My Solo RPG Journey: An Interview with Alex T of Blackoath Games

This was originally published on my personal blog on 8/1/25 but I forgot to move it here. This is being rectified!

Original Publish Date of 8/1/25 on my personal blog. Posting here now cause I forgot to move it when I came to substack, like a dummy.

Hey everyone! Today I am bringing you a little interview I did with Alex, the creator behind Blackoath Games (and my current obsession Riftbreakers 2nd Ed).

He was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions, and honestly, most of this was the stuff I was fascinated by or wanted to know. So hopefully you all find this as interesting as I did!

So let's start with the simplest question: Who the hell are you and what are you all about?

Hello! My name’s Alex, and I’m the person behind Blackoath Entertainment, my little publishing house that focuses on solo gaming. I’ve been writing RPGs since 2019, and I absolutely love doing so! I tend to prefer dark fantasy, but I have a little bit of everything. Most people know my work thanks to the solo dungeon crawler Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne.

What inspired you to start creating games?

As the forever GM, I’ve spent years creating content for the different games I played with my friends. I had a huge folder with maps, adventure locations, NPCs, etc. for Stormbringer, for example. So it was a natural step going from creating things first for my party, then for me as a solo player, and finally as a writer. I got lucky and managed to get a lot of attention on my first game, Disciples of Bone & Shadow, I think mostly due to the fact that in 2019 there were essentially no solo games out there. I continued riding that success until now, exploring new ideas and loving every minute of it.

What was the first game you wrote?

Technically speaking, the first game I wrote was a little hack for 4 Against Darkness called 4 Against the Void. Andrea Sfiligoi seemed to like it, and for a while we discussed the possibility of working together to release it, but it ended up in nothing. That made me realize that I could, in fact, write a full game, so shortly after I went ahead and wrote the first edition of Disciples of Bone & Shadow, which was very similar to 4 Against Darkness, just adding overland travel in the form of a hexcrawl, something that I missed when I was playing 4 Against Darkness myself. A year later or so I expanded the game and turned it into a proper solo RPG, though.

You mentioned 4 Against Darkness. Are there any other Solo RPGs you have played that you think might have informed a bit of your own design?

Not really, honestly. Like I said, there weren’t that many options when I started. I do have to mention Mythic GM Emulator, though, because although it isn’t a game, it’s a fundamental tool to any solo player, and I’ve stolen so many ideas from it, haha. Tana should be up there with Gygax for coming up with this.

What is on your worktable right now?

I’m focused on Choir of Flesh, a religious body horror RPG that takes place in France in the year 1,000 CE. I’m also trying to wrap up Tales from the Green, a solo skirmish game I’m working on with Ivan Sorensen. I have lots of other things, but those two are my most immediate priority.

Care to tell us a bit more about Choir of Flesh?

CoF is my attempt at making a true grimdark game. Most know I really enjoy dark fantasy, since most of my games are dark fantasy, but I haven’t really written anything properly dark (well, aside from Under Ashen Skies, but that one has a modern day setting). So I wanted to write something truly gruesome and blasphemous, and this is the result! It’s also a great excuse to explore some ideas I had, and even though it uses the same core rules as Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse, I’ve added grid-based combat and wounds instead of HP. This makes combat extremely fast and deadly, and I’m honestly loving it so much I will probably use it in future games as well. The game has you play as a survivor after the Rapture takes place in medieval Europe, but not exactly as it was described… You must face a world devouring curse called The Flesh That Hates, while it clashes with God’s Holy Host of angels. I think it’s pretty cool!

Why does dark fantasy and grim dark fantasy resonate with you? What attracts you to it?

I find it more interesting and fun, it simply goes with my personality better. Stories of heroism shine brighter when the world is dark, but mostly it is the fact that people are not black or white, they’re grey, so it’s easier to find relatable characters in these sorts of stories. There’s nothing cooler than an antihero, if you ask me!

How do you manage your workload? Do you focus on 1 thing at a time, or do you prefer to bounce around wherever your brain takes you?

It depends. I often work on one project during the morning and another during the evening, but when I’m in crunch mode I work the whole day on the same thing until it’s done. I try to hop around different projects to keep myself entertained, which results in having 5 unfinished games right now, haha.

Wait 5 unfinished games? You only mentioned Choir of Flesh so far, and I know about Frostbound Exiles (More on that later readers)! Any hints on what else you are cooking up over there?

