Lancer

Lancer is a tabletop role playing game centered on shared narratives, customizable mechs, and the pilots who crew them.

Set many thousands of years from the present day, Lancer imagines a future where a survivor humanity has spread to the stars after weathering terrible ecological collapse on Earth – the end of the Anthropocene as a consequence of unrestrained consumption and poor stewardship.

With a survival imperative motivated by this cultural history, humanity’s or­ganizing body, Union, seeks to manage the galaxy to ensure we’ll never again be faced with extinction. They are not perfect in this endeavor; the narrative present of Lancer imagines a future where Union’s central body has been gripped by popular revolution, and the new governing body seeks to rectify the crimes of the old.

Lancer features a mix of gritty, mud-and-lasers military science fiction and mythic science fantasy. In the setting, conscript pilots mix ranks with flying aces, mercenary guns-for-hire brawl with secretive corporate agents, and relativistic paladins cross thermal lances with causality-breaking, unknowable beings.

Players of Lancer adopt the roles of mech pilots – comrades together in a galaxy of danger and hope. Some groups will fight for Union, working to rectify the crimes of previous administrations. Others, for a corpro-state, working to advance private interests while lining their pockets. Yet others will fight for groups acting in opposition to those in power, or for themselves.

Lancer offers deep mech customization, a wide range of player backgrounds, and a system and setting with room for any story you and your group want to tell. It’s best with a group of 3–5 players, and can be used to run a one-shot session or persistent campaign.

Lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game that prioritizes four pillars of play:

• Rules-light, fluid, narrative play while outside of the mech.
• Tactical mech combat that promotes creative tactics, teamwork and explosive moments of action.
• Modular, progression-based mech customization where narrative, setting, and character is imbued in the gear, systems, and equipment your character chooses.
• A play loop that encourages narrative advancement.
• Lancer offers deep, modular mech customization, a wide range of player backgrounds to prompt storytelling, and a system and setting with room for any narrative you and your group want to tell. It’s best with a group of 3–5 players, and can be used to run a one-shot session or persistent campaign.