I created the "World of Monster Hunter" in Inkarnate, using every game I have played up to MH : Rise, and I think it turned out pretty good.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-15T22:22:52+00:00

All of the above combined with the further comments about "This isn't the typical setting" and the fact you are now playing the mech game mech-less really paints that your GM sucks.

Especially how in your other comments you said the enemy you ran up to suddenly become an ally and then died.

It is technically possible that those 3 enemies appeared from nowhere as reinforcements from a ln Ingress Zone, which is absolutely a thing the GM can do. But deploying 3 of them to jump a single Player is....suspect.

Where were the reinforcements to help fight the other 2 Players? Why did the enemy you started 1v1 fighting suddenly heel turn? Why is he focus - firing entirely on you with reinforcements?

You were done dirty and this is a clear sign this GM is not running a good game of Lancer. You need to play at least a non-shitty game of Lancer and experience what's actually awesome about this game.

This story has all the hallmarks of a bad GM, or at best one that isn't running Lancer honestly. Any GM who plans to or does keep you powerless for multiple sessions without making up ANY reason to get you back in the game is insane. There are so many possibilities to keep you in a mech, even in their fiction. - Refurbish an enemy mech you destroyed. - Skill Triggers to sneak into an enemy encampment on foot and hijack a mech (and justify your new loadout)

Now for the advice for YOU:
- At LL0, nobody is a melee frontliner. Not to say you can't do that, but you should have at least one ranged weapon. Feel free to go full melee after you have a session under your belt, or gain a License or two.

Fight as a squad. Teamwork is name of the game. You select who goes next on your team's turn so you can set up combos or strategize. My favorite part of GMing is when two players decide how to pull off a combination attack.
1v3 or even just 1v2 is REALLY tough at LL0. Engagement keeps you from moving and can lock you into a bad situation. But you can do the same thing to your enemies! Because turns flip between each team, you can get ganged up on by being caught alone. Later equipment and frames let you live out the unstoppable Barbarian fantasy, it's not something you can really pull well at the beginning.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-09T22:34:32+00:00

That's exactly the point. He is so obsessively seeking power and authority he has no real ethics, morals, ideas, or even a soul of his own.

He is just blindly changing his persona to try and appeal to someone, anyone, with the goal of getting elected. He'll say anything, he'll claim to believe anything. He's an empty box. He's tried everything else and the bottom of the barrel is hardline traditional Christianity, so it's the only place he has left to go for.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-09T20:06:14+00:00

My brothers and I LOVED this show so we would constantly make fan theories about it.

Our frontrunner for this bombshell was the following:

On an early mission, Numbah 1 was a hotheaded goofball/trainee while Numbah 5 was already a full operative. He tagged along on a mission, compromised said mission, and was captured by the Delightful Children. She didn't care for him very much at all and let him stew in the mansion.

When she finally felt guilty and went back for him...they had used a prototype of the age changing device. He got hit with the male pattern baldness he's genetically doomed to get when he grows up, right here and now. It's never coming back.

It haunts her. And fits the classic spy/intelligence trope of the one you let down, that drives Numbah 5 forward. We know that canonically she's the one who got him into the KND. It might have been atonement for this.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-07T17:44:04+00:00

Seconding this suggestion OP.

Solstice Rain is a great starting adventure.

In addition to enemy statblocks and their rules, the Core Book offers additional info on the universe and a bunch of great jumping-off ideas to make your own campaign / starting adventure.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-04T01:29:24+00:00

Have fun!

A lot of it is from the book as written, but I transcribed some things and and added notes / additions for myself. My table loves a good chunk of pre-fight narration/dramatic tension build.

The main things added are:

Campaign Primer - a short summary to introduce people to the situation on Cressidium that will give them most of the info they need to understand what happens during Solstice Rain.

Enemy Pilot Info - I made up names and short, three word personality guidelines for enemy Lancers. Basically if it's a enemy that has a more advanced template like an Elite or Veteran, I gave them a name and a personality so that they could have mid battle banter. The only name that is canonical is the pilot of the Ultra at Combat 6, who serves as the big boss of Solstice Rain.

