Lonely TTRPG EP 53 - Hit The Road Jack by Kyle Tam

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Greetings, weary wanderer, and welcome back to another

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episode of Lonely TTRPG, the solo actual play and review podcast.

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This week, we are playing Hit the Road, Jack, by Kyle Tam.

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You fucked up something big, and now the big house, the law man, the

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devil, and all his little hellions are chasing your sorry ass down.

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There's a country's worth of highway from one end to the other that

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you're gonna have to cover, and maybe that much won't be enough to

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run from the weight of your sins.

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But, you're slippery as an eel, tough as nails, and so long as you've

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got leather and chrome between your legs and fuel in the tank, ain't

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no way they're ever gonna catch ya.

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At least, that's what you like to believe.

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Don't think about the stretches of highway bleeding in, the cracked black

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and white and yellow searing in your eyes.

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Don't think about the little needle dipping lower, the tread of rubber

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tires wearing away to nothing, the fear and exhaustion lying behind your eyes

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after the searing adrenaline bleeds its way out of your systems.

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All you got to do is outrun whatever's behind you for long enough.

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Time to hit the road, Jack, and get going.

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So, Hit the Road, Jack is a, is a chase game of adrenaline and creeping terror.

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There are two main characters in this.

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We have Jack being nimble, the sinner, the runner, the one who is being hunted.

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And what is Prey without a Hunter?

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And that is Jack B.

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Quick, the law man.

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So, the way this is gonna work is this is a card prompt game, alright, where you're

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going to use a tarot deck and draw cards.

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Now, it is important that you use a physical deck and it is

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important that you mix the cards up well, do a good wash on them.

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Only because the reversed image is also going to matter.

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So, just because you draw the sun doesn't mean that things are all hunky dory, okay?

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If you draw it reverse, bad things could happen.

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Now, if you don't have a tarot deck or you don't have access to

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a physical tarot deck, well, then you just roll a 44 sided dice.

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Or some way to represent 41 through 44.

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You can write out numbers on tokens, whatever you, whatever you

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wanna do, whatever you gotta do.

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But...

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You need 1 through 44, and that can also represent the drawing of the tarot cards.

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Alright, you're also gonna need a chase sheet.

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It's just something to record where everybody is.

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Because some of the prompts will tell you to move forward, some of the

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prompts will tell you to stay still.

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And, of course, you'll need some way to record your journey.

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Now, once you have all of this...

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Then you need to decide how long you want to play.

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This has three lengths in mind.

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Short, which is six rounds.

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Medium, which is ten rounds.

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And long, which is fourteen rounds.

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Of course, this is a game for one to two players.

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So, if you're doing two players...

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Each player will respond to half of the prompts that are listed.

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So if you do a short game, then each player will answer three prompts.

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But we are playing solo, and when playing solo, you're gonna pick one of the

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jacks you're gonna be on this road trip.

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You're going to shuffle your deck or prepare your number

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generator and draw your first card.

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That's going to give you the prompt that you're going to

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respond to, noting down the answer.

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And then you're going to be asked to either move yourself or the

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other jack ahead on the chase sheet.

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Play is going to continue until you either get to the final round or

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You come into a surprise ending.

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Now play can end in a couple of ways.

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One, you draw your final prompt, at which point determine whether Nimble managed

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to escape or whether Quick caught him.

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You could also draw the Death Upright card and choose to die at that

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point, or you can give yourself up.

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If you draw the hangman upright card, so there are a couple of different ways

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to get surprise endings that aren't necessarily Running out of prompts.

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It's entirely possible.

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You could take off draw death upright and go out in a flaming crash Right up front,

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but that's about it on the rules.

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This is a relatively rules lite game.

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The rest of this book is Descriptions of what happens when you draw a certain card.

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So instead we're gonna go ahead and jump on into gameplay Now,

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I will be playing the law.

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Jack be quick, as I try to catch that no good rascal, Jack be nimble.

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Now, as you're supposed to remove cards if I do get the same number

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on multiple occasions, I will just re roll, but I will be using a...

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I will be using Roll20's roll device, because for those of you who don't know,

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you can roll custom dice sides on Roll20.

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You're not limited to the standard...

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So you can roll d3s, d7s, or in this case, a d44.

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And for my first roll, I got

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34.

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You think you're so fucking clever, don't you, Jack?

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Because you knew what would happen.

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You knew that one day you'd end up here.

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Maybe it wasn't today?

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Maybe tomorrow or in a week or a month or a year But you figured you would end

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up here and you brought some tools of the trade along So tell me what's in

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the pack Because plans never go quite as they should and tools have a nasty

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habit of failing when they need to most

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So for this first prompt, what's in the pack?

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so this prompt is written more from the perspective nimble something

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happened, but we're gonna say

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We're going to say that Quick knew that he was starting at a disadvantage.

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I know that rascal son of a bitch He's he's got the lead on me and I can't

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be making I can't be making stops.

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I gotta push I gotta push hard.

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So I think what's in my pack is

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a Fuel can and we're gonna have some extra hose hooked up so that

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I can do the incredibly risky maneuver of Adding fuel as we go.

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That way I don't have to stop quite as often.

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I don't have to make some early stops in order to refuel this hog.

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And also, safety note, please do not do this in real life, but because

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of this I do get to move up one.

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So we have nimble.

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At 3, I am currently at 2, right hot on his heels.

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And let's see what we get for our second prompt.

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And we got 21.

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The Wheel of Fortune Upright.

