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Solo DM Guide Part 1 – Introduction To Solo Roleplaying

In this solo DM guide, we will describe the fundamentals of solo roleplaying using oracles and ChatGPT. This guide will provide you with game rules on how to play Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition as your own Dungeon Master. Additionally, the Oracle RPG system allows the player to take over the role of DM while still keeping the game interesting. As a result, it’s possible to play D&D 5e as a solo DM, without the need for other players. Moreover with ChatGPT, you can have an adventure anytime you want.

However, if you’re looking for pre-written solo adventures similar to Fighting Fantasy and other “choose your own adventure” style games, visit this page instead.

ChatGPT is an invaluable assistant for the solo DM. In fact, with the solo DM guide on this site, you can use ChatGPT to create interactive text adventures driven by the rules of 5E on demand. Consequently, you can adventure anytime you want, using a powerful tabletop ruleset.

Moreover, with the Oracle RPG solo DM guide, you can roleplay D&D entirely by yourself. This means that you can create adventures and explore dungeons using your imagination and creativity, without the game feeling predictable. Additionally, by using the AI prompts in our solo DM guide, you will be able to create rich and compelling text-based gaming sessions.

How does solo roleplaying work? Scenes, oracles, and AI

To understand the solo guides on this site, view a D&D game as a collection of scenes like a film or TV series. For instance, if you want to enter an inn and talk to the patrons, you treat that event like a scene in a film. Moreover, a tavern scene is populated by characters. These characters are NPCs or groups of NPCs that your character can interact with in a scene.

To complete the scene, you need information about what’s happening. In a traditional game, the DM would provide this information by describing the scene and roleplaying the characters. However, in the Oracle RPG system, you populate a scene by using oracles and ChatGPT.

Solo roleplaying oracles

Oracles are tables that answer questions, create story elements, and provide content for improvisation. During a traditional game, you ask your DM questions. In our solo DM guide, you ask an oracle these questions.

The player envisions a scene and then ask the oracle questions about the environment and what’s happening. They then roll a die or draw a card to obtain an answer to their questions. They can then interpret the answer from the oracle and apply it to their scene. The more creative your questions and the more creatively you interpret an oracle, the better your game becomes.

Oracles also provide story elements that can develop into full-fledged adventures. As you play, the oracles in this solo DM guide will add plot hooks and non-player characters to your campaign. You can then use these to create more scenarios for you to investigate.

Oracles and ChatGPT

Once the player has an answer from an oracle, they can use it as a prompt for ChatGPT. Properly used, answers given by oracles in this solo DM guide can be transformed into open-ended text adventures by this powerful AI chatbot. ChatGPT takes the bare-bones descriptions provided by oracles and breathes life into them; transforming the oracle’s descriptions into a story. This creates less work for the solo DM allowing for more rich and more compelling gameplay.

What can you expect from this system?

The guides on this site covers the three pillars of solo roleplaying: exploration, social interaction, and combat. With the solo DM guide, you will be able to explore a game world, have social interactions with its inhabitants, and engage in combat with enemies.

You can fight enemies on a grid by using battle maps with our Monster AI rules. We will also show you how to use miniatures and graph paper with the Dungeon Generator. You can effectively turn D&D 5e into a solo miniature adventure game with a compelling story.

Don’t worry about your games feeling predictable or on rails, let me assure you that they won’t. The solo DM guide was designed to be unpredictable but still allow for organic story development.

Can a friend play with me if I use the solo DM guide?

Yes. You can expand this system to include other players if you want to share this experience with a friend or loved one. The system plays almost exactly like a solo session, but two people are creating the adventure together. Cooperative, DM-free roleplaying creates fantastic adventures and is worth experiencing with a friend.

You can use the Oracle solo DM guide system in two types of D&D games:

  • Solo: You are both the player and DM of your own adventure. You create the game as you play in your own private session.
  • Cooperative (Co-Op): You and one or more friends create the game as you play. The entire group acts as the DM.

What you will need for the solo DM guide

  • A set of polyhedral dice
  • A six-sided die (d6). This is the core die for creating and controlling your adventure.
  • Percentile dice (d100). Together with the d6, this set of dice is creates content for your adventure.
  • A pack of playing cards. The tables in this solo DM guide uses playing cards to procedurally generate game sessions.
  • The tables in the Solo Gaming Tool. These tables form the core of the solo DM guide on this site.
  • A free ChatGPT account.

What this solo DM guide covers

The guides on this website provide several tools you can use for solo or DM-free D&D games. Our guides cover the following: