Lancer
| Lancer | ||
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| RPG published by Massif Press |
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| Rule System | Shadow of the Demon Lord derivative | |
| No. of Players | 2+ | |
| Session Time | 10+ minutes | |
| Authors | Miguel Lopez and Tom Parkinson-Morgan | |
| First Publication | 2019 | |
- For the mounted unit and/or their primary weapon of choice, see: Lance
- For the Imperial Knight pattern, see: Cerastus Knight Lancer
"You dig giant robots!
We dig giant robots!
CHICKS dig giant robots!"
Lancer is a free-ish RPG about customizing, upgrading (and sometimes destroying) your very own mech from scratch. The player starts with a pilot, with a set of skills, stats, and talents, and a mech, composed of a CORE, which provides the base ratings of your mech ranging from HP to how good you are at aiming your massive underside cannon, and a FRAME, which is the external hardware covering the core. This can be anything from armor, weapons, and different sorts of fun systems (including a memetic virus that leaves those who see it stunned with brain damage or a gun dubbed Omnigun that is a "... piece of experimental hardware so advanced that it does not classify as any weapon...").
The Setting
TL;DR: Humanity fucked itself, slept it off for about five millennia, then woke up, punched itself, and decided to form a hegemony called Union. They discovered godlike AIs on Mars and had them crunch the numbers on the best way for humanity to not fuck itself over again. 3000 years later, they thought a tech-god AI called RA unto existence, who promptly fucked off with Deimos. Picking up the pieces left behind, humans harnessed blinkgates, galactic wi-fi, and AIs. 1500 years after that, humanity discovered the first sentient alien life. Union tried to peacefully contact them, and they got cholera and everything was fucked up. So they invented a whole new type of war fighting technology for the sole purpose of stomping on these bugs. And thus was the birth of the mech. After everyone found out the second committee of Union was waging a war of extermination agaisnt the only other sapient lifeform ever found, humanity spent a good long while in a state internal civil war, giving birth to a handful of micro-internal factions. The current ruling group of humanity invented Post-capitalism, Plunging the core worlds into an Utopian dream, though not without struggle, and though many worlds live the dream, thousands other struggle, whether it is piracy, slavers, or dictators. That is where the main characters come in, the exceedingly rare Lancer Pilots.
Manufacturers
The chief classifications for the mech frames and gear are twofold in Lancer: The first is their role, which is pretty self-explanatory (Striker, Defense, Support, Controller, Artillery), and the other is their manufacturer. Each manufacturer has very distinct types of mechs with particular specialisms, even among similar roles.
- GMS (General Massive Systems): All pilots start here. GMS is pretty much the generic-name manufacturer for almost everything, nationalized by Union, having built mechs since the dawn of colonization. GMS has weapons for everything to fill in the openings for your build. They also produce your starter frame, the Everest - a super-modular model that's actually quite zippy.
- IPS-N (Inter-Planetary Shipping - Northstar): One of the hugest megacorps, having started with building spaceships, and function much like space amazon, horrifying exploitation of workers included. Their models tend to specialize in CQC and carry quite a bit of armor. Funny thing is, their whole frame production line is based on killing pirates, and in doing so, created the frames that would be most useful for said Pirates
- Smith-Shimano Corpro: One of the oldest of the megacorps, they specialize in luxury products and genetic mods, SSC was quite quick to secure deals in subspace vessels. Their bigger research involved merging man and machine into one seamless entity, but that's been mostly abandoned to conform with moral and legal accords. SSC Mechs are really fast and sneaky, being made to avoid getting hit rather than taking them. They also have plenty in the way of sniping.
- HORUS: It's not really clear what the deal with this manufacturer's deal really is. Is it a collective of master hackers who like fucking with things, or is it the product of a rogue not-AI God? Whichever the case, it's got weird mechs that use impossible technology, the models are so diverse that Union uses "Pattern Groups" named after mythical creatures and specializes in electronic warfare and AI management. Basically, if /b/ made mechs. Expect to get Eldritch horrors masquerading as mecha.
