I love to talk with designers from around the world. There is a tendency in the North American TTRPG space to center ourselves, with all other spaces arrayed around us. It’s always refreshing when I can help folks understand the TTRPG community doesn’t have a centre. Rather it’s like a great forest grown lush, and while the occasional tree might find itself taller than the rest, everyone gets their time in the sun.
Bad analogy aside, today I was privileged to talk with Kyle Tam, who took the time to talk solo TTRPGs and the challenges of designing and playing games in today’s space.
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Brent: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Kyle. For our readers not yet familiar with your work, please tell me a bit about yourself.
Hi there! My name is Kyle Tam, and I’m a Chinese-Filipino game designer from the Philippines! In my daytime job I work with a company that provides shuttle services using electric minibuses. I’m a big fan of mythology, fantasy, and solo games (since it’s hard to bring a table together, especially now that I’m no longer at university).
B: What drew you into tabletop roleplaying games? What was your “hero (or villain, we don’t judge) origin story” in the hobby?
When I was younger my uncle bought me the full boxed set of D&D 4E. I read but never played the games, so I didn’t actually start playing TTRPGs until university where I joined a session for a smaller game called Lacuna: The Blue City. From there our tabletop game group expanded into White Wolf games, particularly Wraith and Vampire the Masquerade, and it became my regular weekly/semi-weekly activity up until I finished university.
B: How and when did you shift from player/GM to working on your first game content? Was the shift gradual, or did it happen pretty quickly?
So the shift didn’t happen until quite a fair bit after university and into the start of the COVID-19 Lockdowns/Pandemic. I was working from home in full and figured that I had the time to start really working on my writing. I’ve always loved to read, and I like to write. I spent maybe a year doing short fiction and submitting it to short story magazines, but let me tell you – short stories are tricky and it’s a long process of rejection. I don’t think my authorial voice was there, either. I was published in some wonderful smaller magazines, some of which are sadly defunct, and through there I ended up following a lot of different accounts on Twitter. One of these accounts linked to a game jam for the Lost & Found system, which is what inspired me to create my first tabletop game – Beloved.
B: You have a number of solo TTRPGs, such as Claim the Victim, Primadonna: A Wretched & Alone Game, and of course, Hit the Road, Jack. What is it that draws you to solo games?
As I’ve just mentioned, I began designing during the lockdown. While I stay with my family they’re not really tabletop people, and synchronizing times or convincing my usual group to play things other than D&D is not especially easy. So for me, scheduling wise, solo games make a lot of sense. I think what I’ve also been drawn to is that it’s a very personal experience. Paul Czege talks about it best in The Ink That Bleeds, and I know he’ll talk about it more in Inscapes, but there’s an intimacy in the solo game that really breeds a dialog with yourself. You gain a lot of clarity into who you are, what you bring to the table, what you value – all examined through this fictional lens which gives you just enough distance that you can see that reflection in the mirror.
B: You’ve also written a number of supplements for other systems, like Fate’s Folly – A Mork Borg Pointcrawl and Your Care Is… for the Wanderhome RPG (co-written with Jo Winter). What draws you to create bits and moments for other systems? What impact does creating these supplements for other games have on your game design?
Part of the act of creation, for me, is trying out a lot of different things. Lots of different systems. Seeing what works in a game and what doesn’t. By not only playing a game but creating new elements for it, I start to understand what I would like to see in my own personal design and what I wouldn’t use. It allows me to hone skills for things I may not have done, such as adventure or monster design, which I can bring into creating new stories for others or for myself. Additionally, I think that a lot of games are improved by having more content available for use. More choices. Things like Mork Borg and Mothership thrive because they have active contributing communities that make their universes so much larger, and I’m just a small part of that.
B: Are there themes or ideas shared between your games? Are there elements you purposely explore when you create?
I think thematically I tend to look at one’s sacrifice. What we give for others. What we give for ourselves. I also look a lot at duality between our internal selves and our perceived selves, which very much culminates in Hit the Road, Jack. The Jacks are chaser and chased, but the baked in notion is that they could easily have been in each other’s seats. That idea “you and I are not so different”, and what distinguishes us is the small choices. What we do with life gives us.
I also tend to explore my own culture and understanding of that culture through the lens of play, the notions of Catholic guilt and worth as well as the place of the Filipino people in a wider cultural context. It’s something that comes up a fair bit in my short stories, too, and I think has just bled out into the creative process.
With my smaller games, those are usually where I test out my much sillier ideas. I want people to laugh or cringe at my jokes, because while I can do very serious, gripping, dynamic stuff I really do want a table where people can laugh with each other. I have never written a serious one pager and I admire the people who can do it, but it just isn’t me!