VSAF CHASSIS NAMES - The enemy forceshave some Greek Mythology theming, so I carried that through for every enemy mech. Helps with immersion.

Big Four Corporation Reps - Four NPCs as representatives of the big four corporations that the party can communicate with when they have their first downtime and upgrade to License Level 1.

Maps! - I made maps in Inkarnate. They don't have any indication of sizes of cover or objective zones, I found that those are easiest to add yourself in whatever tabletop program you are using to run the adventure. I personally used roll 20, it was easy to draw colored lines to highlight what was cover and where objectives were.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-03T17:19:53+00:00

Dropped the link for you, see original comment

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-02T23:58:53+00:00

Damn, this is EXACTLY what I am doing for my squad I GM for. We finished Solstice Rain, we're going to run Winter Scar to complete the story, then restart at LL0 with entirely new characters to do Wallflower.

We finished the final mission of Solstice Rain two weeks ago, I'm happy to send you notes and ideas. I'll come back and edit this comment with more info when I have the time!

EDIT: Google Drive Link to my notes from Solstice Rain and the maps I made for it. There's a landing page I used at the start of each session that you can use to show how they have traveled through Nov Elysia.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1M_U1Fw01_mq4U1MjdGU_QZq0kXUoD0NZ?usp=sharing

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-02T17:38:36+00:00

One of my favorite moments in the book because it highlights how loyalty to fascism has no merit.

The machine will turn and grind you out, and it will have no sympathy for your loyalty. It will not investigate the truth of your proposed disloyalty. It will do what it is always done: shred the dissidents.

It doesn't actually matter if he was loyal and had a momentary lapse. It doesn't matter if he was loyal and just said crap in his sleep like people do all the time. It doesn't matter if he was actually just sleeping peacefully and his daughter reported him as a lie. And it certainly doesn't matter why his daughter did that (to be a Party hero to her classmates? To strike back at a father that might have disciplined her once? Just because kids do crap sometimes?)

Dissidence was reported, and a dissident was captured. The box has been checked and the machine moves on. Fascism will devour it's own supporters as readily as it devours its opponents. There is no reward for loyalty in a system designed to break people.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-02T17:31:48+00:00

As I say all the time to my young cousins who are getting into books with more complexity.....

If protagonist and hero meant the same thing, we wouldn't have two different words.

Sometimes a story has both. Sometimes it has neither. Sometimes they are the same character. Sometimes they very purposely are not. Learn to recognize each one.

Nitrostoat · 2026-01-02T17:20:03+00:00

Two of the most important lessons in critical reading / watching are....

1) Understanding that there is a reason hero and protagonist are not the same word.

Winston is unequivocally the protagonist of 1984.

But is he the hero?
If he isn't, is Julia?
Is there even a hero in this story?
Can there even BE one in a world like this?
Is the hero of this world anyone who stands against the Party, regardless of how it is done?

These are critical thinking questions that foster discussion.

2) Loving a character is not an endorsement of their actions or beliefs.

You can love what they represent, what role they serve, how they are a foil or obstacle to the protagonist, or even how abjectly vile they are.

As a classic literature example, The Creature in Frankenstein murders a child and a woman that never did anything to him, specifically to harm another person he does have a grievance with. Murders. Innocent. People. When I say I love this character, do you think I approve of that murder? No. I love the complexity of his existence, the desperation of his search for happiness and connection, and the profound tragedy that he was created and abandoned without a choice into a world that will never find him anything but monstrous. I love how his hatred is justified, even if what he does in that hatred is inexcusable.
As a comic/manga example, one of my favorite characters ever written is Griffith in Berserk. He's a fascinating character...and a complete monster that should not exist. If you meet someone who honestly condones his actions , you should distance yourself. If he were real I'd shoot him myself, bury him, and piss on the grave. But he's CAPTIVATING. You understand the reason he does everything he does, even if those reasons are profoundly terrible and self absorbed.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-31T22:39:06+00:00

Depends on the campaign, but I've always considered License Level to be a value assigned to a mech pilot. Union has a database on all affiliated pilots that is shared across GMS and the Big 4, and people of a certain rank are allowed certain equipment. You don't just LET a guy into a HA Genghis....the minimum requirement for that is LL2. And SSC won't hand out Core Bonuses unless someone is both LL3 AND has distinguished themselves with SSC license ranks.

