How to Play 5e Solo

A practical guide · Updated July 2026

You do not need a group to play 5e tabletop roleplaying. People have been playing it alone for decades, and the tools for doing it well have gotten considerably better. This guide covers the three approaches that actually work, what changes when you play without a party, and how to get through a first solo session without stalling out.

Why people play solo

The most common reason is scheduling. Five adults with jobs cannot reliably find the same four hours twice in a row, and campaigns die on the calendar more than on the battlefield. Playing alone removes the hardest part of the hobby.

Other reasons come up just as often:

• You want to learn the rules before sitting at a table with people who know them.
• You want to test a character build before committing to it in a real campaign.
• You do not have a group yet, and would rather play now than wait.
• You simply prefer it. Solo play is quieter and moves at exactly your pace.

The three ways people actually do it

1. Oracle tables and solo journaling

The oldest approach. You play your character and use a set of tables to decide what the world does: ask a yes/no question, roll, and read the answer — sometimes with a complication attached. You write down what happens as you go.

It costs nothing but your time, and it asks the most of you. You are doing all the narrating, so the story is entirely your own work. That suits some people exactly. If what you want is to be surprised rather than to invent, it can start to feel like grading your own homework.

2. Running a published module for yourself

Take a published adventure, read only as far as your character has travelled, and play both sides honestly. It works because the content is already written — you are not inventing a dungeon, you are walking into one.

The obvious problem is that you can read ahead, and knowing where the trap is makes it stop being a trap. It works best if you are disciplined about it.

3. An autonomous dungeon master

Software that takes the Dungeon Master's job: it describes the scene, plays every NPC and monster, asks you for rolls, applies the rules, and reacts to what you decide. You only play your character, which is the part you actually wanted to play.

The advantage is that you get to be surprised. Nobody is grading their own homework, and there is no module to read ahead in — the world reacts to what you actually do, and you find out what happens at the same moment your character does.

What solo play changes

It is a different game, not a smaller one. Expect these differences:

• Every decision is yours. There is nobody to talk you out of the obviously bad plan, which means the obviously bad plan happens more often. This is more fun than it sounds.
• Combat is deadlier. A party covers for each other. Alone, one bad round can drop you, so retreating stops being cowardly and starts being tactics.
• No table banter. The jokes, the tangents, the arguing about rules — that is a real part of the hobby and solo play does not have it.
• You go faster. A solo session covers ground that would take a party three hours to discuss.

What you need to start

1. A character. Any 5e character sheet. Do not overthink the build; you are learning what you enjoy.
2. A way to resolve uncertainty. Dice, plus something that answers questions you cannot answer yourself.
3. Something that pushes back. This is the part beginners skip. If nothing in the world resists you, there is no game — just narration.
4. Somewhere to write things down. Solo campaigns live or die on continuity, and you will forget the innkeeper's name by next session.

Making your first solo session work

Most first attempts stall for the same reasons. These fix them:

• Start with one small goal, not a world. "Find out what happened to the miller's daughter" beats "save the kingdom." Small goals produce scenes; big goals produce staring at a blank page.
• Let the dice actually decide. If you roll a complication and then ignore it because it is inconvenient, you have removed the only thing creating story.
• Play scenes, not summaries. Do not write "I travel to the village." Play the moment you arrive and someone asks what you want.
• Stop while it is still interesting. Ending mid-thread makes starting again easy. Ending at a natural conclusion makes it hard.
• Write two lines when you finish. What happened, and what you want next. That is enough to pick up cold a week later.

Where MONOLITH fits

MONOLITH is an Autonomous Dungeon Master for 5e compatible play. It builds the campaign, narrates, plays every NPC and monster, calls for the rolls, and tracks the rules — so you only ever play your hero. Character creation follows the standard 5e process, and a session runs 24 rounds, which is roughly an evening.

The first session is free and solo, which is the right way to find out whether this way of playing suits you.

What matters to us is a Dungeon Master that knows the rules — and knows when to bend and break them. One that keeps the story, the characters and the memories consistent. One that players come back to because it is reliable. What matters is that MONOLITH is where adventure never ends.

Next: what an autonomous dungeon master actually does at the table →

MONOLITH is an independent product. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. Dungeons & Dragons and D&D are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast. Portions of the game rules are used under SRD 5.1, © Wizards of the Coast LLC, licensed under CC-BY-4.0.