I have Sacrifice 2e, Across a Thousand Hollow Vaults, Frostbound Exiles, Choir of Flesh, and my perennially unfinished game Empire Undying. And those are the ones I’ve written a few chapters of, then I have several smaller ideas and things with just lists of notes…

What sort of games, movies, music, and/or books inspire your design style?

I don’t get to play videogames that much these days, but I’m a big fan of the survival genre overall, and strategy games, as well as having been an avid MMO player (I think I’ve tried every single MMO in the market). As for music, extreme metal, especially black metal, is my go-to. Lately I’m reading way too many litRPG books, but overall I think science fiction is my favorite genre, as well as dark fantasy.

What are some of your favorite musical acts that inspire you?

I can’t say this or that band inspires my work, more like the genre itself. I tend to like dark stuff, and that’s applicable to music, art, films, literature… But my all time favorite bands are Paradise Lost, Sisters of Mercy, and Satyricon, most likely.

Got a favorite book series in the LitRPG genre that you would recommend?

Absolutely! I can really recommend Defiance of the Fall and The Great Game, they are both super fun. I’m just a sucker for character progression and constant power ups (what can I say, I’m a child of Dragon Ball), and this genre delivers.

If your games had soundtracks, what bands would match up with which games?

I do make lists on Spotify for my games quite often! It’s a lot of noise and death metal, haha. It really depends on the game, though: a sci fi game like Across a Thousand Dead Worlds is going to have more ambient stuff, whereas something like Choir of Flesh is going to be quite brutal and creepy.

What would you say you are best at doing?

Coming up with mechanics that suit a specific setting. I always think of a setting first, and then try to think what sort of gameplay procedures would fit it best. For example, I’m currently working on Choir of Flesh, which is a grimdark fantasy game focused on religious and body horror. Since it’s pseudohistorical, I had to come up with a magic system that would fit it. It had to be gritty and dangerous, so I added wounds instead of tracking Health Points. That sort of thing: making sure that the rules work for what I want to transmit with a particular setting.

Would you say then that games Lore and Setting are two of the most important aspects of a game when you are either designing or playing? In fact, how would you order the importance of the various aspects of a game? From lore, to world, to theme, to mechanics, etc?

Absolutely, when I start working on a game, it’s the setting that inspires me to do so. I flesh out the setting, and then I start thinking of what mechanics are suitable for it.

The game’s lore and worldbuilding definitely come first. Then comes the mechanics, which must suit what I’m going for. Last but not least would be the theme and tone, which is of course important as well but less so than the other elements.

What would you say you are not great at doing?

Writing adventures! Not only am I bad at it, I absolutely hate it, haha. Which is why I try to avoid it as much as possible, and hire people who actually know what they’re doing whenever I can afford it. In the time I write a 20 page adventure I can write 200 pages of lore, rules, and procedures. So it’s a terrible use of my time, if I can avoid it.

I noticed that you really focus on solo rules, but also add in rules for both coop GMless AND full on GM driven gameplay. How hard is it to design like that?

The hardest part is to write games for solo, and I mean really write them, not just add an oracle and call it a day (I’m looking at you, Twilight: 2000). Writing an RPG for a single player means that the whole game must work without the input of another person. Furthermore, I HATE it when a game forces me to put my GM hat on and takes me out of immersion because the author was too lazy to write this or that procedure, leaving it to the player to figure it out on the fly. I can do it, sure, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to GM for myself, I want to be a player and be surprised by the emergent story that is facilitated by the rules and procedures. This means that when I’m writing a game I need to add as many tools and clear procedures and game loops for a single player to be able to rely heavily on the book and not on his own interpretation of how they’re supposed to do this or that. Once you have that established, adding co-op is just as simple as balancing combat for more than one PC. As for GM, well… There’s nothing easier to run than a properly written solo RPG, I tell you.

Of your current games, which would you consider to be the most “successful”? And that is in any way, whether it's your design, the reception of it, sale, etc. What does success mean to you?

Definitely Ker Nethalas, followed closely by Across a Thousand Dead Worlds. Those two games allow me to do what I do! It’s thanks to their success that I can “waste” time and money on writing other things, haha. And by success I mean having enough money to not only maintain myself, but to be able to hire illustrators for my books without having to rely on Kickstarter.

