Plight
A downloadable game
THE QUEEN IS DEAD. Poisoned in the night by some unscrupulous scab. Suspiciously, the High Priestess has dissolved the royal council, fracturing the Realm, and soiling the once stable relationships between dwarf, elf, and man. Her treachery has not gone unnoticed.
War seems imminent. And yet, there are dangers afoot, far beyond the cruelty of dwarf, elf, and man. Dangerous creatures hide in plain sight, ready to take advantage of an unsteady affair. All seems foul.
It is not. There are still opportunities abound. For the courageous few, there is coin to be made. Ancient treasures and powerful relics lie in wait in the hidden ruins of civilizations past. Bands that delve these darkened dungeons have been known to make a mint, but usually at a cost. Blood is not cheap.
This is our kingdom. This is our Realm. This is our Plight.
Plight is a solo-friendly, rules light, traditional fantasy, tabletop role playing game in a war-bound kingdom. It is compatible with Cairn, Knave, and their many supplements. This book contains:
- Complete game rules, bestiary, and extensive magic system.
- A thorough oracle system designed for solitaire players.
- Simple rules for quick character creation and play.
- Fast and dangerous combat mechanics.
Also, it's free! A gift from me to you. No tips. No emails. Just free. Have it, hack it, break it, make it. It's yours!
Download
Install instructions
Plight is designed to be printed into an A5 sized book. It is available in two different printable PDFs:
- Normal
- Spreads
Also on this page are the contents of the Plight PDF Playkit. All elements of the playkit are double sided:
- Character Sheet
- Location Sheet
- NPC Sheet
- Realm Sheet
Development log
- Hardback Books Available!Nov 22, 2023
- Version 1.1Oct 22, 2023
Comments
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hi, I was wondering how you decide on spell damage. Did I miss this info?
I’m thinking to go with an extra d4 for weapon with a new magical effects that I create. For a spell, I imagine 3d6 since it’s rare and should be more powerful than a d12 (avantage).
I’m having a blast exploring the fate of Alric and his companions. I started a second quest with the quest spark and trying all your tables to experience your game. I like your oracle (action/descriptor/theme) - very sword & sorcery. And for npc, the ambition table with rolls for character features and traits make them interesting, original and inspiring.
For hexcrawling and dungeon exploration, I use the campaign log’s procedures by perplexing ruins (on itch.io). it works well with Plight and it has procedures that work for my style. Have a look, but maybe you alredy know that.
Oh, yes. I am familiar with Perplexing Ruin. Great guy. As for deciding magic damage, the d100 spells listed are nonlethal, but if you create one with the effect generator, just be reasonable. I like your 3d6, but be careful of Arcane Disasters. The stronger you make a spell, the easier it kills your PC if it backfires. Haha. Good luck!
This is a very cool game - thanks for creating it and giving it away for free.
Thanks you!
Hi, I was curious if you had plan to add more Plight content? Adventures, tables, more options?
I know it's easy to hack things with Cairn. It seems that people are taking things they like from OSR and convert it to Cairn. When I read your rules, I thought it would be fun (for me!) to bring combat options like in dragonbane (parry, block...). I started to read more about Cairn and saw many hacks/supplements on it's website.
BTW, the presentation in your book is amazing! The art is gorgeous. I started to play solo to try it. I like the vibe/theme of sword & sorcery.
Thanks for the compliment! So, the answer is that I am currently working on version 1.2 of the game which makes minor rules tweaks and adds some new major chapters dedicated to social conflict, running a homestead, and more. The bestiary is also being expanded alot. As far as combat goes, I’m not elaborating on too much more, except for deeper explanation of maneuvers. I’d prefer to keep things light and less tactical for this project as I want the game to be something that people can quickly read and get right to work without having to remember the intricacies of blunted vs. sharpened weaponry. There is a Cairn supplement called Block Dodge Parry that expands on combat that I would recommend, though. I don’t have a projected release date yet, as I have to commission some new art for the expanded page count. I also don’t have plans to create any modules, as the game is meant to be proceduraly generated, and those two concepts would clash. Once this version is finished, I will be focusing on some of the other games I have been quietly working on. I will say that if you like the game now, you will love it in the near future. Thanks again!
That sounds really good. Suggestion, you could add a number in front of every item that the player could buy (armors, weapons, gears, goods. It helps to generate treasure.
I will look at the Block Dodge Parry. I got interested in procedurals while reading Forbidden Lands and FORGE solo RPG. That is something that got me interested in Plight too. I will be looking for the update! I just printed Cairn beastiary to try with more options.
