Lore Check — Lancer
A deep dive into an RPG's setting and how it can be improved.
Charge of the Light Brigade
If you’ve ever visited the “physical games” category of itch.io you’re familiar with Lancer. The core book frequently reigns as the #1 most popular TTRPG on the site, and many of its supplements trail in the top ten or twenty options depending on the day.
At it’s heart, Lancer is a game about pilots in mechs fighting other mechs. It draws in players with gorgeous art and tactical combat. But what exactly is a Lancer? The game’s introduction tells us:
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.
I love this first paragraph. I know that I’m going to be a mech pilot, the best of the best. I’m going to take the future of humanity in my hands, and if I’m lucky, change it for the better.
But what exactly does this coin represent? What is driving the coin to fall one way or the other? How can I help? And more importantly, how can I help with a 10 meter tall mech optimized for punching other mechs in the face?
Drink deep
This post was originally much longer. I wanted to complain about Union, the ineffective, utopian government that players (sometimes) represent. I wanted to complain about Manna, a currency that functions exactly like capital, but was created for a “post-capital” society. I wanted to complain about the game’s constant contradictions in how slavery, artificial intelligence, and scarcity are treated.
But I realized that those pieces of lore are secondary. I don’t think most Lancer players even know much about these topics. Everyone I talk to is only interested in piloting a big robot and blowing things up.
So I’ll distill my critique to one simple topic: Who are we blowing up and why?
Rebels, Pirates, and Barons, oh my!
Unfortunately, Lancer does not provide a clear answer. It instead provides many possible answers and relies on the GM to create a clear through line for players to follow. In several locations, the text notes that “rebellions, insurrections, piracy, wars… continue to flare” and remarks that non-Union groups such as the Karrakin trade barons spark conflict with Union. But it also emphasizes that the Karrakin Prime Baron (a real title) is on the Union council and there is a treaty between the baronies and Union.
In fact, almost every possible antagonist I’ve found in the book is listed in some other part of the text as negotiating with Union. Whenever possible, Union is preventing conflict before it even begins.
In real life, this is great! I will always side with diplomacy and peace over any war. But this is a game. This is a mech combat game. The game puts a gun (or 4 guns and a sword) in your hands, but doesn’t tell you why you are willing to risk your life to commit violence.
This section from “a note on conflict in Lancer’s narrative present” is key to understanding my complaint:
Taken together, the shifting patterns of violence and the rising stakes have coalesced into… a whisper that something is coming. Some epochal change or accumulation of changes: the Good War, a conflict to dictate the end of this age and the beginning of the next. [Union’s] task… is to avoid this future, but failing that, to navigate the bloodshed, to end it, and to ensure no one lives in the shadow of utopia.
I don’t want to play a game of Lancer where the future bloodshed is avoided. Sorry. If I’m reading over 300 pages of rules for creating characters and fighting with mechs, we are going to create characters and fight with mechs.
One of the things that bothers me the most is that the first half of that quoted paragraph is great! I want to fight in my mech during an era of pivotal change. Hell, finding a way to decrease the amount of bloodshed I take part in as a character at war is a classic trope in the genre.
Lancer’s ridiculous premise smoothie
So what if I follow the rules and roll on the random tables to figure out as a GM and player what a potential oneshot I’m running is going to be about? There are several tables in the second and fifth chapters for doing just that. Imagine you’re a player who has already excitedly created a mech and I’m now sending the group a blurb in anticipation of the first session of this campaign:
You are all heirs of a famous legacy, the Swords of the Dawn. Your ancient martial code requires you to accept all challenges and fight for those who cannot fight themselves. A strange figure has appeared on your world, calling themselves “Administrator”. They demand to see your leader and can do things beyond your imagination. You agree to escort them, but the road ahead is difficult. You are tired and retreating from a terrible defeat. Your home is far across an ocean and you have no way to get there. To allay your fears, the administrator gifts you fine suits of armor. Do you lead this strange one to your distant home or do you continue the campaign that brought you here?
Does this spark your imagination? Who defeated you? What is the current campaign the game is referring to about? Did someone invade your world? You have mechs, why can’t you use other transportation besides ships to get home?
