Intro to LANCER Garage

Why "LANCER Garage"?

A Garage is place where vehicles are sheltered / repaired / altered.

The LANCER Garage is fitting, for a game of Mechs:

LANCER is broken (This is a good thing)

At the LANCER Fan Discord, Pilot NET, the dedicated GM channel helps new and old GMs become better. The community response is overwhelmingly helpful and positive.

My motivation to write this comes from reading these GMs, old and new, and how they prepare for the game.

Mostly because I wholeheartedly cannot with the most widespread paradigm for GM prep, which can be summarized as Prepare All Combats in Advance.

That's no way to live.

In all other TTRPGs I run, I don't create combats, you create situations. If they end up being combats, that's on the Players, I just provide suitable challenges that make things meaningful and interesting.

I am not the only LANCER GM who wants to break the beast apart and make it roar in this other language.

How I approach LANCER

So hey. A lot of what I am writing here is based on my own experiences running the game. Some are simple house rules. Others are bigger systems designed to do certain things. Because of that, there are some... Adjustments to the terminology, representing that shift in Game Mastering approach.

No Missions

The LANCER Corebook approaches the basic narrative loop of the game as a mission with specific parts, and makes suggestions on how to use those parts (Briefing, Preparation, Boots on the Ground, Debriefing, Downtime) to structure a campaign's gameplay loop.

I don't vibe with that shit. I tried it for like a year or two. It sucked. I am fine with diegetic missions, but framing a LANCER narrative as a series of Missions feels constraining, and not in a good way.

So. No Missions. Anything pertaining Mechanic Framing Capital-M Missions will be referred to as Story. For example, characters gain a License Level at the end of a Story.

Uncertainty Resolution

Every Player Character action that is uncertain needs to be resolved. If the resolution is more interesting when left to chance, that's when dice are rolled. Combats, too, are Uncertainty Resolution, so they must be framed in the same way:

  1. Players declare their action / intention.
  2. If the outcome is certain or the failure state is uninteresting (i.e. nothing changes in the state of the world / narrative), the action succeeds; otherwise, a resolution mechanics is enacted.
  3. Via dialogue, the GM and Players declare the stakes: why is the outcome uncertain, what are the stakes, and whether there are any factors that can affect the action. Based on this, the players can choose to not carry out the action.
  4. If the action proceeds, the uncertainty is resolved through some mechanical means, and the state of the world / narrative is updated.

The method for uncertainty resolution varies depending on the action / intention. The most common one is single dice rolls, but by this measure long-term projects and action encounters (including combat) are also included. This means that whenever you must use the rules to resolve some uncertainty, you have to clearly outline the stakes, and the ultimate decision whehter the action/intention is attempted lies in the players, after they are informed as much as possible of the stakes.

Of course, this also means that, when choosing how to resolve an uncertainty, the GM must pick a resolution method that is interesting. An encounter against boring enemies is not worth the time to setup and run as tactical combat, while a tense social situation can be dramatically interesting with many rolls representing more granular actions.

I have no guidance as to when to use more gritty/detailed resolution vs resolving with a single roll. It really depends on the pace you want.

The Menu

I have a wishlist of articles I intend to explore. The order is suggested, but may change. See the main page for more.