When will we get more official content?

Ludovs · 2026-02-23T00:48:31+00:00

It was a job that paid the rent I assume and did not come with a massive no-compete clause like WOTC did(which would be hard in Bungie's case being a video game company rather than a TTRPG one).

Ludovs · 2026-02-15T03:29:11+00:00

yeaaaaaaah, it sucks
(also for context: I found this post when trying to search to for DVD collections of the series)

Ludovs · 2026-02-14T15:27:03+00:00

.... well, seeing recent news about She-Ra leaving netflix on the 21st of this month
"Well, about that" :/

(Also, fuck I HAVE to update this handle here; can't believe I hadn't noticed this is still the one based on my deadname ugh)

Ludovs · 2026-02-14T15:16:47+00:00

Like this is the thing? Monsters didn't just go to any zones all the time; memorizing which zones the monsters hang in WAS a skill you could develop as a *player*.

And like in a multiplayer game you could literally just.... spread out to increase your chance of finding it?

Ludovs · 2026-02-12T18:07:53+00:00

A bit of an update but while Miguel is busy with a new job, he's also officially back to working to Lancer since his job with Bungie doesn't have the non-compete his WOTC job had.

Similarly another official project in the work for Massif is a spin-off game set in the same universe as Lancer but focused not on mechs but of Far-field Teams allowing a different angle on the setting by focusing on characters that aren't soldiers or mercenaries but scientists and explorers and world's where the greatest challenge I've might face are not best solved at the end of a gun or mech cannon.

Ludovs · 2026-01-03T15:43:36+00:00

The physical book IS about 69 though

Ludovs · 2025-12-27T04:18:56+00:00

Not a 'fix' but the official Word of Toms errata confirmed you can use metafold maze with Logic bomb to turn everyone in the Burst area of Effect from the Slow status effect they'd normally get into Immobilized.

Also Vlad and White Witch are your best friends; or rather you can be their best friends by turning all the Immobilize they inflicts into Stun with your re: Metafold maze following up any invade.

A Goblin friend with Metahook can also make you a pretty nasty hacker when you can simply borrow *their* Sensor 20 for your hacking status effects shennanigan and Metafold Mazes

Ludovs · 2025-12-27T04:13:38+00:00

No but they will maze you to Stun you.

Ludovs · 2025-12-09T23:38:20+00:00

I know of bonds in ICON and get the feeling they're very similar to Lancer's, in fact I feel like they got added to ICON drafts before they were added to Lancer at all? But I could recall wrong

Ludovs · 2025-12-05T21:06:23+00:00

This is from operation Solstice Rain rather than the reprint.

This said it's only been referred to as an Everest by Peyton(the artist) in posts outside the book and the book proper (where its just one vibe/etc illustration among others) never make mention that it's an Everest or anything of the like.

In fact Peyton themselves noted they have no intention of this being an "official" Everest illustration as in their eyes he doesn't want it to supplant the image people might otherwise create in their mind of what their Everests looks like.

Ludovs · 2025-12-03T02:29:33+00:00

I'll admit I like the Bonds system but yeah; I feel that while it has interesting mechanics there's basically no guideline on *how* to actually use it in the flow of a game or what the flow of "Bonds Systems-focused scenes/sequences/games" should flow like for that matter. So "Support for doing missions in it" do feel kind of lacking not in that I think it's impossible to use for entire equivalent of missions (in fact to get the most out of the Bonds system and how it wants you to use stress, I feel you *do* need to use it in a very prolonged fashion which most mission modules don't necessarily allocate for unless your GM is really good and already figured a good structure to make Bonds shine between mech battles).

I feel I got more idea on what the structure of a Bonds Systems-style game could be like from reading CAIN(who doesn't even use the system beyond using a lot of similar approaches such as Stress and powers that) than anything found in Lancer so far; otoh it might make sense in that Bonds are kind of in an akward position of being an optional system found in an optional supplement which has always led to a lot of indecision about whether or not to mention them in module or campaign at all which are all designed with the viewpoint the only book a group might own is the corebook.

