You could also use the gamer classified or ask around he campus for the roleplaying group or something
there are some play by post webpages too
However, doing everything yourself is a lot closer to writing a novel in your head using the dice to advance the story than to what a regular D&D game is like. In fact, several times I've run a party through an adventure, taking notes about how everything went, and then going back to flesh out the descriptions and write out stuff like internal monologues and extra bits of dialogue. It's not quite as important to keep the characters separate (it's much easier to run the party as a coordinated unit rather than individuals) as it is to keep the party separate from everything that's *not* the party.
Not everybody finds it enjoyable to do, or can keep all the different characters and stuff separate in their head without getting them all tangled up, but if you can it's definitely a fun mental exercise.
Err...
Oh. You ment play D&D with yourself? Ah... I have no idea how someone would do THAT.
:P
Either find a group at school or just put your books away for another day.
There are other things you can be enjoying. Join some clubs or get a job. You should never get to the point where you have the time to play D&D by yourself. The fun opportunity cost is too high. You'd have more fun reading a book and it would be less trouble for you. Hell, you'd be better served picking fights at concerts. At least then you're being social.
Not to say you should abandon the game. I can't play right now for the same reason, but I get my fix here on the forums. I learn all sorts of stuff and just keep the neat ideas I see in a notebook for when my game starts back up.
I'm gonna go watch a movie with my room mates now.
You can generate worlds, encounters in space, on the ground, cargoes, all sorts of stuff.
D&D? It's meant for 4 people and a DM.
There's a few options:
- Stop playing. *booo*hisss*
- Start writing D&D fanfic. I guess this would be the closest to play with yourself.
- Try and start a new group and find similar minded people at your current location. Easier said than done in some places.
- Move your gaming online. Does kind of require a computer and internet connection. But then again, you're posting here.
Online, you have many options. Play-by-post, play-by-email, chat games, VGTs, etc. etc. There's a lot out there.
You really do need players. Try something like rpol.net if you just can't find players.
We developed a story of one of his characters and his one-on-one battle with another character we created. We rolled it out and it happened perfectly for the story we were writing... even gave us new ideas of things to include. He fought a werewolf... nearly died, made his fort save against the lycanthropy (which is something we had been worried about risking...) and was in the perfect position to knock it unconscious (which was exactly what the story needed to happen, the other character really needed to not die). Granted, it won't always work out perfectly, it that might make the stories even more interesting. I don't know. Like I said, we've never actually done things completely alone... but it's the closest thing I can think if you're not just going to find a temporary group.
Can you keep playing? Well, its a lot like playing baseball by yourself. I mean sure you could throw the ball at a pretend batter, then run over, pick up the ball, throw it in the air and try to hit it, and if you do, drop the bat, run out into the field, find the ball and throw it to a pretend baseman, then run over to the base, throw the ball into the air and try to catch it like it was thrown to you, and then somehow decide if you would have ran to the base faster then you would have ran towards the base....
You get the idea. It's sort of sad.
What you can do is of course spend time creating characters, making back stories, creating campaign settings, and most of all, maps maps maps.
Heck you could make stories and happenings of your NPCs. How do you think modules are made? Write the events of what happened so you can think of how your NPC can explain things when asked.
So I have been away from my group at college and I was wondering if anyone has figured out a way to play by themselves.
Neverwinter Nights 1/2, Baldur's Gate I/II, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale I/II, etc.
Online games might be the best way to do it. I'll be running a game on sundays in a few weeks. PM me if you would be interested in joining. You can do a google search and find plenty of sites that use a variety of methods to play online. http://www.thetangledweb.net/forum.php focuses mainly on 2 free programs that involve maps and dice to run games off of that site. Might be a good place to start.
I play online too. I use this site: http://www.dndonlinegames.com/index.php?
There's places there where you can play solo or group campaigns, and its play-by-post, so I hope you're not in any kind of hurry.
What does the Dragon Magazine Compendium say?
City Name
Affiliation/Kingdom
Who Rules:
Who Really Rules:
Population:
Major Products:
Armed Forces:
Notable Mages:
Notable Churches:
Notable Rogues’ and Thieves’ Guilds:
Equipment Shops:
Adventurers’ Quarters:
Important Characters:
Important Features in Town:
Local Lore:
For dragons I use the format that was used in the old Dragon Magazine series called Wyrms of the North. Wizards of the Coast has updated it for 3.5: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/wn/20040421a.
During a period when I wasn't playing I picked a section of the forgotten realms (near the Vilhon Reach) and did write-ups for 40+ cities and created my own area to run my campaign. I have also done a half dozen dragons to add even more flavor to the area. At the moment I am creating 8 underdark kingdoms using an old 2nd edition book as a guideline. Not only is this a great way to stay active while not playing it is also a great activity while you are playing. I have added over a dozen cities and a few more dragons to my ever growing region while running my current campaign and e-mail them out to group periodically, especially if we miss a session. It keeps them involved, too.
Seriously dude, don't try and play D&D alone.. it just won't work. Do you own a computer? RPG's are the next best thing if you're a crazy hermit with no D&D buddies around..
If you see no other options (or like the idea of the mental exercise), I suggest to take a combat heavy adventure to minimize the roleplaying element.
Another option is to go with an unknown module and refrain from reading ahead (i.e., only reading the sections currently relevant for your party/character). Note that this does not always work, especially for modules where there's a mystery or surprise. However, several published adventures have the descriptions split in two parts: one to be read aloud, one to read only by the DM. Those can work: read only the "public" section, decide what to do, and then move on the DM part.