To play Devil’s Advocate, one could say that the text wants to encourage these questions and have the GM answer them to create their own unique setting. But if that’s the case, there should be far more random tables and guidance to do just that. 41% of the sentences in the “Building a Narrative” section of the GM’s toolkit are questions (I counted). This leaves me more confused than feeling like I have a tool to prep games with.
As the GM, you’re going to have to do some work to set up the world(s) within which your Lancer campaign will take place.
Why? Seriously, why? Prep work will exist for most traditional games, but I never had to prep the premise for a game that also includes an 80 page “GM’s Toolkit” chapter and a 90 page chapter with setting details! The GM’s toolkit includes one random table of dubious quality for campaign hooks and a section for planetary worldbuilding that includes tables for world types, natural features, environments, and human settlements. A total of 9 pages out of the 170 “GM” sections have useful resources for figuring out the premise of your game. Some of the hooks are intriguing, while others leave me utterly baffled and lost with how many questions they pose. A few don’t even mention any antagonists.
Whatever the case, there is no sharp tipped lance driving the point of mech combat into this book. Instead, Lancer relies on the GM to create compelling reasons for mech warfare.
Do more, with less
Compare Lancer’s lack of a premise with that of the Titanfall video game franchise. The second Titanfall game has a two minute intro that includes the following dialogue as justification for why you’re shooting things in a giant robot:
The Frontier has been the only home I’ve ever known. For years, our lands have been destroyed by the IMC. Forcefully taking our resources, polluting and destroying our planets… And killing us off if we try to resist.
In less than thirty seconds we have a premise for the story and connection to our character:
- The Frontier is our home
- The IMC, a corporation, is destroying our home
- When we protect our home, the IMC kills us
But why the giant robot fighting? The game doesn’t directly tell the player, but the dialogue above plays out over a video showing mechs performing agricultural labor. The Titans are not highly advanced war machines for the Frontier Militia, they were tools for building colonies, now retrofitted to fight an evil corporation. A classic underdog tale everyone can understand in 30 seconds.
Why do we play?
When I gather some friends together to play Lancer, I show them awesome mech art first. I don’t tell them about the under-Glacial megafauna on the Sparri world. I don’t tell them that a non-human person (NHP) has become a sort of god that calls itself a “memetic virus”. I don’t tell them that I have no idea how monarchical “profiteers” can exist as a sub-state within a post-scarcity utopia and that I think the writers just really wanted to wedge Dune-like characters into their setting.
This is not what Lancer should be about. When I pilot a mech with a spear and shield, I want a reason to charge headfirst into the fray. When my mech’s core starts to meltdown, I want my NHP computer friend to say “Protocol 3: protect the pilot” and throw me out of the cockpit before the mech explodes. I want drama that only a game with semi-sentient war machines can fulfill.
A cause worth dying for
In seeking a clear setting for my friends and I to play with mechs, I created my own. For any Lancer players out there, I advocate that you do so as well, but I expect that most GMs already have as the book basically requires it.
If you don’t trust your own writing or don’t want to spend the time, feel free to steal this one if you would like:
Jotun, a Mud and Lasers setting
The invention of faster than light travel changed humanity forever. Colonial efforts expanded far beyond the Sol system. Declaring its capital on Earth, humanity reset its chronology on this date and the United Nations became the One Earth Federation (O.E.F.).
As the Frontier colonies expanded, the fascist O.E.F. grew more and more demanding of colonial resources. An orbital bombardment of striking miners on Psi Severon launched the galaxy into all-out war. The Frontier Militia faced core worlds with far greater resources and a professional military. To even the odds, colonial engineers adapted mining exo-suits into weapons of war. They were dubbed JOTUN.
The Frontier Militia Forces gained ground with their new war machines. In response, the O.E.F created TROLLS, mass-produced mechs with dumb AI systems instead of pilots. So the war became bloodier, and whole worlds were torn apart from the fighting.
You find yourself near the end of a war that has raged for 30 years. Both sides have suffered greatly, but the Frontier has few ships and JOTUN left. You’ve pushed the O.E.F. back to the core worlds, but that’s not enough on its own. You must strike a blow against the O.E.F. council or the TROLL factories on Mars to end this war once and for all.
We’re counting on you Pilot. Standby for drop.
The Dolent Chronicle is an RPG blog produced by Dante Nardo. If you liked this post, please consider sharing it on whatever doomed planes you reside.