H/t to Armchair Dragoons Regimental Commander Brant for pointing me to this FREE download.
BLUF: Lancer has elements of an Adventure Wargame but, in reality, is two related games—a narrative roleplaying game and a tactical turn-based mech combat wargame—with few linkages between.
Alas, as much as I tried over the years to get involved in the Battletech scene of the wargame community, it just didn’t work out. The fact the Beginner’s Box I got was horrible didn’t help either. Truth be told, a mecha setting really doesn’t interest me as I am not big into Japanese anime or giant robots. But when the Regimental Commander sends a link to a free tabletop roleplaying game of mech combat that appears to have “Adventure Wargame” elements in it, you at least give it a look.
You are a lancer, an exceptional mech pilot among already exceptional peers, and you live in a time where the future hangs as a spinning coin at the apex of its toss – the fall is coming, and how the coin lands is yet to be determined.
Lancer, p. 10
At first glance, the setting for Lancer by Miguel Lopez and Tom Parkinson Morgan from Massif Press (2019) looks like a not-so-subtle rip-off of the Battletech setting. Then again, I am not deeply steeped in the lore of Battletech so I may be oversimplifying the comparison. What I can say with some confidence is that whereas Battletech has both a wargame and a roleplaying game, Lancer combines the two under one cover with a combination of narrative play and mech combat.
During narrative play, players act naturally and spontaneously as needed. Time might pass more quickly, scenes might be shorter, and individual rolls might count for more or less. Most of your game’s story and interaction between characters will take place during narrative play. In mech combat, players act on their turn and are restricted in what they can do and how often, making each action much more impactful and tactical. Swapping between mech combat and narrative play is fairly natural, especially if you’ve played other games with turn-based combat.
Lancer, p. 12
Character Take Two
The two-facet game approach (narrative/mech combat) of Lancer is built into several major game mechanisms, starting right with the core mechanism: “There are three types of dice rolls in Lancer: skill checks, attacks, and saves. In narrative play, you will only need to worry about the first of these. In mech combat you will use all three” (Lancer, p. 12)
The two-facet approach of Lancer continues in character generation:
Your character in Lancer is, first and foremost, a pilot – a dynamic, larger than life presence on and off the battlefield who inspires and terrifies in equal measure – but your character also has a second component: your mech. Though you can define their identities separately, pilot and mech are two parts of the same whole.
Lancer, p. 12
The two-facet game separation is reinforced in character generation. Nearly all the aspects of a character come into use only during narrative play.
As one builds a character in Lancer, you soon discover that some of what you are affects only one side of play. In Lancer a character is described by their License Level, Background, Triggers, Combat Stats, and Gear.
License Level
Your access to mechs, gear, upgrades, talents, and other character options is instead restricted by licenses. Licenses represent access to the valuable information, resources, and authority required to acquire mech gear and parts. They are tightly controlled by the major powers in Lancer and allow their holders unlimited access to their included gear.
Lancer, p. 18
License Levels (LL) in Lancer impact both narrative play and mech combat. In most any other RPG aside from Lancer the License Levels would just be called level or rank.
There is an important part of Lancer character generation that comes from the LL but is not called out here—Grit. Grit is used when building your mech (see page 35) and an important modifier.
I find it interesting that players start at LL0 and advance one level at the end of each mission, with a maximum of LL12. Almost makes it sound like a character is not expected to survive to LL12…
Background
Outside of combat, you (or the GM) can invoke your pilot’s background to receive 1 ACCURACY or 1 DIFFICULTY on any skill check, if their background is relevant. For example, someone who was a colonist might get +1 Accuracy when negotiating with other colonists, navigating the wilderness, or farming. A character born in space, however, might get +1 Difficulty when doing the same things.
Lancer, p. 20
A character’s background in Lancer is applicable to skill check in narrative play only. Noted…
Triggers
Triggers apply to actions that depend on your pilot’s personal abilities, experience, training, or background – not actions that rely on their mech’s specifications. When taking actions that rely on a mech, mech skills are used instead.
Triggers are almost always used in narrative play, and they never apply to attack rolls, saves, or any rolls other than skill checks.
Lancer, p. 25
The phrase “almost always” in Lancer pretty much seems to mean “only” making Triggers part of the narrative side of the game only. Noted again…
Combat Stats
You will mostly play as your pilot in narrative play, outside of their mech, but there are times you will need to know how your pilot functions in mech combat. They might need to bail out of their mech during a fight, or you might want to track your pilot’s HIT POINTS (HP) if they get injured during downtime.
Although pilots operate on a different scale to mechs, they have some of the same statistics: SIZE, HP, EVASION, E-DEFENSE, and SPEED.