- Harrison Armory: Remnants of the Seccond Committee, they're gung-ho, militaristic, and have a cult of personality around John Creighton Harrison, now on his Third cloned body since the fall of the regime. Originally dealt exclusively with guns, but they eventually decided to make their own mechs and embrace their own brand of imperialism. HA's mechs tend to be durable, capable of managing themselves and getting the most out of their gear and their fun guns.
The Mechs/Frames (wip)
GMS frames
Everest: The basic bitch Frame, as mentioned before, is the standard GMS mech and may be the only frame they produce, at least in the core rulebook. Has some general benefits like being able to take a extra action once a combat/scene and some general benefits that work for all builds, but is generally outclassed at every turn when you get access to other frames.
ISP-N frames
Blackbeard: A aggressive mech frame focused on launching harpoons into enemy mechs and locking them down. Gains the ability to swing around using said harpoon at hire license levels, and throw control of the mech to a murderhobo AI in exchange for better damage
Drake: A absolute tank of a mech, having resistance to all ranged damage, and can deploy itself like a turret. Higher levels give you access to a minigun made of Dakka, and the ability to to deploy increasingly ridiculous shields, right up until a fold-up instant bunker.
Lancaster: That fucking boston robotics dog robot, made into a support. Pretty much built entirely off of heal and buff. Can try to drag around enemies with towing cables, but its pretty fucking hard. Not completely useless in a straight fight, buff actions usually can be used as debuffs on enemies, like using hard setting anti-fire foam to freeze a mech. However, if you chose this without your party begging for a healer, you are either a unimaginative bastard, or a legitmate healslut.
Nelson: Full melee knight robot. Honestly kinda plain, has mods that allow it to navigate terrain better.
Raleigh: Space Cowboy mech, complete with fanning the hammer at higher levels, fucking awesome, but got replaced as the flagship frams because people are idiots. ranged focused, but can still kick ass if given the right gear.
Tortuga: The type of mech the evil overlords grunts would use in anime. Big, bulky, with a generic design blander than the lore from the forgotten realms. Has overwatch and some better weapons as unlocks. Literally more generic than the Everest, anyone who takes levels into this is either a boring cunt, or grabbing some unlocks.
Vlad: A very angry porcupine with a lance. Specializes in shredding armor, and throwing themselves into crowds of enemies to proc their Tormentor spines twice, then dying because getting surrounded is a death sentence in most cases. Also, one of its special abilities is called dismember, which goes of every time you hit someone, but all it does is inflict a debuff, which either means the designers can't name abilities for shit, or mechs are composed of hundreds of tiny arms.
SSC frames
Black Witch: The mech equivalent of Magneto. The frame has takes half damage from all kinetic weaponry (bullets and knives and the like). It also has a neat system that lets it throw things around and ways to protect your allies from hackers.
Death's Head: When you need to make a shot count, the Death's Head is a good call. It adds a bonus to all rolls to shoot and can re-roll the first shot it takes, meaning that this is when you make use of the Heavy slot it has. Its other systems are pretty much there to make sure that nothing gets in the way of you making your mark.
Dusk Wing: Weird illusionary bullshit. While it has all the means to hide itself and the ability to hover around, it is quite fragile.
Metalmark: Rather straightforward for Smith-Shimano, but it's also able to turn invisible whenever it moves and can actually fight. Also helpful is its unique knife, which deals the ever-so-bothersome burn damage.
Monarch: Missiles for days. If you plan on relying on launchers, this is the mech to use. All of its unique systems and weapons all ride off being missiles of some sort. Even the mech's core system just lets it fire off a metric fuckton of missiles just to see what can dodge the shitstorm.
