Getting Started with The Endlessness

You want to play D&D with an AI Dungeon Master. Maybe you're a veteran player without a group. Maybe you've always been curious about tabletop RPGs but the "find 4-5 people and coordinate schedules" part stopped you. Maybe you just want to play right now, tonight, without asking anyone's permission.

Whatever brought you here, this guide will take you from "I made an account" to "I'm in combat with a bugbear and I'm having a great time" in about 15 minutes.

Step 1: Create Your Account

Head to The Endlessness and pick a plan. You'll need an account to save your characters and campaign progress.

Once you're in, you'll land on the dashboard. It's going to show you two main paths: Create a Character and Start a Campaign. We're going to do them in that order, because trying to start a campaign without a character is like showing up to a restaurant without a mouth.

Step 2: Build Your Character

Character creation is where your adventure actually begins. The Endlessness walks you through the full D&D 5e character creation process with a guided wizard (the software kind, not the pointy hat kind).

Here's what you'll choose:

Pick Your Species

You'll choose from the 9 SRD species: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Dragonborn, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, and Tiefling. Each one comes with racial traits that affect your stats and abilities.

If you're brand new: Human is the most straightforward. +1 to all ability scores, no complicated racial features to track. It's the Honda Civic of D&D species: reliable, gets you where you need to go, nobody will judge you.

If you want something with more flavor: Half-Elf gives you a versatile stat boost, darkvision, and extra skill proficiencies. It's one of the best mechanical choices in the game and has great roleplay potential.

Pick Your Class

This is the big one. Your class determines your playstyle for the entire campaign.

The Endlessness supports all 13 classes: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, and Blood Hunter.

If you're brand new: Fighter or Paladin. The Fighter is the simplest class to play (hit things, take hits, repeat). The Paladin is slightly more complex but incredibly self-sufficient, with healing, armor, and big damage.

If you have some D&D experience: Play whatever sounds fun. The Endlessness handles all the mechanical tracking, so even complex classes like the Druid (with Wild Shape forms to manage) or the Wizard (with a massive spell list to sort through) are approachable because the system does the bookkeeping for you.

For more on class selection, including which classes work best for solo play, check out our character creation guide.

Set Your Ability Scores

Ability scores are the six numbers that define your character's fundamental capabilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

The Endlessness offers multiple methods:

• Standard Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8): Balanced, predictable, recommended for new players.
• Point Buy: Customize your scores within a budget. More control, slightly more complex.
• Roll: The classic 4d6-drop-lowest method. More random, more exciting, occasionally produces a character with a 6 in Constitution (sorry about your HP).

Pro tip: Whatever method you choose, don't dump Constitution. It affects your hit points. In solo play, hit points are the difference between "dramatic victory" and "dramatic death scene."

Choose Your Background

Your background represents who your character was before they became an adventurer. It gives you skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, languages, and a small equipment package.

More importantly, it gives you a starting point for roleplay. A character with the Soldier background approaches problems differently than one with the Sage background. The AI will pick up on this and adjust how NPCs interact with you.

Review and Finalize

The character wizard will show you a summary: your stats, skills, features, equipment, and spells (if applicable). Review it, give your character a name, and confirm.

Your character is now saved to your account and ready for adventure.

Step 3: Choose Your Campaign

With your character built, it's time to pick a campaign. The Endlessness offers several options:

Pre-Written Campaigns

These are crafted narrative experiences with established plots, factions, locations, and NPCs. They provide structure and direction while still allowing your choices to meaningfully shape the story.

Our flagship campaign, The Shattered Crown, is a great starting point. We wrote a detailed preview if you want to know what you're getting into, but the short version: it's a classic fantasy adventure with political intrigue, dungeon delving, and choices that genuinely matter.

Pre-written campaigns are recommended for new players because they provide clear goals and narrative momentum. You always know roughly what you should be doing, even if how you do it is entirely up to you.

Open World / Sandbox

If you prefer to forge your own path, the sandbox mode drops you into a world and says, "Okay, what do you want to do?" There's no main quest unless you make one. You find adventure by exploring, talking to NPCs, and following whatever thread catches your interest.

This mode is great for experienced players who enjoy emergent storytelling. It's less great for new players who might stare at the open world and think, "I have no idea where to go."

One-Shots

Short, self-contained adventures designed for a single session (1-3 hours). Perfect for testing out a new character build, getting a feel for the system, or just having a quick adventure when you don't have time for a full campaign session.

Step 4: Start Playing

You've built a character. You've picked a campaign. Now you hit "Start" and the AI begins narrating.

Here's what to expect in your first few minutes:

The Opening Scene

The AI will set the stage with a narrative introduction. This establishes where you are, what's happening, and often presents an immediate choice or situation. Read it, absorb it, and then respond naturally.

How to respond: Just type what your character does. You don't need special commands or syntax. Say "I look around the tavern" or "I approach the hooded figure in the corner" or "I steal everything that isn't nailed down" (the AI won't judge you, but NPCs might).

The AI understands natural language. You can be as brief or as detailed as you want:

• Brief: "I attack the goblin."
• Detailed: "I draw my longsword, whisper a prayer to my god, and swing at the goblin's neck, trying to end this quickly before his friends arrive."

