The ideal game of DnD (Dungeons & Dragons) is one where a group of friends sit down with each other at a table, pull up some figurines and dice, and begin roleplaying their hearts out. However, what happens if you want to play DnD alone? Maybe you’ve got a niche campaign in mind your friends won’t enjoy, or nobody wants to play DnD with you. There are several guides online for this already, but I’m going to try to keep things concise. So let’s ask the simple question: “How do I play DnD alone?”

First, let’s discuss the story. There are a few options for choosing a DnD story to run. However, you must consider the most important thing: you are both the DM and the player. As a result, you have to realise that any tricks a story might try to pull on the player won’t work. Let’s say a room your character is going to enter has a swinging boulder trap. Well, you already know it exists and will probably do everything in your power to evade something that was supposed to be hidden. To avoid this you may choose to run a pre-made module meant specifically for solo play. “Blizzard Pass” and “Maze of the Riddling Minotaur” are examples of adventure modules with solo play in mind. Pick one of them up, create a character, and start playing.

But let’s say that instead of running an adventure meant for solo play, you want to run an actual campaign or even your own personal adventure. In these cases, you should go in with the expectation that most surprises will not exist. You are the DM, after all. Anything that only the DM will know, you will also know. However, you can still use things like combat, dice rolls, and especially random number generators to throw yourself for a loop. For instance, say you encounter a chest in a dungeon. Roll a d20 when you do. If it’s a five, then it’s a mimic. Now you have no idea if that chest is a mimic or not, and will be cautious with what you choose to open.

A big concern when running regular adventures as both the DM and player is role play. Unless you fancy circling the table and roleplaying with yourself, this aspect will suffer quite a bit. To solve this, I found the best way is to literally write a book.

No, I’m being serious.

Every time your character does an action or needs to talk with an NPC, write down, like a story book, how that conversation or action plays out. Each time you need to make an action in-game, pause and take that action before writing down what happens next. This way, you get to have the fun of roleplaying interesting characters by yourself, as well as building up context for the story.

Combat may also be a concern of yours when it comes to solo DnD. If you’re the DM and the player, then couldn’t you just make the monsters really dumb and hand yourself the win on a silver platter? Well, nothing is stopping you from doing that. However, for the best experience, I recommend always playing with the intent to kill. As your character, try to win. As the enemies, try to brutally murder your character. It may take a bit of practice to get used to this, but when you do get used to it, you’ll find yourself switching sides every second. And besides, if you accidentally murdered your character in cold blood, you did technically win. You were just the monsters when you won.

On the topic of giving yourself the win, there is nothing to stop you from cheating. If you rolled a natural one, you could re-roll into a natural twenty. Or if you were supposed to get hit, you could choose not to get hit instead. The truth is, whatever you feel like doing, you should do. There’s nobody who’s going to say no, so it’s all in your power. If you want to cheat, do that. There are no repercussions in solo DnD.

Following this plan, you should find yourself pleasantly enjoying playing DnD completely alone. You’ll be bouncing between your character sheet and the story, writing dramatic speeches and heart-wrenching clashes while also having a bit of character-building. You’ll get to test things you may not feel comfortable testing with other people. And hey, at the end of the campaign, you’ll have yourself a neat little story you can read whenever you feel bored.