Solo Tabletop RPG with AI Companions: Run a Full Party Alone

Most "play a whole party by yourself" advice assumes you want to juggle four character sheets. You don't have to. When an AI Dungeon Master runs the table, a companion can be a character the DM plays for you: someone who walks beside your hero, speaks in their own voice, remembers what you told them last week, and quietly wants something you haven't figured out yet. This guide covers how to recruit that kind of companion, how to keep them from stealing the spotlight, and which pairings hold up when there are only two of you in the dungeon.

Full disclosure: we build VoxDungeon, a voice-driven browser RPG with an AI Dungeon Master. Everything below works with any AI game master you can talk to, but where we describe a specific mechanic, it's one we can point to in our own game.

What an "AI companion" actually is

There are three different things people mean by the phrase, and it pays to know which one you're asking for.

• A DM-played ally. The Dungeon Master voices a non-player character who travels with you. You never control them directly. You talk to them, and they answer in character. This is the classic solo set-up and it needs no special feature, only a DM willing to keep the character consistent.
• A second AI running a sheet. Some players open a separate chatbot and ask it to "be" a party member, then copy its actions into the game. It works, but it's clerical. You become the courier between two programs.
• Real people in the same session. Voice co-op rooms, where a friend joins your adventure with an invite code. That's a different kind of fun, and we cover it near the end.

The rest of this article is about the first kind, because it's the one that makes a solo session feel like a party without turning it into bookkeeping.

Three things a companion needs before they feel real

A companion that only says "I follow you" is scenery. The difference between scenery and a character comes down to three properties, and if your AI DM lacks any of them you can usually supply it by hand.

1. A voice that is theirs and stays theirs

In text, every NPC sounds like the narrator. In a voiced game, your companion should sound like a different person each time they open their mouth, and the same different person tomorrow. VoxDungeon assigns each named NPC a voice from a cast list using a stable hash of their name, so the grizzled scout you met on turn three has the same voice when you reload the save a week later. If your DM doesn't do voices, give your companion a verbal tic instead: a catchphrase, an accent note in your own head, a habit of answering questions with questions. Consistency is what registers as personality.

2. Memory of what passed between you

A companion who forgets you saved their life two scenes ago isn't a companion. Good AI DMs keep a short rolling memory of each NPC's conversations with you. In VoxDungeon's world mode, every exchange with a named character is stored against that character's identity, not the place you met them, so if the innkeeper's daughter later turns up in a bandit camp she still remembers the lie you told her at the bar. When memory is thin, you can prop it up: before a big scene, say out loud "Remind me what Tamsin thinks of the baron," and let the DM restate it. You're refreshing the DM's context on purpose.

3. Wants of their own

This is the one most players skip. A companion with a private goal makes decisions you didn't script, which is exactly what you're missing when you play alone. VoxDungeon's generated NPCs each carry a hidden agenda that the DM knows and you don't; the game strips it out of anything sent to your browser, so you genuinely cannot peek. You don't need that machinery to get the effect. When you recruit a companion, tell the DM: "Give her a secret reason for coming with me, and don't tell me what it is." Then watch for the moment it surfaces.

How to recruit a companion from the Dungeon Master

You don't need a menu. You ask, in character, and then you set a couple of ground rules out of character. Here's how a recruitment typically goes at a voice table. The player speaks their lines aloud; the DM answers in the narrator's voice and then in the NPC's.

You: I look for the woman who was arguing with the toll-keeper earlier. Is she still in the common room?

DM: She's by the fire, boots on the hearth, picking mud off a crossbow string. A scar runs from her left ear into her collar. She clocks you before you reach the table.

You: "You looked like you wanted across that bridge as badly as I do. I'm heading for the mill ruins at first light. I could use someone who can shoot."

DM (as the woman, in a different voice): "Could you now. And what's at the mill that's worth a bolt through the chest?" She doesn't stop working the string. "Half of whatever you're after. And I'm not carrying your pack."

You: "A third, and you carry your own." I hold out my hand.

DM: Make a Persuasion check. (The server rolls.) Fourteen. She studies the hand a long moment, then takes it. "Ilse. Wake me before the cock, not after." You have a companion.

Now step out of character for ten seconds and set the rules. Say something like: "Ilse is a non-player character you run. She acts on her own turn after mine, she has her own opinions, and she has a reason for coming with me that I don't know." That single sentence does three jobs: it stops the DM from asking you to roll for her, it licenses the DM to let her disagree with you, and it plants the hidden agenda.

