Lancer (role-playing game)


Lancer is a science fiction tabletop role-playing game about mecha pilots, created by Miguel Lopez-Hall and Tom Bloom. The first printing of the core rulebook was published by Massif Press in 2019, followed by a second printing in collaboration with Dark Horse Comics in 2024. In deliberate contrast to dystopian settings, Lancer is inspired by classic science fiction set in post-scarcity utopias that nevertheless still face problems.

Gameplay

are mecha pilots, and the setting is on the outskirts of a far-future, post-apocalyptic, technological utopia. Lancer features tactical battle mechanics and detailed character customization. Instead of experience points, Lancer tracks character growth using milestones, allowing players to level up after each mission by hand-picking upgrades from any mech in the game. There are also rules for narrative play, although there are less mechanics regarding roleplay.

Themes

It was important to the creators for Lancer not to be a dystopian sci-fi setting, as they were tired of cynical sci-fi. 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. The creators also chose to add more narrative descriptions to mechanics in the rule book as well. 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.

Publication history

Lancer was first independently published by Massif Press in 2019 after a Kickstarter campaign raised over $400,000. 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.
In 2023, Massif Press announced a second printing, to be published as an illustrated hardcover book in collaboration with Dark Horse Comics. The second print run was released in July 2024.

ENNIE Awards protest

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was initially nominated for the 2020 ENNIE Awards for "Best Electronic Book"; however, the creators later asked to be withdrawn from nomination, in protest against a 2017 ENNIE Judges' Spotlight award for an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons supplement named Blood in the Chocolate, published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."

Official supplements

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