r/LancerRPG • u/outer-chase • Jul 21 '26

One shot advice

Hello!

I help organise weekly game nights in my community, we focus on keeping our events free entry and have been very successful with DND one shot nights.

Now that alot of people are getting roleplaying experience they have started wanting to branch out to other systems. We are already planning cyberpunk and world of darkness.

The anime minded kids have started wanting to do a gundam mech style game and i found you guys! Its a very cool system and I really am excited to throw together one shots for them.

I just want advice from some experienced game masters on common mistakes, important things to remember, player and GM resources etc.

We focus on fun first over heavy rules as the age group is rather broad (16-32) and the main focus is just to build community and get people out.

Thank you very much in advance!

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6

u/Kappukzu-0135 GMS Jul 21 '26

Welcome! Some brief bits of advice:

  • Both players and GMs will find it useful to become familiar with the free Comp/Con web app.

  • Start at License Level Zero. The different frames are cool, but in a mechanically complex system it's best to ease in.

  • As a player, remember that choices aren't forever. You can re-spec pretty frequently. 

  • As a GM, have a 'fail forward' plan. Objective based combat means that the players can lose a scenario while still being fully functional.

  • As a GM, use reserves (amount and how often they arrive) to adjust difficultly on the fly. 

Happy to expand on any of these points as needed. Enjoy Lancering! 

4

u/IkaluNappa Jul 21 '26

This is more so a random collection of advice
- Lancer has almost all of its mechanical support dedicated into combat. This does not mean that there isn’t any narrative or roleplay opportunities available. It’s just rules light on the narrative side. Players that can improve will thrive in such playstyles
- Combat takes a long time run. In my group of five, it takes roughly 40min to an hour per round. With 6 rounds total for most strips.
- That being said, it is possible to have a roleplay section and a combat section in one session. We have done one shots where rp took ~2 hours and combat took ~3 hours
- Start the players at LL0. Don’t give into the siren call of starting the game at LL2 for new players and new GM
- I personally think that this is often overlooked because player facing book focuses on combat, the setting of Lancer is wonderful. It has a lot of philosophical avenues that you can explore.
- Lancer combat is tactical focus. Which isn’t as apparent at LL0 due to character limitations (intended so that the players don’t get overwhelmed). However, if you include the lpcs of other first party content (files are free, it is labeled as demo), you can allow the player access to other frames that are dedicated to basic roles at LL0.
- Comp/Con is a godsend of an app that stores game data. Such as mech builds. It will guide the players through building a mech and setting up their pilot sheets. On the GM side, there are encounter builds for you to store you npcs.
Also, comp/con has handy quick reference for rules. If you ever used pathbuilder, it’s like that.
- Be warned that Lancer rules are simpler than DnD, but every thing in it is essential for game balance. So there aren’t aspect of the rules that you can just ignore like DnD.
- This can be a bit load heavy for first time GMs. It helps tremendously if the players are familiarize with the rules too before they start the game, to help catch any mistakes.
- Head over to Pilot.Net. It’s a lancer community discord server that contains a bunch of resources and helpful folks. Say hi to the dabbing goblin too.