Lancer (role-playing game)

Player characters are mecha pilots, and the setting is on the outskirts of a far-future, post-apocalyptic, technological utopia.^[1][2] Lancer features tactical battle mechanics and detailed character customization. Instead of experience points, Lancer tracks character growth using milestones called License Levels,^[4] allowing players to level up after each mission by hand-picking upgrades from any mech in the game.^[5][6] Players mix and match these upgrades to determine their mech's capabilities in battle, which can range from simple hammers and nailguns, to highly advanced AI and experimental reality-warping systems.^[7] By earning License Levels, players characters also learn new talents, which they can use to enhance the combat prowess of any mech they pilot.^[4] In battle scenarios, players use their mechs in turn-based combat to capture and defend designated points on the map.^[8]

There are also rules for narrative play, although there are fewer mechanics regarding roleplay.^[9] Conflict in narrative scenes is determined by a die roll, with bonuses applied by relevant skills to increase the chance of success.^[8][9] Narrative play is disconnected from the rules of mech battles, to keep the story and the complex tactical combat from interfering with one another.^[10]

Lancer is set thousands of years into the future, when humans on worlds across the galaxy have been united by Union, a governing body with utopian ideals.^[10][11] Under Union, humanity benefits from faster-than-light travel and advanced 3D printing which eliminates the need for currency.^[9][10] Conflict is created on the edges outside Union's influence, where players work to defend vulnerable worlds from bad actors while Union slowly expands.^[3][11] It was important to the creators for Lancer not to be a dystopian sci-fi setting, as they were tired of ''cynical'' sci-fi.^[3] They wanted the game to be fundamentally optimistic in its worldview, like classic sci-fi. According to Lopez-Hall, Lancer’s setting has a Gramscian-style pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. The creators wanted player characters to focus on defending something dear to them. To help prioritize this, they avoided a monetary reward system.^[3] The creators also chose to add narrative descriptions to mechanics in the rule book. Tom Bloom believes that it is important for tabletop role-playing games to have narrative surrounding abilities, citing it as something that Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition does well.^[12] Lancer uses these narrative descriptions to explore anti-capitalist themes, by demonstrating the callus and detached design process of the setting's weapons-manufacturing megacorporations.^[10]

Lancer was first independently published by Massif Press in 2019 after a Kickstarter campaign raised over $400,000.^[1] In an interview with Luke Shaw for Dicebreaker, the creators attributed their disciplined work ethic on the project to Lopez-Hall's recent MFA in Creative Writing and Bloom's previous work producing the weekly webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons.^[3]

In 2023, Massif Press announced a second printing, to be published as an illustrated hardcover book in collaboration with Dark Horse Comics.^[1][2][11] The second print run was released in July 2024.^[13]

Since its release, Lancer has received generally positive reviews.^{[5][7][8][9][14]} Polygon called it "perhaps one of the most mechanically rich mecha RPGs ever published" and "the gold standard for the subgenre."^[2][13] Lancer is commonly praised for its modular character creation system,^[5][7][8][9] its art direction,^[7][8] its worldbuilding,^[7][14] and its digital companion app, COMP/CON.^[8][9] One common criticism of Lancer is that its "crunchy" combat and wealth of character creation options can create a steep and intimidating learning curve.^[9][14]

Lancer was initially nominated for the 2020 ENNIE Awards for "Best Electronic Book"; however, the creators later asked to be withdrawn from nomination, in protest against a 2017 ENNIE Judges' Spotlight award for an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons supplement named Blood in the Chocolate, published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess and written by Kiel Chenier, with art by Jason Bradley Thompson. In a public email to the awards committee, Massif Press said that the supplement contained "casual graphic sexual assault and racism."^[15][16]

• No Room For A Wallflower: A Lancer Narrative^[17]
• The Long Rim: A Lancer Setting^[17]
• The Karrakin Trade Baronies: A Lancer Setting^[17]
• Operation Winter Scar: A Lancer Narrative^[17]
• Operation Solstice Rain: A Lancer Narrative^[17]
• Dustgrave: A Lancer Narrative^[17]
• Siren's Song: A Mountain's Remorse^[17]
• Shadow of the Wolf: A Lancer Narrative^[17]