B: Along with a number of other creators you use Itch as a platform to sell your game. For someone maybe looking to produce their first game, what are some of the things you like about the site? What are some of the challenges?
I quite like Itch because the barrier to entry is fairly low in terms of uploading your game and sharing it with people. It also takes a much lower cut than DriveThruRPG does. You also have a much easier time when it comes to bundling and working together with people on these games. What I don’t like is that it’s quite hard to share your game within the site itself, and it’s very, very easy for things to be lost. On Itch I tend to get a larger flurry of initial interest and then it significantly peters out later on, whereas DTRPG has much better discoverability even if I’m not as consistent in my marketing.
B: While it’s quite common to see Actual Plays for group TTRPGs, there seem to be relatively few solo APs being produced. Do you think that’s something AP producers are missing out on? Could AP have as big an impact for solo TTRPGs as it sometimes does for other games?
I think that a lot of new players would benefit from being able to see solo games at work, but I do think that making solo APs pop in the same way as a full party, or even two player game. They’re very introspective and the most personal kind of tabletop RPGs, but I think we just have to embrace full on commentary in the same way video game streamers do. Just lean IN when you play the game, right? Embrace it and don’t stop running.
B: For someone who might be thinking of taking the plunge and writing their first game or supplement, do you have any hardwon advice to pass along?
Stop talking about writing and just write! The first draft is always a bit nonsense, whether you write a book, a novel, a game, a poem, whatever. You can fix that up in editing. I always find my initial barrier is actually putting words into action and focusing on getting the words out there. Oh, and layout. But that’s a very personal gripe.
Understand your process of creation. Nobody makes things the exact same way using the exact same tools. I tend to write my games in Google Docs because it’s available to me synced offline and online, and then do my layout either in Canva for the small games or Affinity Publisher for meatier ones. But that’s just my way, and I know that it’s different for everyone, so just muss about till you find out what works for you!
B: What other games out there right now excite you? What are you drawn to as a designer and as a player/GM?
I’m very fond of Momatoes and her games just in general. This stuff is astonishingly beautiful and touchingly real. The Magus is a bit older but every time I play I’m still enthralled by it. In terms of recent games I’ve really loved Liminal Horror for the flexibility of it as a platform to showcase horror, and Gubat Banwa because it has that really wonderful Final Fantasy Tactics crunch mixed with folklore and storytelling the just feels so damn familiar to me. And, although it’s not yet out, I’m so stoked for 5-Star Match which I believe is still crowdfunding as of publication of this so you should back it right now (Note: In fact the pledge drive is over but they are taking late pledges so check it out!).
As a designer, honestly? I prefer vibes to mechanics in the sense that your mechanics need to feed into the vibe. You can’t just shoehorn X setting into a generic ruleset – the rules need to make sense with what you’re doing. There should be harmony between them. I also have a soft spot for contemplation. I like stuff that makes you THINK. I want to stare at the wall for an hour when I’m done and think hard about what the meaning of life is.
B: Are there other projects on the horizon you can discuss?
Probably the most exciting is the release of my game Forsaken through the Afterthought Committee! It’s Omelas through the lens of Sucker Punch, where you play as children who become great heroes in a fantasy world to overcome obstacles. It’s about the power of stories to give the young voice and strength, and it is quite dear to my heart. You can grab the physical copy at EF at https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/products/forsaken-pdf and the zine through the Afterthought Committee at https://afterthought-committee.itch.io/forsaken.
In terms of what else I’m allowed to discuss, I’ve got some of my own projects brewing. The three biggest ones are Party Like the World is Ending, a four-mystery campaign for Apocalypse Keys sponsored by the Omen Project grant. I’m hoping to get it text, art, and layout done in time for the Halloween season! Deeply Screwed is my Goblin Quest Hack based on fantasy roguelikes in general and Dark Souls in specific, which should be out in its most basic form by the end of this week or start of next week. That will be updated with more content, additional rules, and a lot of material to work with in text before we hit layout and art. And then there’s Legendary Pro Wrestling, which is playtestable now but also needs some expanding in due time.
B: Thank you again for talking with me, Kyle! Where can folks find you if they want to follow what you’re up to?
Thank you so much for interviewing me, Brent! If people want to find me they can catch me on X and Bluesky and, very very rarely, on Tumblr as @PercyPropa.
Then there’s that newsletter I mentioned, which is here: https://whatkylewrites.substack.com/about. Historically I’ve not been the best at updating it but I’m trying to make an effort to be more regular about that. Yay, consistency!
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Thanks again to Kyle for taking the time to talk! And if you want to see Hit the Road, Jack in action, check out my stream this coming Friday at 6:30pm MST.