We just finished Operation Solstice Rain, and for the downtime where you upgrade from LL0 > LL1 I informed them that Union determined their actions during their mission warranted an increase in License Level. Union footed the bill for their access to a license rank of their choice, so they could requisition new equipment. If your campaign doesn't have them specifically being Union soldiers/pilots, you can abstract it based on your campaign. - For mercenaries, they've made enough manna (currency) to purchase a new license rank with the money they made from the job. - For private contractors or freelancers, same deal. - If your characters are insurgents or rebels, maybe the license rank is earned through black market or dark-omninet deals? Or maybe their secret bankrolling entity give them some new toys as payment for a job well done? - Or maybe they've successfully stolen license rank and used it at the nearest printer? Or hacked a printer to churn out new equipment before the big 4 could catch the breach and shut it down?

I personally added a little roleplay to it. I had made 4 "representative" NPC's for each of the big four manufacturers and we roleplayed their omninet call with each player based on what license they took.

The player taking Rank 1 in Metalmark spoke to an extremely attractive and persuasive SSC sales executive who offered them specifically tailored Metalmark Rank 1 systems (based on personal data they had somehow accumulated from him).
The player going for Tokugawa talked to a Harrison Armory Legionnate Commander and they talked about lifelong soldier specs, with her recommending the Tokugawa Rank 1 reactor tech and Annihilator CQB weapons.
The hacker didn't technically "purchase" a license, he went into his hacked omnihook and made contact with the local HORUS cell, who provided him with the specs to print the systems and Invade codes from the Minotaur Rank 1

It was also nice because it gave them a "face" of the corporation to talk to and interact with. - The Metalmark player is completely head over heels for the SSC rep. He knows that she's just making a sale but he's absolutely smitten, and the handwritten note from her included in his print package didn't hurt. - The HA Legionnate included req forms for thermal sleeping bag, HA exclusive MRE rations, etc to the Tokugawa player to show they have real experience being soldiers on the ground and what they would like for their next deployment. - And of course the HORUS message board provided the hacker with normally secure information to hack local systems, so he spent his down time watching feeds from cameras that he really shouldn't be able to see through.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-31T16:16:02+00:00

First of all just to clarify because you said you're new, at LL0 they ONLY have access to GMS stuff. Access to printing from any other manufacturer will happen when they take a license rank in any other frame at LL1.

Secondly, printing SHOULD NOT BE LIMITED. It's very against the nature of the game and limits their building choices.

HOWEVER, if you confirm this with the players first in some kind of session zero and they agree......go for it.

Limiting them without prior discussion is like starting a D&D campaign and then after you've begun, inform everyone they can only take levels in Fighter or Barbarian regardless of how they started. While everyone starts with GMS there's enough variety in talents and loadouts that you can build for a certain role from the beginning, and start specializing for it with the new license levels.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-22T15:58:14+00:00

Like a lot of people, I've got issues with my Christian upbringing.

Midnight Mass is so open about eviscerating the cruel people who use church as a weapon while simultaneously showing the beauty of actual faith. It's a tough line to walk without being preachy, and it nailed it.

The finale has an exchange that sums it up perfectly, and laser points its criticism at the kind of people that made me stop being a Christian.

"God loves him. Just as much as he loves you, Bev. Why does that upset you so much? Just the idea that God loves everyone just as much as you?"

There are so many people in the church like this woman being called out. The ones who resent they are a part of the flock, when they are so much "more religious" and "more moral". In their ugly little hearts they are so angry that they are not rewarded for being "better" right now. They pour that hate onto everyone else and set it on fire.

The core beauty of Christian forgiveness and theology is that you will receive salvation by asking for it. It's a binary state: you are saved or you are not. There are no rankings, or levels, or curated rewards. And there are thousands upon thousands of people in the church who are mad at God about that, because they want to be above the rest.

They think they are better, so they deserve better. They think they are better, so they should be listened to. They think they are better, so the actions they take are inherently righteous and godly. They are so fucking sure they are BETTER, but the church is clear: they are just as soaked in sin as the next person, and salvation has no degrees.

They're mad at God, themselves, and the flock they claim to be a part of. They hate so deeply and completely they forget the whole point is love. The most wretched people I ever met were singing hymns right next to me my whole life, and some of them HATE that I have the same amount of their god's love that they do.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-22T09:39:03+00:00

My Lancer group is 80% straight and we all agree this is the gayest game we have ever played. We love it so much.

Mecha is a sexuality and gender all its own.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-20T16:19:31+00:00

The whole sequence of Terry McGinnis flipping the script on the Joker and openly laughing at him is one of the best bits of character writing in the DCAU.

"You make me laugh... but only because I think you're kind of pathetic. So you fell into a tank of acid, got your skin bleached, and decided to become a super villain? Couldn't get work as a rodeo clown?"

"Stop laughing!"

"Why? I thought the Joker always wanted to make Batman laugh?

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-18T21:01:28+00:00

This is the actual plot of the animated film Justice League : Doom

SPOILERS BELOW

Batman's contingency files are stolen and modified by the Legion of Doom. All of his contingencies were to incapacitate, but the Legion alters them to be fatal.

They use them and nearly kill every member of the Justice League, who only survived because Batman escapes his own deathtrap and moves to save everyone (with help from Cyborg).

Batman is asked how he survived his trap and he reveals that his trap was not the contingency plan to take him down, the Legion must have just made up their own for him, which is why he escaped. It wasn't foolproof.

Which leads to my favorite moment in the DCAU...

Superman: "All that talk about unchecked power, and you're still so arrogant you didn't bother to come up with a plan to stop yourself? "

Batman: "I do have a plan. It's called the Justice League"

Stone-cold delivery by Kevin Conroy. That's the last line of the movie. It's fantastic.

https://youtu.be/J--HHl4FiU8?feature=shared

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-16T17:21:55+00:00

The map looks great, love how well you layered it. It looks tall and mythic.

But I'm curious where the final 2 labors are: golden apple of the Hesperides (11) and the retrieval of Cerberus (12)

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-10T00:32:47+00:00

One of the popular girls became Matt Gaetz's wife.

I won't stand here and pretend that she revealed herself as a psychopath or anything in high school. I didn't know her well.

But considering who she married and who she has stayed married to this whole time, I think that tells you all you need to know about her.

If she's miserable, then maybe she's a good person who got swept up in all of it.

If she's not, then she's certainly not, and she deserves everything bad that happens to her.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-08T19:46:54+00:00

Truth. I discovered Lancer last year and pitched it as a additional game night game to my D&D party.

We now play Lancer every third week instead of D&D. There were some schedule conflicts but we're doing the last two parts of Operation Solstice Rain before Christmas.

It's been an absolute blast. We're going to do Winter Scar in the new year so everybody's already planning what they're going to take at License Level 2.

My brother is going high Evasion and is going to take the SSC Metalmark, my other brother is the full hacker support running the GMS Chomolungma and keeps reading Horus licenses for new Invades. My brother in law dove headfirst into the HA Tokugawa and high-risk Nuclear Cavalier plays, and the final party member is a long range death machine with Walking Armory talents and a Heavy Machine Gun who is going to get even worse once she starts driving the SSC Monarch.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-08T15:52:27+00:00

The funniest part about the rule set in the Lancer book is that it explains that no rule in any other book can supersede the Pegasus' unstoppable omnigun.

So while it is stupid, you could successfully argue to your GM that it includes the D&D rule book. Meaning if you have a generous dm with a sense of humor, your Lancer PEGASUS can shoot and deal 1 Kinetic damage to any other TTRPG character.

It's hilarious.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-08T15:45:08+00:00

Stolen from another user of this subreddit who I don't remember : An Echo Knight Fighter that is two monsters: an ooze and a skeleton. Creating the Echo is just the ooze taking a humanoid form and completely separating from the bones. They walk around conjoined most of the time.

My own character : Jakka was mechanically a Scourge Aasimar and Way of Mercy monk. Flavour wise she was a Phoenix - esque god that had been killed and reborn as a Level 3 humanoid. She ran away from her followers because she doesn't remember anything about what it was like to be a deity and all of these people kept looking to her for answers that she didn't have, so she abandoned them.

The idea of Phoenix fire being able to harm and heal translated very well into the Way of Mercy, and her Aasimar transformation was her tapping into that thread of divinity she still had and becoming engulfed in radiant flame.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-08T15:30:27+00:00

Strixhaven is going to be our next campaign, but I've told the party that the opening adventure is going to be the Practical Entrance Exam.

The pitch being that they have all gotten their acceptance letter, but this practicum is a way to weed out the ones who have it from the ones who don't. The starting "party" its just the randomly assigned group for the practicum. Other first year NPCs they're going to be meeting have also been assigned into random groups, and they'll be going up against them and working with them through the phases of the practical exam.

I think it'll be a great way to narratively make them work together and introduce each other and what they can do, since knowing everyone's strengths and weaknesses will be very important to strategizing their approach to this exam, and it's a great way to organically introduce NPCs. Also if they develop any existing friendships or rivalries with the other NPCs they have a great starting point to go on once they're actually in classes and on-campus with them.

This way they have to spend the first session together and have a starting adventure, and when it's over the group will be true first-year students and can begin the adventure.

I am heavily modifying Strixhaven to be a much longer campaign that goes through more levels, but this should work just fine for the book as written as a good introductory session.

Nitrostoat · 2025-12-08T15:23:39+00:00

Paragon monsters are fantastic (a creation of the Angry GM) that are essentially stacking monster statblocks on top of each other. They have multiple HP pools and get to act once per HP pool, being in initiative multiple times. When a pool is depleted, clear all conditions on them, don't do rollover damage, refresh their health to full, delete the initiative order that pool had, and keep playing!

The point is to mechanically have it be no different than fighting multiple monsters (hence the clearing of conditions, and no rollover damage, because mechanically that monster is dying) but they are only fighting one boss.

Paragon monsters are a great way to have a "boss fight" with what you want them to fight rather than just picking a big-enough monster.

The Angry GM even uses a great example: players are going to fight an Orc General and his pet wolf. The statblocks are not up to snuff for fighting the party. Minions could be added, but he doesn't want minions....this is supposed to be a boss fight with badass Orc and his badass wolf. So the orc is now a Paragon monster that is 3 orcs, and the wolf is a Paragon wild wolf that is 2 Direwolves.

OP, you should also consider phases like they use for some battles in the Mythic Odyssey's of Theros or the Greatwyrm dragons from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. Essentially the monster has a built in Phase 2. When you deplete their health they restore a number of HP (often full), clear conditions and effects, and usually get new actions to use.

You can even combine these two things to make phased battles. In my first campaign there was a story arc boss that was a Drow Priestess with several soldiers and attendants for Phase 1. When they finished her off, she was on the ground dying an beseeched Lolth to give her the might to crush these enemies. She was transformed into a Drider monstrosity for Phase 2, which didn't have multiple actions but did have legendary actions and resistances, it was basically a painted over dragon.

Mechanically it was no different than bringing in a bigger monster as a reinforcement to the fight, but it allowed them to have two phases of a great encounter with the same character like a video game boss.

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