Lancer is a game that was produced by Massif Press in 2019; and is an absolutely blast to play. The Mech RPG came about after a very successful Kickstarter raising over $400,000 for the games creation. It can now be found on their itch.io.
By their own description via their store page linked above. “Lancer imagines a future where a survivor humanity has spread to the stars after weathering terrible ecological collapse on Earth,
The setting features a mix of gritty, mud-and-lasers military science fiction and mythic science fantasy,
In Lancer, players adopt the roles of mechanized chassis pilots – mech pilots – comrades together in a galaxy of danger and hope.”
Below is my review!
My experience with this game has been nothing short of phenomenal. It is my first Sci-Fi TTRPG and it has definitely gotten me hooked with it. Though my experience with the game has not be long running, I have already bought the hard cover book and read a considerable amount of it.
I have played with my D&D group since about August with our Game Master staying the same. We’ve started from licence level zero with the basic gear and yet the whole team has been able to build a very diverse and well adapted team for the game.
As you level up you pick licence levels into different frames which unlocks you more equipment and mech frame options. The brilliant thing about this game is that no decision is a direct upgrade, they are all side-grades, all are specialisations instead of making everything better. Each and every frame has a specific thing they are good at besides the frames made by GMS which are all balanced.
The game feels very quickly paced in combat with damage numbers being large and frames being quick to fall at lower levels, I am sure that as we level up combat would slow down as damage won’t do as much to our frames.
Narratively the game feels similar to D&D with there being skills and speech dependant moments in our campaign. My character is very different from who I play in D&D and therefore she certainly feels different.
I will update this review as I go on with the game.
Here is Massif Press’ (The Developer) Twitter