How do you view the current landscape of the Solo RPG world?

It’s incredible! Since the pandemic, solo games have really exploded in popularity, and you have publishers like Free League releasing solo rules with every one of their games, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. It’s a good reflection of the RPG scene in general: there are so many incredible games to play out there, and I truly think there’s something for everyone, which is the ideal situation!

Are there any solo RPGs coming out that you are interested in? Any you want to try? Assuming you have time, of course.

I’m excited about Morkin: The Lords of Midnight, Bitter Chalice, and Wrath of the Wyvern, to name a few! I buy most solo RPGs, if I’m being honest. Emphasis on RPGs, since I don’t do journaling games.

Are there any designers / companies out there that impress you?

Absolutely! I love Alan Bhar’s work, because he’s always experimenting with new ideas, trying new things, and on top of that he is an incredible human being, always willing to help out his fellow creators. I am always super impressed by the likes of Richard Kelly or Cezar Capacle, who keep releasing incredibly creative games. Ivan Sorensen is also an incredibly passionate designer who has single-handedly created the solo skirmish game, and I’m just a huge fan of his work. As for companies, I love the production values of Free League and Modiphius, to name two of the big ones.

Since you are your own publisher, how has that been? Have you struggled much?

It’s fantastic, honestly. With the existence of DTRPG and Amazon, I barely have to worry about dealing with orders myself. I only do very small runs of some of my books, and they generally sell fast, so I don’t have to be worrying about shipping stuff all the time, which is extremely time consuming and annoying. Going solo was the best decision of my life, and even though I’m open to this or that publisher releasing one of my games, I’ll never tie myself to a single publisher ever again.

What are you playing right now? Video games, RPGs, whatever it is!

I’m hooked again to Rimworld, my favorite videogame of all time, because they have just released a new expansion. As for RPGs, I honestly barely play them these days… at least solo. I mostly play my own games (I need to playtest them to see that they work as intended before letting others try them), when I play solo. With my regular group, I’m playing a weird Savage Worlds superheroes game that I came up with, where all powers come from Lovecraftian cosmic entities, which means you’re slowly corrupted by them… So far it’s been a lot of fun, mostly because Savage Worlds is just amazing. A friend of mine is running a Pathfinder 2e game that we play now and then, too.

You mentioned before that you have a game coming up inspired by Survival games. Care to chat that game up and give people a little sneaky peek at what's brewing in your mind?

Sure! So in Frostbound Exiles, you start the game as a person who has been cast out of society for a number of potential reasons (there’s a random table to find out what exactly), and thrown upon the shores of the frozen continent of Jhesaris, a sentence worse than death. This is a wasteland full of danger and brutal weather, so your first goal is to find refuge, and craft some basic gear. Once you’re set up with some rudimentary tools and weapons, you can start exploring the four different regions available in the book, which offer increasingly dangerous opportunities. The game focuses on gathering and scavenging so you can craft better gear and tools, going up the different tiers, while you explore the different regions, each offering a mix of randomly generated content and pre-written locations. It uses the same core rules as Ker Nethalas, but adapted to this type of gameplay. It’s going to be a lot of fun!

What would you say has been your biggest influence on design?

Rolemaster! I just love detailed rulesets that cover most of the things you need. Kevin Crawford’s work is also extremely influential, he is simply brilliant. The different Basic Roleplaying games (Runequest, the old Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu…) have always set an example of how to do D100 systems right, as well.

I want to talk about Riftbreakers for a minute, as that is the only game of yours I have (now) personally played. First, I am loving it. Second, what inspired it? I saw both mentions of MMOs and cRPGs and I can see the elements of those games in it.

Thank you, I’m glad you’re liking it! It was directly inspired by stuff like World of Warcraft or The Elder Scrolls Online. I like that sort of gameplay and when I wrote the first edition there was nothing like it in the market. Now I’ve seen quite a few games with the same sales pitch, but I still think Riftbreakers offers a lot in just a few hundred pages. There are hundreds of hours of content in that book!

Are there plans, once the 2nd Edition of Riftbreakers releases, to add expansions to it, similar to how Machine Gods and Ker Nathalas have expansions?