Keeping a companion from taking over the story

The failure mode of a DM-played ally is that the DM, trying to be helpful, has them solve everything. Ilse spots every trap, disarms every lock, talks you out of every bad idea. Suddenly you're watching a story instead of playing one. Four habits prevent it.

• Keep the spotlight rule simple. "She never acts before I do, and she never makes a decision the party could argue about." The DM can narrate Ilse shooting a goblin; the DM should not narrate Ilse choosing which corridor to take.
• Let her be wrong. Once a session, ask her advice and then take the opposite path. If the DM has given her real wants, her reaction tells you something.
• Give her a weakness that costs you. A companion who is afraid of water, or owes money in the next town, or can't lie to a priest, creates scenes. A flawless companion creates nothing.
• Make her leave sometimes. Send her to scout, to buy supplies, to sleep. Scenes with only your hero remind you whose story it is, and her return is an event.

Running combat with one ally

Two combatants against a room of enemies is a very different tactical problem from the four-person standard most adventures assume. Some things that work:

1. Ask for the companion's action as narration, not as a choice. "What does Ilse do while I close the door?" is good. "Should Ilse flank or hold?" hands the DM a decision that should be yours.
2. Fight in doorways. With only two of you, open rooms are deadly. Choke points turn a crowd into a queue.
3. Use the companion for the thing your class can't do. If you're the fighter, make sure your ally has a ranged attack or a healing option. If you're the caster, you want a body between you and the teeth.
4. Decide in advance what "down" means for them. In a permadeath game, a dead companion is dead. Agree with yourself whether you'll risk them in the front line or treat them as someone to protect. Both are good stories; muddling between them is not.

In a voiced game the mechanics stay honest because the dice are rolled by the server, not described by the narrator. When the DM says "She rolls a seventeen," that number came from a random roll and not from a story beat the model wanted to hit.

Pairings that hold up with a party of two

Notice none of these say "pick the strongest build." You're not min-maxing a raid. You're casting a two-hander, and a two-hander needs friction. If you want help choosing your own side of the pairing, our guide to the best class for solo play goes deeper.

When you'd rather have a real person

Sometimes the point isn't a companion; it's company. VoxDungeon has voice co-op rooms for that: the host opens a room, shares a short code, and friends join from their own browser and speak their own turns while one Dungeon Master runs the scene for everyone. Hosting a room is a Premium feature; the people you invite join without paying. If you're weighing the two modes, the room-code guide walks through a session.

A fair number of players do both. They run a solo campaign with a DM-played companion during the week, then open a room at the weekend and let a friend play the companion's role for one session. The DM keeps the character's history either way.

Five questions to ask before your first session with a companion

1. What does this person want that has nothing to do with my quest?
2. What won't they do, even if I ask?
3. Who do they know in the next town, and is that good for me?
4. What's the first thing I'll notice when they start lying to me?
5. If they died tomorrow, what would my hero regret not asking?

You don't need answers. You need the DM to have answers, and asking the questions aloud tells the DM to invent them.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a special "companion mode" to do this?

No. Any AI Dungeon Master that can play NPCs can play a companion. The features that make it feel better, distinct voices and per-character memory, are quality-of-life, not prerequisites.

Can I have more than one companion?

You can, but each one dilutes your own screen time and gives the DM more to track. Two is the practical ceiling for a solo player. One is usually better.

Will the companion remember things across saves?

In VoxDungeon, your game saves to your account, and the world mode stores NPC conversations by character, so yes. In other tools it depends on how much history the DM is given each turn. When in doubt, recap aloud at the start of a session.

What if my companion betrays me?

Then the hidden agenda worked. Decide in the moment whether your hero forgives, fights, or walks away. All three make better stories than a companion who was loyal because the DM didn't know what else to do.

Is this free to try?

Yes. You can start a voiced adventure in your browser as a guest, with no download, and recruit your first companion in the opening scene.

If you've been putting off solo play because a lone hero felt thin, try recruiting one person with a voice, a memory, and a secret. It changes the shape of the whole campaign.

Related reading

This is part of our series on playing D&D when you don't have a group or a Dungeon Master available:

• Playing D&D online with friends for free
• Remote fantasy RPG sessions over voice
• How to play D&D without a Dungeon Master
• Playing D&D without a DM in 2026
• AI Dungeon Master vs human DM: pros and cons

Start a free adventure in your browser — speak your actions aloud and the AI narrates what happens next.