Both work. The second one will get a more vivid narration because the AI has more to work with, but the first one will produce a perfectly functional combat action.

Exploration and Roleplay

Outside of combat, the game flows as a conversation. You describe what you do, the AI describes what happens. Want to search a room? Investigate a noise? Talk to an NPC? Haggle with a merchant? Attempt to seduce the dragon? (Please don't seduce the dragon.) Just describe your intent.

The AI will call for ability checks when appropriate. You'll see the dice roll, the modifier, and the result. Succeed, and things go your way. Fail, and they don't. Both outcomes are narrated.

Your First Combat

At some point (probably soon, this is D&D), you'll end up in a fight. Here's what happens:

1. Initiative is rolled. The AI rolls for enemies, you roll for your character. Turn order is established.
2. Your turn arrives. You can take an action (Attack, Cast a Spell, Dodge, Dash, etc.), a bonus action (if you have one available), and movement (up to your speed). The AI will prompt you for each.
3. You describe your action. "I attack with my longsword" or "I cast Sacred Flame on the skeleton."
4. Dice are rolled. Attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws. All visible. All honest.
5. The AI narrates. Your hit cleaves into the goblin. Or your swing goes wide and the goblin grins. The narration reflects the mechanical result.
6. Enemy turns happen. The AI controls enemies, rolls their attacks and abilities, and narrates the results. You see every roll.
7. Repeat until the fight ends. Through victory, retreat, or the other thing.

Combat uses the full D&D 5e ruleset: opportunity attacks, conditions, concentration checks, death saving throws, the works. For a full breakdown of how all this works, our combat rules guide (it's not short, but combat isn't simple) has you covered.

Resting and Resource Management

After combat (or whenever it makes sense), you can take a Short Rest (1 hour of in-game time) or a Long Rest (8 hours). Short rests let you spend Hit Dice to recover HP and recharge some class features. Long rests restore all HP, spent Hit Dice (up to half your total), and most class features and spell slots.

Knowing when to rest is a key skill. Push too far without resting and you'll enter the next fight with no resources. Rest too frequently and the AI may introduce time-sensitive consequences (because the plot doesn't pause just because you're napping).

Step 5: Saving and Continuing

Your campaign saves automatically. When you close the session and come back later, everything is exactly where you left it: your character's current HP, your inventory, the quest state, the NPCs you've met, and the world's status.

This is the persistent world state that makes campaigns feel coherent over time. Your actions have consequences that carry forward, session after session. If you want to understand why this matters (and why it's technically difficult), we wrote a whole post about persistent world state. But the short version for a "getting started" guide is: it just works, and you don't need to think about it.

Tips for New Players

A few things we wish someone had told us before our first D&D session:

There is no wrong way to play. Want to be a virtuous hero? Cool. A morally gray mercenary? Also cool. A Chaotic Neutral Bard who solves every problem with performance checks? Annoying at a table of five, but perfectly fine when you're playing solo.

Talk to NPCs. Some of the best moments in D&D come from conversations, not combat. Ask questions. Be curious. The AI has built out these characters with motivations and knowledge. Engage with them.

Try things. D&D's greatest strength is that you can attempt literally anything. Want to jump across a chasm using a rope and a grappling hook? Want to convince the guards you're a health inspector? Want to use Prestidigitation to make a campfire meal taste like a five-star dinner? All of these are valid actions. The AI will figure out what roll (if any) is needed and adjudicate the result.

Pay attention to your character sheet. You have abilities, features, and spells that are easy to forget. That Paladin with Divine Sense sitting unused, that Rogue forgetting about Uncanny Dodge, that Cleric not using their Channel Divinity: these are free resources. Use them.

Don't be afraid to run away. Not every fight needs to be fought to the death. If you're outmatched, retreating is a valid tactical decision. Live to fight another day, preferably after a long rest and some new equipment.

What Comes Next

You've created a character. You've started a campaign. You've survived your first combat (hopefully). What now?

Keep playing. Campaigns get richer as they develop. The NPC relationships deepen, the plot threads multiply, your character levels up and gains new capabilities. Session 1 is the appetizer.

Try different characters. You can create multiple characters and run separate campaigns with each one. Always wondered what it's like to play a Wizard? Build one and find out. The Endlessness handles all the mechanical complexity, so even the most bookkeeping-heavy classes are manageable.

Explore the rules. As you play, you'll encounter mechanics that make you curious. How does concentration work exactly? What are all the conditions? How does multiclassing function? Our blog has guides covering how to play D&D alone and many other topics.

Tell us what you think. We're building The Endlessness based on what players actually want. Your feedback shapes the product.

Ready?

That's it. Account, character, campaign, play. Four steps between you and a D&D adventure that's available whenever you want it, for as long as you want, with no scheduling required.

Go pick your plan, roll a character, and find out what your story is going to be. The AI is ready. The world is waiting. The goblin in the first encounter is already stretching.

Good luck. You're going to need it. (The dice are honest. We have a whole philosophy about that.)