Could you play D&D by yourself - is it a good thing?

[Samir]

There's a couple rulesets out there for this, one of which being Dungeons and Dragons Solitaire

I can't really see the appeal though. It seems like it'd be pretty boring. Even if D&D isn't "DM vs players", having an actual DM breeds an element of conflict that imo is pretty important.

And I think everybody puts at least a little of themselves into their characters. I know I do. It makes it more fun, IMO.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I have considered trying it when I am really bored.

 

[Umbran]

Back in the day, Tunnels and Trolls shipped with a solo adventure - just you, no DM required.

So can you? Sure. Is it much fun? That'll depend, I expect, on the person.

 

[Vael]

I've occassionally tested a party against some of the encounters in some Dungeon adventures. I do it for a few reasons ... understand and test the encounter, as a party and PC optimization challenge, and as a challenge in how efficiently can I run 5 PCs and a full encounter's worth of monsters.

 

[Mercule]

I made extensive use of the random dungeon appendix in the 1e DMG. Granted, it wasn't my only gaming outlet, but it was fun.

 

[FoxWander]

I made extensive use of the random dungeon appendix in the 1e DMG. Granted, it wasn't my only gaming outlet, but it was fun.

A dorm mate of mine would do that for hours when we were first deployed to Desert Shield. (This was after we found out we were completely out of harm's way and it WAS the air force, after all) It took a while to get a group together when we first got there but several of us brought our D&D books. And Dave just sat at his bunk one weekend, got his books, rolled up a character and started going thru a completely random dungeon. He built it using the tables in the DMG, mapped it on graph paper, rolled up random encounters however the tables said and rolled out each side of the combats. We eventually got an actual group together (had some awesome games over there- the kind I still talk about today) but he'd still run his solo thing when the others were on shift. I really wish I knew how high he got that character by the time we left 7 months later!