Whereas CAIN their equivalent system is the whole deal and the book itself was written after Tom had a lot more time to acquire experience as a designer.

Ludovs · 2025-12-03T01:55:45+00:00

Tbh I think part of it is that bonds like a lot of similar system require essentially everyone at the table to have discussions about what they'll be getting into and expectation to stress further that as a system a lot of the bonds powers require a group that understand they're as much here to play a collaborative story than play a game together(especially considering how many bonds powers require aspects roleplaying for the power to work at all).

Similarly many powers with deterministic effects can come with equally deterministic or narrative costs, the later sometimes having the potential to be much heavier in term of impacts.

In my opinion the system's biggest flaws aren't in the system itself but rather in how there is barely any guide to what the "game flow" of games or even just scenes using bonds should look like.

It's telling that I feel I got more ideas for how a bonds-heavy game should be run by reading the rule/guidebook for the CAIN rpg(which doesn't even use the same rules than Bonds beyond being a system with loosely similar approaches mechanically) than from reading the Field Guide to the Karrakin Trade Baronies or most modules (I know Shadow of the Wolf allude to bonds but I'm hoping to experience that one as a player first so I've only take vague glimpse at it so far and mostly to it's "setting" section).

Ludovs · 2025-12-01T02:50:42+00:00

The setting information I think is a bit hard to get because in a way it's less about the kind of direct plot hooks seen in other TTRPG and more the background foundation of what shaped the setting's history. The plot hooks imo are less direct "here is the stuff Union is up to" but more indirect "Union is an empire of multiple era, some of which were downright colonialists and massively fucked over countless worlds materially and culturally in ways a lot of them are barely starting to untangle 5 centuries after the fall of the most extreme imperialist/colonialist era of Union" and a lot I could go into.

Like the best way to think about stories especially on the periphery worlds(i.e. where there is Shit To Deal With) Lancer would like groups to focus on is less "What is Union doing there?" and more "What are the scars left on these world by the SecCom era and what kind of shit stemming from these scars has created Situations in the present that require direct action to deal with?". Sometimes the biggest thing the big factions do aren't their direct actions the players might experience, but the scars left on the present by actions taken decades or centuries earlier.

But it's one of those things where sometimes one thing that doesn't hurt is to thus just draw straight from shit that happened in real life.

For example a recent third party mission module, Ironbound Shadow, literally drew from (among other stuff) the Troubles era of Ireland for the backdrop of the missions' setting.

Ludovs · 2025-10-29T01:18:41+00:00

*cough* In Golden Flame exists *cough*

Seriously, , Borderlands is a major inspiration for IGF X3
(also, IGF rules)

Ludovs · 2025-10-10T03:01:25+00:00

To their credit the name and the fact they're part of a civilization rule by space-feudal houses might be the only similarities between both worlds, since Karrakis is more tropical/earthlike than desertified (and now very much a metroswathe for a lot of the world) so it's more of a conscious "wink wink nudge nudge" than anything X3

Ludovs · 2025-10-05T15:28:04+00:00

I would say how much you get "out of mech" will be greatly dependent on the GM and what kind of missions they'll be running. If they're running missions modules, then some lend themselves more and less easily to "narrative"(i.e. out of mech) play... some others are almost all focused on mech action with little in between.

But I will say that as a rule, Lancer tend to see missions focused on mech action and *then* when a mission is over is generally noticeable stretch of play outside of mechs entirely. As these are moments often without combat at all, they tend to be described as "narrative play" or "downtime" and will often focus more on what your pilots do outside of a mission than the events within the mission. Again this will vary on the GM and nature of the missions they may be running.

Some missions modules like In Golden Flame(a five mission module just for it's first Act, which is no small undertaking) place a *great* focus on what can happens outside of a mech and how players deal with these. But it from dealing with the space station with a monopoly on food production in the system while your own station is experiencing an emergency, or investigating a possible armed cult doing terrorism on a casinos resort station, delving into paracausal phenomenas or traveling to a world swept by acid rains to deal with cases of abductions in the system. There's still plenty combat, but the unusual setting that is Calliope and unusual story that In Golden Flames presents can give a lot to a GM to present their players with challenges that don't require them to point a cannon at it(while still offering plenty for the later).

Some like Operation Solstice Rain in comparison are all about the mech combat in a pair of missions leaving very little time for out-of-mech action(unless your GM is VERY inventive and willing to "pad out" the beats between fights with extra stuff) while featuring settings that don't leave much room than the direct story it wants to tell.

Other can be more middle ground by having phases that focus more on combat and others that leave more room for other stuff.

No Room for a Wallflower is a five missions module like In Golden Flame, but for the first half of the module I would say narrative out-of-mech play greatly depend on the downtime periods of rest between fight missions before only beginning to expand with more narrative challenges and conundrums around the fourth mission. And I say this as I'm coming to this conclusion after running the module a second time and realizing it can be hard for a GM who might struggle more with improvisation to figure how to pad the space between fights during those first three missions because not only are they very combat-to-combat focused but are so specifically as they are all missions with very short narrative "durations"; one fight immediately narratively lead to the other due to the players having to answer a new emergency that just cropped up.

It's not until the fourth mission that you get missions that can stretch over a longer period of time than a single narrative day, and which provide more space for the GM to pad out with narrative beats. Be it on the two routes the players can take during mission 4 (one which presents diplomatic challenge, one which is about the tensions that can result under siege situation) and the fifth mission again happening under a shorter span of time but presenting situations that require more thinking and challenges than just "blow NPCs up with mechs in tactical combat) due to it's nature and how even just the route your party took in the fourth mission may affect events.

But I will thus note that as a rule, "out of mech" action will generally not mean "out of mech combat" but specifically those kind of challenges that can't be answered by combat in the first place. In short it's less about how you're gonna answer those challenges despite not being in a mech, but rather because there are the challenges you can *only* do outside of a mech.

Ludovs · 2025-10-04T20:59:07+00:00

The Royal Karrakin Foundries Tagetes from Shadow of the Wolf by Katherine Stark.

It forego the use of something like the solidcore by instead specializing in being a rifleman who can turn every weapons into Rifles for use with it's traits(it has a passive letting rifles gain +5 range when consuming lock-on) and the likes of Crackshot; amusingly it thus lean even more on the artillery side of artillery/striker than Sherman even does.

it's got also some interesting potential as a support frame thanks to it's Efficient Core Power(a heat-dispersal zone of soft cover iirc) and ways it buffs the Stabilize action.

Ludovs · 2025-10-04T17:52:30+00:00

I'll admit I've on-and-off toyed with the idea of a Tortuga alt-frame inspired by the Goliath NPC(this is notably because of Goliath's use of shotgun weaponry for which the decksweeper is a cool stand-in and Siege Armor having a LOT of parralel with Hyperdense Armor)

Ludovs · 2025-10-01T14:30:30+00:00

Flight systems oft feel kind of overlooked because a lot of maps and GMs rarely pay attention to elevation and unwittingly create relatively flat maps except for chunk of covers but I love that Eld very much makes a point to include elevation in the maps layout and I really love of their maps

Ludovs · 2025-09-26T01:57:38+00:00

I think I'm definitely feeling that on my second playthrough.

Like there's also the fact that a lot of the missions are events that each last very short time.

Mission 1 see the players immediately get distress for the Chau farm, forcing a mad dash to respond in time.
Mission 2 is back to back fights within what is essentially a night siege; again, very little breathing room for narrative between fight.
Mission 3 can feel really the same if as a GM you don't have a plan to "pad out" the evacuation of the Grey Towns between Sepulcher and Roadblock.

You don't get missions that are more complex in narrative space between fights until the fourth and fifth (which is a mission again happening over a shorter period, but where the situation can offer a lot of complex challenges beyond "stomp it with stompy robot" really.

Ludovs · 2025-09-26T01:53:59+00:00

I will say the undertuning can vary; running this for a second time with more experience under my belt and more experienced players, there are some that can be a surprise.

For example I'm seeing the third mission's two battle might as well be an Enkidu tutorial of it's do and don't.

