not better because I control everything. Playing with a group is not automatically better because that is how D&D was designed. They are complementary ways to enjoy the same hobby.

A group produces moments I could never create alone. Other players surprise me. They misunderstand clues, invent plans I would never consider, make jokes, and take the story somewhere unexpected. That shared experience is special.

Solo play gives me freedom that a group cannot. I decide when to play, how long to play, which material to use, how dangerous the campaign should be, and what parts of the game deserve the most attention.

Sometimes I want conversation, collaboration, and the energy of a table. Sometimes I want a quiet evening with a book, character sheets, and dice. Enjoying one does not diminish the other.

The Real Appeal Is Freedom

When I look at all my reasons for playing solo, they return to one idea: freedom of choice.

I can play when I have time. I can stop when I need to. I can test unusual characters, run monsters I have never used, explore adventures my group may never choose, and change the difficulty to fit the experience I want that day.

If a group session is cancelled just after my character gained Extra Attack or learned an exciting spell, I can run a small encounter and test it. If I want to see how a new magic item changes combat, I do not have to wait two weeks. If I simply want to spend an hour in a fantasy world after everyone else has gone to bed, I can.

That is why I play Dungeons & Dragons solo.

The next part of this series will explain how I choose and manage the adventuring party, including why I normally use two to four characters, how I adjust that number from one session to another, and the different campaign modes I use when deciding how dangerous the adventure should be.