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Lancer aka I Like Little Bots and I Cannot Lie

Joined
Aug 5, 2014
Hello.

There have been a series of computer games recently about huge mechs (Battletech and Mechwarrior Mercenaries). Sadly, these don't really seem to translate well to tabletop unless you're going for the full Miniature-Wargame deal. So instead, I'd like to try and run a short game of Lancer.

What's Lancer? 1d4Chan sums it up quite nicely, I think: [link]
 
Never played it but I would be down for something like this if someone can explain the rules to me.
 
Hah. That's part of the reason I want to try it - the rules are decidedly odd. And the best way to learn something is from scratch, and by trial-and-error.
 
Wow! I actually bought it recently and skimmed through it...definitely different.
 
Interested! Not my first choice in terms of mechanics, but the setting looks rad, and for a mech game, I'll take what I can get.
 
Rules can be found [here]

My plan is to mess around with the system - run a mission, try some non-mech stuff, and generally experiment. This will therefore be a one-shot. Well, more accurately, probably a double-tap!

Do people have a preference for Disco or Forum-based play?
 
I would prefer forum play, but I know that can be a bit of a slog to set up.
 
Then I'll go create suitable threads. I've not actually done a play-by-forum game here before so please correct me if / when I do something dumb.
 
Hooray! What about things like character creation and stuff?Any specific rules/outlines from them on your end?
 
Look for threads with the title:
"Lancer: The Tannhäuser Incident"
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As for creation rules: go with LL0 creation rules for now. Yes, I know, it means you're stuck with a relatively limited pool of SPs / weapons, but from my own messing around, it looks like you can create some quite interesting variants.
 
If you have room for one more, I'd love to give Lancer a try!

Just spent the morning reading through the rulebook and there are so many cool options in there.
 
Heh, well, ZRS, kckolbe, Liminal and Saber, you four all expressed interested ahead of me, so I'll hold my pilot on standby in case anyone changes their mind. Good luck!
 
I just got back from a long day of class. Will go through the rules now. New system so I might take a day or two to get a character up. Please be patient.
 
Need to read up on the setting again, but it's utopian democratic in some places and neo-feudalist in others, right? What about the region we're from?
 
Not using the default setting because I understand it's not available in the free book. Consider this to be generic / Homebrew scifi
 
Ah, gotcha. Well, in that case, what does "generic" mean here? Are we doing Battletech tech-feudalist dark age? Starship Troopers military nationalism? Star Trek utopian democracy? I don't mean to demand a million details, but just a general sense of the tone would help me with my character concept.
 
Bureaucratic / technocratic fascism rife with megacorporate interests at the expense of individual rights. Think somewhere between Starship Troopers and Altered Carbon. The premise I have in mind for the backdrop is cyberpunk-dark rather than grim-dark.
 
Love it. So, a kid from a wage slave family who enlisted to pay for college would be appropriate?
 
Perfect! You may wish to consider the Scientist or Worker backgrounds.

Having made a few characters myself in the system, I find the pilot-focused stuff to be ... lacking. I suspect already that, were I to run this "for-reals" I'd want something a wee bit crunchier for that sort of thing. But we'll see!
 
So since we're all LL0, we all start with the Everest, right? Will we be going up in LL as we go through the game? Even if it's a one shot or the equivalent of, i'd love to give the other mechs a go.
 
My thought was:
First mission: LL0 : Start with the Everest
Second mission: LL5
Last mission: LL12
 
I don't at all mind starting in an Everest, but...Monarch 🤤

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