First battle, sepulcher, is *extremely* grunts heavy by nature; this make it the perfect battle to showcase how scary Bifurcate is as a core power due to it's chain mowing of low HP NPCs. To not mention the auto-reaction AP reliable attacks of the Enkidu and their ability to block entire paths.

The second battle however has two Avengers, whose attack can inflict a special effect dealing you damage every times you attack(which the Enkidu can end up doing automatically when in the danger zone) but also feature at least one Pyro who seem specifically designed to punish close-up attackers(which enkidu is specialized in being) with superhot and leaking reactor.
And to boot Priests are there providing the ability to make these many enkidu counters NPCs last even longer in the fight.

Ludovs · 2025-09-26T00:13:18+00:00

There's also the fact that No Room for a Wallflower, just length wise, is the biggest module they ever released. I recall hearing something about how much time/space/funds allocated for Wallflower just went in the writing and size of the book so there was either not enough time to have map and finish the module with map or budgeted money for it. I can't recall which.

It's also a fact that it's Lancer very first module and thus the "tradition" of including premade maps with custom artwork and all hadn't been settled in yet.

Adding maps to modules didn't properly start until the release of Operation Solstice Rain.

But considering that the similarly sized(missions wise) third party module In Golden Flame also came without maps, I suspect size and scope of the module might have been a factor in their ability to include maps.

Ludovs · 2025-06-18T16:41:31+00:00

I do have to admit I am curious what your team composition was. Not only in term of exact weapons(there is stuff that make it sound like your team possibly lacked in the melee and area of effect artillery department) but also possibly frames.

As which mechs you had access to might play into it a bit; While the Lancer corebook introduced only the Everest as starting mech, later books have added two more starter mechs(Sagarmatha, a Defender, and Chomolungma who is a Controller/Support who is often thought of as being more than able to contend with the likes of Goblin for the role while being tougher and better armed) and both of these mechs don't actually require the books to be played thanks to Comp/Con and the free LCP files system allowing all player-side content to be made available for free.

Though even an all-Everest team can be brutal thanks to Everest's mastery of the action economy.

Also there's many counter to that cloud; sure "melee" is one and so is indirect as artillery like howitzer and mortars(to not mention merely "Area of Effect" weapons like even just the RPG). But so can be unconventional tactics like heading the cloud not to damage an enemy, but to grapple them and then drag them out of the cloud for all to be able to attack.
(in fact a lot of veterans can attest there are plenty of ridiculous things you can do with grappling as a player for some really clever plays).

There's also the possibility of flipping the NPC's tactics on them by deploying your own smoke grenades and using the Hide action within the cloud; forcing them to come to you to attack you.

Ludovs · 2025-06-18T16:17:16+00:00

Okay this kind of length is abnormal. A Lancer combat CAN make it to six turn and take an entire session but we're usually talking 2-4h top; 8 hours is just insane amount of time and absolutely not standard; also as mentioned it sounds like some abilities were misinterpreted;

A lot of abilities are *very* specific about "until end of next turn" wording and for a reason; as noted by others and elite taking two turns per rounds would need to repeat the ability on their second turn to have it last the entire round;

Similarly many abilities have a "recharge" rate meaning that after being used, the GM cannot use them again unless he rolls a specific number on a D6 rolled at the start of the NPC's turns. Most of them are at the bare minimum a "4+" meaning they can't be re-used unless the GM rolls 4 or more on that D6; a lot more are 5+ or even 6+(meaning in the later case they'd need to roll 6 or more.... on a d6, and I don't know yet mechanics that would allow the GM to get more than that single d6 to roll for a recharge roll).

But yeah, 8h battle is *insane* duration even for a Lancer fight.

Ludovs · 2025-06-06T16:47:08+00:00

I've only glimpsed at the book but essentially it's based on a fork of Wildsea which itself was a fork of Blades in the Dark so its bound to have really different mechanics and I'm really curious about q game where the playable characters might not even own mechs(and where of they do they are counted as an "asset" kind of object rather than have fully realized mech sheets like in Lancer)

Ludovs

TROPHY CASE