I do hope I’ll get the chance to release expansions for Riftbreakers, since I have many ideas. I want to flesh out the Labyrinth region of the game, which would be kind of like a shifting mega dungeon, and I have an expansion planned called “Raids & Guilds” which would add precisely that. It all depends on sales, as usual, since unfortunately I sometimes must treat Blackoath as the business it is and not just as my passion project, and give priority to the stuff that sells.

Also I noticed there is a whole bit in the Riftbreakers 2nd Ed book about the Bonespire Peaks and how no one knows what's beyond them. Any plans to maybe expand out that way? Or is that just supposed to be the MYSTERY ZONE?

Oh yeah, I’ll definitely love to explore what’s beyond those mountains. To be honest, I have some ideas but not that much, haha. I first want to finish exploring the corners of Kaethor left to explore!

Something that I also wanted to ask is the concept of the Labyrinth in Riftbreakers 2nd Ed. It shares a striking similarity to the Labyrinth from a book series called “The Death Gate Cycle” by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. Have you ever read those books by chance?

I love those books! A cornerstone of my childhood for sure… Much better than the Dragonlance books, if you ask me. And yes, that’s definitely a big influence for what the Labyrinth in Kaethor is. I don’t want to spoil it, though!

This is a personal question but got a favorite book in the Death Gate Cycle, and favorite character? I always got a kick outta Book 5, and who doesn’t love Haplo?

I really, really don’t remember anything, other than I loved the books, haha. I remember the feeling of the story as it developed book after book, but I read them 30 years ago. I remember the tattoos, the different biomes, Haplo hopping from place to place, that sort of detail, but not much else. Sorry!

I also have to ask this! I read a lot of Korean Manwha (webcomics) and a lot of them involve “Hunters” that enter “Rifts” to fight monsters and I cannot help but see a similarity to those webcomics and Riftbreakers. Were you aware of this similarity at all?

I actually wasn’t aware at all, until a few people started telling me about stuff like Solo Leveling. I guess it’s such an easy trope that it makes sense that different games and media end up using it, haha. There’s something very cool about being able to step into a pocket dimension, explore it, and then hop out and you’re back home. It’s the ultimate dungeon!

Are there any games you have written that you wish you could go back to and fix, or update? Any regrets with games you have created?

Absolutely, haha. Essentially all games I write, six months later I already want to make a second edition. Since that’s not a smart way to handle things, though, I try to let a few years pass. Next on the list is Sacrifice, and I’d love to give Broken Shores the love it deserves. I don’t have regrets because I always make the best game I can at the moment, so it’s great to look back and see how far I’ve gone.

For those that do not know (Like me) what are Sacrifice, and Broken Shores?

Sacrifice is my homage to the amazing manga Berserk. Literally just that, haha. The second edition is being developed further from that, but it is still a Guts simulator at heart. As for Broken Shores, it’s my spiritual successor to Disciples of Bone & Shadow, but in a waterworld type of setting.

What do you consider to be important when providing a game experience to a player like me? What tools do you want to make sure a player has access to? I noticed you provide a lot of handouts and form fillable PDFs for example (and I appreciate that, personally).

Yes, aside from nice character sheets, I think it’s crucial to provide as many rules summaries as you can. As a solo player, you don’t have a GM to ask about stuff, and flipping through a book all the time gets old quickly, so having a bunch of sheets explaining the core game loops is very useful! I do what I can, but I’m aware that I can still do better. It’s a lot of work handling that sort of material, though, and since it’s just me doing it all, sometimes I don’t get to add all the stuff I’d like to.

Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring game designers?

Start small! Maybe start with a hack of your favorite game, a zine adventure, something you can potentially achieve in a month or two of work. Ambitious is great, but it kills a lot of projects. Don’t fall into using AI for art or writing; you can get extremely cheap and high quality stock art from DTRPG (that’s what I did for years when I was starting out; as a matter of fact, I still do), or use royalty free art. If you are not willing to spend 50 bucks on your own game, why would anyone else purchase it?

And finally, thank you for taking the time to answer all these questions. How bout you spend a moment to let everyone reading know where they can find your work, and any parting words!Thank you for your interesting questions! I recommend anyone interested in my work to join the Blackoath Discord server, and if anyone wants to support me directly, they can do so via Patreon! As for my website, I try to update it each time a new book is published, so check it out!

I urge everyone to check out his work, support him, and check out his games!

Thanks again Alex. Till next time.