Either way, playing by yourself results in a completely different (though not necessarily bad or pointless, as some posters make it out to be) game experience compared to "regular" D&D.
Look around, see the people. The Geeky ones will stick out like sore thumbs. Talk to them and you'll find a gaming group in short order. I guarantee you there's more than one at your school. D&D thrives on college students.
p.s. if u r gonna play by yourself i would reccomend "random generation tables" that way you never know what could be around the corner (at least not until you roll it up..........)
but honestly i feel for you man keep searchin and youll find something
so please dont assume things about people he never said "i sit alone in my room all day doing nothing but playing D&D alone" im sure he has a life
(p.s. if u are sitting in a room playin D&D alone all day i reccomend mental help)
sorry that i got mad at you trapspringer but it makes me mad when people assume things about other people
(p.s. if u are sitting in a room playin D&D alone all day i reccomend mental help)
The above quote demonstrates that really, deep down, you and I are on the same page even if you are being more tactful.
I agree that it's generally bad to be judgmental, but I'm gunna' be real black-and-white about this. If you play D&D by yourself, you are officially an asocial close-in who is hiding from the world. You are actively avoiding something, not seeking something out. There are people out there willing to play D&D with you. Wherever you are, this is true. You can recruit new players, old players are about, and this is always true. Two years ago we had a guy serving in Afghanistan post saying he'd gotten a game together that met every week, shifting about slightly to account for patrol schedules.
To play D&D alone knowing the above would be like "playing with yourself" despite a willing and attractive member of the appropriate gender offering to "help out." It's demonstrative of a fundamentally maladjusted social process.
There really are no two ways about it. This is a social game. If you remove that element, it is quite literally mental masturbation.
If you can't, for some reason, get together one two other people to game with, then you should find something else to do for a while. Behavior as you propose is simply unhealthy. I'm sorry if that sounds mean, but that's the way it is, man.
To play D&D alone knowing the above would be like "playing with yourself" despite a willing and attractive member of the appropriate gender offering to "help out."
There really are no two ways about it. This is a social game. If you remove that element, it is quite literally mental masturbation.
LOL OMG THAT WAS SO FUNNY IM STILL LUGHING AND ITS BEEN 10 MINUTES
:ROFL: :ROFL: :ROFL:
but ya i suppose i do agree it was meant to be a SOCIAL game.
p.s. lol mental masturbation
i would sig it but its a little inapropriate
To play D&D alone knowing the above would be like "playing with yourself" despite a willing and attractive member of the appropriate gender offering to "help out."
If a willing and attractive female offered to help me out, I would gladly accept. However, I still sometimes choose to play D&D by myself, rather than in a group. One advantage is control. I don't have a DM telling me I can't do this or that, e.g. "You can't play that homebrew race." or "You can't use the AEG Feats book." I can play whenever I get the itch as I don't have to deal with other people's schedules. I don't spend any time waiting for people I don't know or like to finish their move or do other stuff. And of course, my character doesn't have to consult with others when making decisions.
Playing with my friends is the better option, but playing alone is also cool.
...but playing alone is also cool.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there.
Don't play alone guy...
Let's try to PbP:D
I'm learning the basics of it, and just have a campaign ready to run.
I just need to be accepted as a DM.
I dunno if they will let me
But hope they will!;)
What do you think?
Wanna play?
We just need to find some people who would commit to post
at least once a day.
Of course the odds of me playing regulary by myself depend on how long the cats can stick around.
I've used it to create random maps because players, after a while, can almost guess those I create myself. So, with some randomness, I've had some really bizarre, but effective, maps.
What is beneficial about doing solo-adventuring is what you create, you file away as a completed module. When you find a group that wants to play, you are ready as a DM. And, since you've used characters to defeat what you've created, you have somewhat playtested it.
Plus, it's good quiet time when you need it. Video games are fine, but sometimes getting away from a screen is good, too.
*shrugs* Sometimes it's necessary to play by one's lonesome, isn't it? Not whole campaigns or even a single game, but say you just created some class or NPC or spell or magic item or masterwork spork and you need to test it. Heck, I once played a new Lv1 character against a tiger to see how well she'd do. After twenty or so tries, she finally beat it!!
That's a little different. Playing alone in that case wasn't an end unto itself.
Both of those require more than 1 person, otherwise you know the answers and what everyone is going to do (don't try to kid yourself into thinking you can separate yourself, you know it.)
When you know the answer to the mystery, the solution to the puzzle, twhat everyone will do in combat and what everyone will say in conversation, you aren't playing a game. You are writing a book.
It's called writing a story or a novel. Take Tolken as an example. He created a world with a rich history, languages and peoples. Maps of cities, protagonists and antagonists, politics etc.
Then he started with a handful of characters and esentially let the story write itself, ended up tossing a ring in a volcano (of all the silly plots)
Esentially you would be doing the same, but letting the Rules and DIe determine what the characters can do and wether they succede or not. Not all that bad an aproach to story writing as it adds a realism to the story (the character's success or failure is not so predetermined)
Writing stories, or even adventures or campaign settings can be fun and prepare you for a good experience later.
If you get really bored, theres always that D&D minigame, character creation and optimization. Make the toughest level 10 character you can, then make one tougher. Build characters for different races or prestige classes. Work the rules until they scream, no one can call you for play imbalance.