Mourning Cloak: The edgy loner's mech, able to teleport behind enemies like it's nothing personnel. It's core system lets it teleport around with an additional system to teleport away the moment things go south. However, as anyone can tell you, the edgelords can brag all they want about studying the blade, but it won't mean much when they get their lights punched out.
Swallowtail:
Horus Frames
Balor: Instead of making one big mech, the lazy potheads at Horus just programmed a nanite swarm to do everything for them. Due to this, the Balor endlessly regenerates both in and out of combat, needing heat energy or mass concentrated fire to take it down reliably. Abusing this mech is the fastest way to get all Horus mechs banned from the table.
Goblin: If you take this, you are a heal slut, no exceptions. You literally latch onto a bigger mech and pump them full of buffs, with your unique weapon working off of reactions. And seeing as how you only have one weapon slot, you'll be nothing but a pocket healer for the rest of the game, as you take extra damage when detached. At least the Lancaster can at least try to fight by itself.
Gorgon: Remember how fucking broken the sentinel feat is in 5th edition dnd is? Have a mech just like it, based around punishing people for not hitting the tank and going for the squishy shooters.
Hydra: DRONESPAMDRONESPAMDRONESPAMDRONESPAM
Manticore: Probably the biggest tell that hours was most likely originally intended to be the villain faction. A mech with 2 whole traits turning it into a bomb with legs. Facetank as much heat damage as you can, then run up to the BBEG then cover them in your bodily fluids... because you just exploded and your eyeballs burst onto his visor. Abusing this will cause the GM to take away your backup clones.
Minotaur: Have a second mech based around forcing you to fight a tank. Uses gravity field bullshit and l33t haxz to pull a you shall not pass on other mechs. Fun fact, by RAW you can simply hide in this mech and never die if you keep the latch closed, even if the frame itself explodes.
Pegasus: Probably the biggest example of Warp-fuckery in the shape of a mass-produced Eva, the Pegasus's main feature is some sort of super-gun that doesn't exist, yet can somehow still shoot, which just means it gets free damage with no saves when it fires each turn. Its other feature lets it deal consistent damage on guns with randomized damage.
HA Mechs
Barbarossa: The big fucking mech. This is the only mech that is size 3 by default and carries a massive fucking ship-grade cannon as a core system.
Genghis:
Napoleon:
Sherman:
Tokugawa: The mech for pushing the limits of your mech.
Mechanics
The core system is pretty basic; 1d20 versus a target number (10 for skill checks, and a defensive stat for attacks) with up to 3d6 (taking only the highest) as Accuracy and Difficulty penalties granted by talents, circumstances, etc. The pilot side of the game is lightweight storygame-y stuff, usually based on how you plan to get some advantages and assets for combat, while the mech side is 4E-like tactical combat on a hex grid.
As you level up, you can improve both how your pilot and mech operate, gaining talents to specialize in mech combat, skills for managing downtime, and License Levels in order to buy new wargear and frames for your mech.
Gallery
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A lineup & size comparison of all the mechs with artwork. (As of November 2018).
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The cover featuring the IPS-N Nelson.
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The Goblin, more affectionately known as the mech fursuit.
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Rip and tear with power axes and assault grapples.
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Do not look into the aperture of the device...
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We promise this isn't Dark Souls.
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Who's laughing at the manlet now?
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NANOMACHINES, SON
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Good, bad... I'm the mech with the gun.
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A walking war crime built to burn out the "bugs". Heinlein would be proud.
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Breach and clear.
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The black orb on its gun ain't the Omnigun. It's the containment field of the Omnigun.
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NICE LEGS DAISY DUKES
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General Kenobi. You are a bold one.
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Can automatically deal 100 damage to objects and terrain. You read that right.
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Macross Missile Massacre
Links
- The itch.io page where you can buy it (or just download the free version if you're not bothering with GMing shit)
- COMP/CON, the official character-building app.
- 11dragonkid, noted youtuber who has an entire array of Lancer videos focused on the various rules of the game as well as some lore.