Lancer, p. 28
So, in mech combat the backgrounds and triggers don’t matter, only a some seemingly rather generic combat stats. Let’s keep looking to see if there is more…
Gear
This is personal gear and specifically not the mech which is covered next.
Mech Two
In Lancer, character creation has two parts; the character and the mech. Here the writers of Lancer start confusing the pilot characters with the mechs.
Your lancer has four mech skills that represent their ability to build, pilot, and fight with mechs:
• HULL describes your ability to build and pilot durable, structurally sound mechs that can take punches and keep going.
Lancer, p. 30
• AGILITY describes your ability to build and pilot fast, evasive mechs.
• SYSTEMS describes your ability to build and pilot advanced mechs with powerful electronic warfare capabilities.
• ENGINEERING describes your ability to build and pilot mechs with effective reactors, supplies and support systems.
The rules for Lancer require careful reading here. The License Level of a character comes with mech skills which are modifiers to use when building your mech. You also have to pay attention to talents…
…wait, wha? What’s a talent?
At this point in building a Lancer mech, the player is probably on page 35 and found the passage simply titled, “Talents”:
Your pilot’s ingenuity and experience piloting a mech are represented by talents – special enhancements that can help pilots push mechs past their limits. Talents give your pilot benefits or abilities with specific weapon types, systems, or styles of play, allowing you to further define them within the rules and story. With a few exceptions, talents only affect your character’s capabilities as a mech pilot.
Talents, like licenses, are measured in ranks: from rank I to rank III. At LL0, you start with three rank I talents of your choice. When your pilot levels up, you can either increase a talent to the next rank (i.e., from rank I to rank II) or choose a new talent at rank I.
You can read the full list of talents and their effects in the Compendium on p. 90.
Lancer, p. 35
Talents are part of a character but only are used in mech combat; another two-facet game mechanism:
Talents represent the unique knowledge, experience, and training acquired by mech pilots. Unlike triggers, talents specifically relate to piloting a mech. Their effects only apply to mech weapons and systems, unless otherwise specified.
Lancer, p. 90
Here Lancer does something I positively hate in rules writing—send me past major portions of the rule book for a key rule only to have me come back to finish the process. Why couldn’t it be formatted in sequence? Sad…
Narrative or Mech Combat?
Lancer actually comes with two sets of combat rules; narrative and mech:
These two modes of play have different rules, especially for combat. If a fight kicks off during narrative play, combat is resolved using skill checks, rather than attack rolls. There are no turns, and NPCs don’t get to act on their own initiative; instead, their actions are decided by the outcome of player rolls. In mech combat, outcomes are determined using turn-based, tactical play. Players make attack rolls, track HP and other effects, and NPCs can act independently.
Lancer, p. 45
Narrative combat in Lancer uses the d20-based Skill Checks using character attributes.
When combat takes place in narrative play, the normal rules for skill checks apply. This allows combat to play out more like a movie than a tactical game. When resolving combat narratively, you don’t need to track turns or make attack rolls, and the whole combat might be over in just a few rolls. If there are no mechs involved, it’s almost always preferable to resolve combat this way.
Lancer, p. 48
On the other hand, mech combat uses a different core mechanism:
In mech combat, instead of using triggers and skill checks to determine the outcome of conflicts, you use attack rolls, mech skill checks, and saves. Players take turns, and during their turns have access to specific types of actions.
Lancer, p. 58
Since I am a Grognard I dug into the mech combat rules of Lancer a bit more. Here are some highlights:
- Turn-based (turn length undefined but think several seconds to few minutes).
- Hex-scale is flexible but usually 3 meters (10 feet) to the hex.
- Bigger mechs take up more hexes (Pilot – 1 hex, Size 1 – 3 hexes up to Size 4 – 12 hexes).
- Combat actions are very RPG-like with Move + One Full Action or 2x Quick Actions.
- Attacks are Melee, Ranged, or Tech (think electronic or cyber warfare).
Taken as a whole, mech combat in Lancer differs little from the approach many other RPGs take to combat. The question is my mind is why does Lancer insist that narrative combat and mech combat be two distinctly different systems that doubles the learning curve for the game?
Lancer-lot or Lancer-little?
Lancer certainly has all the elements of an Adventure Wargame between the covers. If you really want to play a RPG about mechs, this title may be great for you especially when you consider the price – FREE! Just understand that what you are getting in Lancer is a narrative RPG with a tactical turn-based wargame for mech combat. While both games draw upon the same setting, they use rules that have very few linkages between the two modes of play.
Feature image courtesy Massif Press
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