If I had time, instead of creating an adventure, I would like to create procedures for campaigns based on theme (undead, war, post-war, religious zealot, extermination of any magicien, kidnapping of human/elf, famine, blight..., good vs evil with tables to create the arch enemy and it's villains). So within 4-6 pages, have tables to generate hex, quests, key npc, encounters/terrain, problems, locations, adventure site, monster for low-level/mid-level (in plight, it's always low-level I know!)... My goal would be to have a more cohesive world/campaign with procedure. I think you have something along this line in Plight with Casus Belli, Quest Sparks, Civilization Oracle with the Trouble table. I need to play with it more!
Version 1.2 will have every table associated with a dice roll for just what you mentioned. Also, I have added a series of dungeon theme oracles, like undead, cult, goblin, etc. each with its own d6 encounter table. Anyway, back to work for me. I’m writing it as we speak. All the best!
Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity in providing community copies of your game. I’m a disabled pension who can’t afford much so these free gifts really help me out in playing games and keeping my mind active.
I really appreciate your hard work and kindness
You are welcome! All the best.
Such a great game!
Thanks for your work on that 🙂
I would love to translate it to Brazilian Portuguese if you are interested in that.
My email, if you want to talk more about it, is
dennis.galbuquerque@gmail.com 🙏
I like this a lot, particularly the addition of 5e style advantage/disadvantage.
I have a question about that however: If we're using the D&D style advantage/disadvantage (2d20H and 2d20L, respectively) for attribute rolls, why is it not doing the same for impaired and enhanced attacks, rather than keeping the Cairn-SRD style d4/d12 system?
Fair question. The origins of the Enhanced/Impaired rule are passed down from Into The Odd, to Cairn, to Plight. The choice to add Advantage/Disadvantage was made to give PC backgrounds some extra weight. The reason that same mechanic was not utilized for E/I was that I liked the idea of a d4 being synonymous with impairment, since that die stinks, and the opposite for the d12. Another reason is that if 5 characters attack a dragon, but one is impaired, now the dice rolls have to be seperated. Leaving E/I as is keeps things smooth, quick, and uncomplicated. It’s difficult to alter a rules lite system too much without breaking something. Of course you could damn the rules and do what you want. I’d love to hear the results. 😊
Excellent, thank you.
This is fantastic! Thanks for making it!
Thank YOU!
This is super rad stuff!
Thanks, dude! I’m a big fan of yours and have a lot of your stuff. Cheers to you!
whoah! I see you there. Dude your stuff rocks!
THIS FREAKING ROCKS!!!
Thank you so much!
Proud of you, man! You put a lot of heart and soul into this. I’ll be passing it around to people that will appreciate it. Also gives me a reason to buy some dice!
This is great! I have a small podcast and would love to record an interview and discuss how this came to be and try to help promote it.
Feel free to reach out and if interested and we can connect. Thanks!
rollaroundfindout@gmail.com
I want to congratulate you with such an amazing game, the illustrations, and the written material are fascinating. The mechanics are simple, it makes it more fun to play. I am a translator specialized in video games looking for opportunities to translate role-playing games like yours, is there a possibility for me to translate into Latin American Spanish? It is an opportunity for the game to reach more people. If you accept this collaboration, send me the editable DOCX or PowerPoint files to my email hi@pedromontano.com 👍🏼
I loved the well-designed and written material, not to mention good light mechanics to please many at the table, I would like to carry out a translation into Brazilian Portuguese of the material, if possible I could send the sources and the material in DOC to my email below or PowerPoint that you may have used to write the same? 🙂
lucaskyyo6@gmail.com
thanks bro ^^
Beautifully done! The art and layout are fantastic. Everything you need to run amazing roleplaying session is right there in the rulebook. As a solo gamer, I'm super excited to see all the extra tables for hex crawls and GM emulation. There's even a settlement generator AND npc generator? It's an all-in-one package! Brilliant work! Much respect!
Thanks KrAkN! I play solo almost exclusively and got tired of having to frankenstein a core rulebook, an emulator, and a bunch of supplements together to play a game. It makes for a cluttered tabletop. This was my solution. Thanks for the compliment.
Just read this through for the first time, and I'm so immediately intrigued by the way the war slowly escalates in the background of a game. Feels like it would be a wonderfully tense world to run games in. I've been looking at getting into OSR stuff for a while and this might be the perfect way to jump in!
Very cool! Combat in OSR games can be pretty unforgiving, so put on your critical thinking cap. Have a great time!
This looks so cool! Thank you for creating this.
Little thing I noticed, all mentions of page numbers are off by 2.
You are a goddamned hero! Thanks for catching this. I added the cover on the digital version last and it adjusted everything. I have fixed the issue. Both the normal digital version and spread version should be correct. Also, there was a page number listed on the back of the character sheet that I removed. Files listed as v1.1 will need to be redownloaded. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you again!