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You know how they tell you in the movies that when you're dying, you can see your

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whole life flashing in front of your eyes?

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I can tell you, Jack.

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It don't work like that.

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You're not getting a director's cut with every last ugly moment.

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It's not a highlight reel, either, where you get the most important bits.

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Nah, it's only the one thing.

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The biggest and most important moment.

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The one that changed absolutely everything.

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So, as you hear that screeching rubber, talk to me.

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What's that moment?

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And, for me, for me, I think that this moment's gonna be what really set it off.

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What really made me want to get nimble.

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Where he had just robbed someplace and my partner and I, we were going after him and

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nimble in a bit of a in a bit of a

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mood, tossing loose gravel down as he was passing a curve and my

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partner's wheels hit it and the bike slid out from under him.

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Now, that kind of wreck is nasty at any speed, but you know, when you

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leave half of yourself on the pavement.

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It's really hard to recover from that.

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And that's when I swore I was going to get nimble.

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And

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of course this recollection

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pulls me into my thoughts and slows my pace down before I can, before I can come

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to and realize where I'm at and what we're doing and that gives nimble a little bit

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of an edge nimble pulls ahead to four.

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All right.

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Round three, 33.

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The tower upright.

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Alright, so we're going to re roll this one because the tower

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should have been removed from play.

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If I had an actual deck.

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So round 3 we got 11.

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The Hierophant Upright.

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And what a waste of your talents that was.

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That soul sucking drudgery that threatened to eat you alive.

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That was so mind numbingly better than even being along this middle

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of nowhere road seems like a fucking dream in comparison.

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Can you recall it, Jack?

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Can you recall the nothingness that ever progressed, tick tock,

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tick tock of the clock hands that pushed you towards the road?

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The pain, the agony, the building horror of existence.

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Never again, never in a million years, better to die here than to

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live long enough to be sucked back in.

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Well, it's hard.

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It's hard to think of why I got into this game in the first place.

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You know, I...

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I knew the stories.

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I heard what people said, ACAB, this ACAB that, and

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you know, look at my life.

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Now, I can't say I disagree with them.

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I know I started wanting to do good, but

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you know, sometimes, sometimes things just get away from you.

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And

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this empty road, this empty desert road that we seem to be running on.

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Well, that's all that's left.

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That and a fake sense of power and authority.

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But, Nimble and I both know that's bullshit.

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At the end of the day, all you got is the routine.

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And with that, Nimble is going to pull ahead to 5, while

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Quick is stuck down at 2.

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Alright, round 4, let's see what we got.

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Roll the nine It's gonna be the Emperor Upright

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everybody's got some wants or want some and Lucky for you that you managed to

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snag one or two maybe a few The point is that loathsome little shit you are

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Jack there are people higher up on the food chain that actually want you to

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make it through this one and In one piece, the shark to your remora, allowing

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you to tag along for the ride, willing to forgive your little indiscretions,

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so long as you're still usable.

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So, whose feet are you groveling at, Jack?

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We all know that Nimble, he ain't no kingpin, he ain't

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no, he's just some petty punk.

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But, here we are chasing after him.

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Maybe, just maybe he's running back to that,

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that boss or that would be boss.

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Who knows,

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all I know is some boys from the Snakebite Gang showed up and caused a

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little ruckus, managed to slow me down, put me off the scent for a little bit.

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And with that, Nimble stays ahead, but Quick falls back one.

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Round 5.

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Got another 9, so re rolling.

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41.

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Ha ha The Judgment Upright You can feel it beating in your

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chest, going ten miles a minute

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That thuddin as it's trying to break out of your chest But what kind

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of rhythm is it trying to beat?

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What is it trying to say?

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Is it pleading for your innocence?

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Telling you that it's all some big mistake?

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That it's light as a feather, ready to usher you to the afterlife?

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Or is it telling you the truth?

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You're a deep sinner, Jack.

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Deep as any of us can be.

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Whatever the weight being carried, it needs to be thrown aside.

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Least it serve as an anchor.

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Let the emotions and pain go.

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Feel how much faster you go.

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And with that, Jack being nimble, gets to move ahead another space.

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We are at round 6, the final round.

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And we now need a miracle to catch Jack.

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To catch nimble.

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And with a 15, I don't think we're gonna get it.

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Pushing the horsepower on that engine to its absolute limits, making this ride

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of yours prove to you what it's worth.

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Jack be nimble.

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Moves ahead.

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And with that, my trail has gone cold.

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Ain't nothing I can do now.

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Except fall back and wait.

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Wait for my next chance.

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And that is Hit the Road.

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So, I like this.

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This is a good game.

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Very interesting game.

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I do like the chase concept.

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I think it would definitely be stronger with two people.

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I do really enjoy the mechanic of if you drew a reversed card,

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it helped out the other side.

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Like it was very easy to help out sides because if it was

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upright, it helped out nimble.

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If it was reversed, it helped out quick.

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Now with that, I think I would have liked to have seen Thank

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Some better variation because

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if you're doing a wash, you're going to kind of get

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whatever cards get spun around.

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If you intentionally go through and make sure all your cards are facing upright

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and then count out 11 cards and flip them upside down, that's about the only,

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that's about the only way to do that.

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Like even with rolling, even with rolling, we kept getting, we kept

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getting uprights, which I got it.

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It's rolling.

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It's, it's the way it works.

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Thanks.

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You know, there's no guarantee that anything is ever going to go both ways.

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This run just felt very heavily favored for Nimble.

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So,

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I almost wish that, I almost wish that there was some way to

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