Alternative TTRPGs: Lancer

Author: Xenken

About The System

Lancer is a game about mechs and their pilots, set in a hopeful but imperfect sci-fi universe. It is, at once, both a narrative system to describe pilots and a well honed tactical combat game to showcase mechs and mech combat. It draws from both low and high fantasy iterations of the genre and creates a space where they can stand side by side.

Complexity (★★★★☆)

System Strengths

Lancer mechs feature some of the best character creation in TTRPGs right now. Different mech parts come in different licenses that are divided into 3 levels each, which are the levels you get when you level up. These licenses are also grouped together under different manufacturers that you can think of as large factions within the world. For example, the Blackbeard, a tough to kill melee focused grappler mech, is one of the licenses available within I-PSN: an absolutely gigantic freight and transportation company.

In addition there’s one manufacturer, GMS, whose entire catalog of parts is always available for players, effectively acting as the game’s baseline. This is in part a way for low levels to act as a tutorial and introduction to the game: the lowest license level is LL0, when you can only use GMS stuff, and a license’s frame (its unique mech,) isn’t available until LL2, so at LL1 you have to use a GMS frame even with access to new parts. Note, though, that unlike many other games, these baseline parts aren’t rendered obsolete as you level up. Even into the highest levels of play most mechs use and can count on at least some GMS equipment.

The great thing about this system is that, while leveling up is never linear for very long, you still feel rewarded for big commitments. Licenses are only 3 levels each so you’re always on the cusp of diversifying your options, but the license’s third level often has its most interesting parts, and core bonuses (special boons you get every three levels) expand your options for that bonus if you stick to the same manufacturer. On the flip side, the decently high quality of GMS parts means there’s no harm in going wide immediately and picking your favorite bits and pieces from entirely separate licenses very early, and there’s nothing like spell progression or stat prerequisites to curtail your pool of options if you do so.

Lancer’s pilots, on the other hand, get improvements to narrative skills as they level up. While they do have health and their own weapons, pilot combat using the mech combat rules is, while definitely possible and occasionally supported, not a priority. Instead, pilots usually get things done using a system somewhat similar to games like Fate, where they have relatively broad triggers like “Get something quickly” or “Read a situation” with associated bonuses, and get to apply those bonuses if they do something, need to roll for it, and the trigger might apply. More mechanics play off of this system, like reserves or many of the supplementary systems introduced outside the core rulebook, but it’s fundamentally less crunchy and simpler to resolve, complementing the more involved mech gameplay.

Having two linked systems with two different levels of crunch has the obvious advantage that groups can adjust which they give more time to according to their focus, but it also has the more subtle advantage that they only influence each other in very specific ways. Compared to 5e where skills and spells are in a one-sided tug of war to be the solutions to the same problems, nothing on the mech side can supplant your pilot skills in Lancer, even though mech stuff is exceedingly cool in its own right.

Speaking of exceedingly cool mech stuff, Lancer combat has a much better depth to complexity ratio than that of D&D 5E. Instead of hundreds of spells and abilities spread out across classes, lancer comparatively only has a few dozen things you can ever take, between mech parts and skills. Even so, not only can you intermix them a lot more freely, but the lack of reliance on scaling or prerequisites leaves you with as much or more build variety. Meanwhile you enter a game and there’s more to do! Partially because the game’s popcorn initiative rewards figuring out how the team’s actions can best flow into one another, and partially because of how the game determines wins and losses in combat.

Instead of the singular team deathmatch that D&D 5E almost always defaults to, Lancer has six default combat scenarios, with the notable distinction that they’re all objective focused. Extraction, for example, requires you to get to an objective on the other side of the map and return it back to base, while Control requires standing on specific points on the map for as long as possible while preventing the enemy from doing so. You should still be taking out enemy mechs of course, otherwise you’ll probably get overwhelmed and die, but the objective based format makes positioning and movement much more important, which is just more fun! It’s exciting when you do stuff like win the scene in the last round while surrounded because you pulled an NPC off the point at a critical moment. It also makes attributes that aren’t weaponry matter more than they otherwise might have: a mech being fast is more important when there are places you need to get to quickly, while a mech that’s sturdy and hard to move is valuable for standing on a point and defending it.

Speaking of, Lancer also takes the time to actually carve out room for all of the mech tropes it wants to use, which often overlaps with character archetypes that D&D 5E also wants to use but often either undersells or shelves. The hard to kill character that blocks attacks aimed at allies is a real thing, you can carry and swing a gigantic sword that actually does enough damage to make up for how cumbersome it is, there’s dedicated design space for duel wielding a melee and ranged weapon at the same time, and one shot one kill sniping, and so much more, on top of mech specific tropes like hacking or being an ace pilot. Any 5e player should join at least one Lancer game just to see and feel how well done a lot of this stuff is.

The NPCs have a pretty great system behind them too, with the basic chassis of each one being a class with 3 or 4 set features. While you can accessorize enemies in dozens of different ways, between options specific to each class and templates that can be applied to any of them, it must be noted that the basic, low complexity enemies just work; they do their job and feel cool to use even before you start adding stuff, meaning that even non-specialized NPCs used to round out an encounter always also work to give it more texture instead of just being more health or damage on the field. Also, while their associated lore blocks are quite good, the stat blocks themselves are well formatted, concise, and have little in the way of the chaff that a lot of DnD 5E blocks have, making them easier and smoother to run.

COMP/CON, Lancer’s companion app and character creator, is fantastic and should be a model for other TTRPG companion apps. It’s simple, elegant, and integrates into most VTTs while being very low on technical bugs. The ability to share characters so easily through it is a huge boon for the game. It also effectively acts as Lancer’s free demo system, letting you acquire player and NPC data for books without paying for them.

The core combination of low and high fantasy inspiration is built on to create a very rich setting. While many of the great narrative elements and questions of science fiction, like “Can inequality still exist even as tech becomes more and more powerful?”, and “What would we consider advanced AI to be and how would we treat it?” are often explored well in books and movies, there aren’t many opportunities to personally explore them in games, even less so for TTRPGs, and Lancer’s adventures take good advantage of its setting to ask them better than most.

The art is gorgeous. Again, best in class work on display here, both for the mech designs and the world around them.

System Flaws

Any relatively complex TTRPG with a focus on grid combat that isn’t part of the wider network of D&D/Pathfinder is gonna suffer a little from a comparative lack of infrastructure, and Lancer is no exception. Not having near-automatic access to things like maps and templates can be burdensome at times, especially for DMs newer to the system. This isn’t an issue if you have access to a community where you can get these resources from, but it makes having that access more important.

While not entirely lacking in encounter design advice, what’s in the book is scarce, and doesn’t comment on how drastically different types of NPCs can change encounters.

Grunts, while definitely a good idea, can sometimes be polarizing because they deal as much damage as standard enemies while only having 1 health, which kind of necessitates a few specific ways to deal with them.

The balance, while definitely a huge step ahead of D&D 5E, isn’t perfect. In particular, many of the mechs focused around damage that only have main mounts are a bit underpowered compared to more generalist frames that can fit larger weapons.

Example Game Concepts

In terms of official content, the recently released Solstice Rain is a purpose built starter adventure, and worth a look. As far as making your own campaign goes, Lancer thematically fits well with most classic mecha and sci-fi plots, and the encounter design makes it especially good for ones wherein the PCs have ties and responsibilities to other important things (be it towns, NPCs, or special objects).

Links

Lancer Kickstarter

Core Book on itch.io