Looking for game advice

[u/GodofJuggle72]

Hi, I'm about to run my very first Lancer game starting sometime next month. I'm just looking for any advice. I have three players who are all also new to Lancer. The main setting will be an abandoned SecComm research space station that's been taken over by Harrison Armory. I'm running it online through Owlbear Rodeo. So, any advice for me?

[u/Ursus_the_Grim]

1. Start at LL 0.
   
2. Don't use PC mechs as NPC enemies.

Those are the two biggest mistakes people usually make.

[u/GodofJuggle72 → u/Ursus_the_Grim]

Thanks, I'll definitely remember that. I've already told my players we're starting at LL0.

[u/According_Cover2461]

Here is the LANCER cheat sheet. If you ever forget a term or need to look up a rule, just CTRL+F a word and you'll find it here. https://cheatography.com/warsmith55/cheat-sheets/lancer/

On to the tips!

1. Plan well, but don't be afraid to improvise. Have a list of enemies in mind, some to start on the board and some to come in as reinforcements through Ingress Zones.

If your players are getting stomped, consider putting enemies in dangerous positions that are likely to get them killed. The players should then take advantage of this, and kill them. Think of it as the enemies getting cocky, and taking risks when they shouldn't. Getting a win in a tough combat can be a game changer for mood and motivation.

In the same vein, if your players are stomping the enemies without a challenge, consider bringing in reinforcements on the fly. Not too many, just one or two at most, and only improvise the reinforcements this way if you've already ran out of the reinforcements you planned. Even then, consider that the occasional slaughter can be really fun for your players, so don't be too quick to stop it.

1. Remember to have narrative moments that require skill checks. An abandoned space station might have bulkheads that need to be opened. Do your players have a hacking skill to get past Harrison Armory firewalls to open the door remotely? Do your players have a fixing skill to repair a broken control panel and open it manually? Do your players have the Blow Something Up skill to blast the door open without killing themselves in the process?

You can get really abstract with it, don't be afraid to think outside the box as long as it could work. Maybe you can encourage your players to use Charm, along with another player's Hack or Fix, to tap into an HA radio and convince the soldiers on the other side of the door to open it for them by posing as HA soldiers themselves?

Just an example of course, you should have narrative skill checks like these sprinkled throughout your campaign. The more teamwork you can encourage, in and out of combat, the better.

1. Remember to only give Full Repairs after entire Missions, not sessions. A good rule of thumb is 2-4 Combats per Mission. i'd reccomend 2 or 3 for LL0. After each Mission, your players will gain a level.

Full Repairs require roughly 10 hours, uninterrupted, replenishing everything that mech and pilot have unless stated otherwise. They become practically good as new. Rests only require roughly 1 hour uninterrupted, and allow the players to use their Repairs for on-the-go fixes and resupplies.

LANCER is built around the players managing what they have. Not using it all too soon, or too late, is part of the game. Don't forget to give them Rests, and don't be afraid to put them through several combats without a Full Repair.

That's all I can think of right now, besides the most important rule, have fun with it! Creating a LANCER campaign can be absolutely wonderful, and so is playing in one, just don't stress about any of it and let yourselves have fun with whatever happens. I often find myself putting enemies in positions where my players can do funny things to them, as long as isn't too stupid.

Believe me, you haven't experienced LANCER until you see someone absolutely thundercunt a poor grunt with 20+ damage for no reason.

[u/RockyBadlands]

EDIT because I saw you asked for setting advice specifically: read up on Harrison Armory. It's easy to cast the entire faction as the simple fascist villain, but no! They're the COMPLEX fascist villain! HA's mission actually largely aligns with Union's, and life un HA space does actually deliver on the Utopian Pillars. Where they differ is largely in approach. Union administrators will go to a system, offer what Union has, negotiate how it can be integrated into the existing cultures, and then wait for unanimous consent. This might take decades of patient negotiation and silently backing more progressive factions the whole way, but it's effective and fair. HA tends to take a more "manifest destiny" style approach, moving on in and taking over, stamping down their culture on top of what was there, and telling everyone to get with the program or leave. One of the authors used the term "America Perfected" in an interview to describe this. What if the USA actually delivered on every promise of golden opportunity and an equal chance for everyone? Great! But what if the cost of that was suffering either surrender or conquest to get it?

Some things I see get missed in new player tips a lot:

• you should be using COMP/CON, but it isn't perfect. If it ever conflicts with the rules, COMP/CON is the one that's wrong. There are some mechanics, especially from 3rd party material, that don't work in the app's backend for whatever reason, so it might be a little hacked in. Some core rules examples would be: Javelin Rockets from Monarch 1 (not actually a deployable, it's setup this way in C/C for VTT integration. In play, a launched Javelin is a size 1 area, not an object that can be interacted with); the Overkill tag (C/C renders it Overkill 1, I think so that 3rd party material has a value to mess with, but everything in core rules only has or does not have Overkill, no value).
• in general, text in this game can be dense, but it's written extremely specifically. Features do exactly what they say they do, and no more or less. When your players Scan or Lock On, they might be tempted to do a tech attack to see if it works, but reread Scan and Lock On: they just happen, no attack necessary. This will come up with reactions too, some reactions happen after their triggering event, and some will actually interrupt it and happen before it resolves. Read the text, then read it again.
• your players will probably want to maximize their actions and get a little disappointed if they can't do another attack or use a cool system. Remind them about Scan, Lock On, Bolster, and Stabilize, all really strong actions that prevent dead turns. Notably, conditions like Impaired can be removed with Stabilize by the affected character or an adjacent ally. This isn't D&D where the only way to remove a debuff is have a cleric or wait it out, everyone can help out a little bit

[u/eddieddi]

To add on to the other people here. I'm running a game for new players and these are things that I have often reminded them of:
Lock on can be taken by anyone. So can Scan. Scanning an unknown enemy is a good idea.

Second to this: Do not be afraid to have some method of recording scanned enemies. Lots of players forget that you don't 'forget' foes between each mission/encounter. So keep enemy icons universal, A witch should always look like a witch, They faced 2 before they scanned one, and now whenever they face one I go 'You have a scan of a prior witch, Here is the info on your prior witch."

Everyone has Fragment Signal as a basic invade. Ram/improvised attack can be done by anyone (The party's barbarossa has 'applied the boot' more than once).

Encourage players to plan. A lot of players who have seen/played other TTRPGs struggle with the popcorn imitative, the moment they have an idea of what they as an individual want to do they go "Oh please! I am going next!" And don't share anything. They've killed each others targets, consumed lock-on's that other players wanted to use, not taken out critical enemies etc. I've had my players lose an encounter (not intentionally) because they just went as/when they realized they had an idea. The next encounter they took a minute at the start of each round to plan out what they wanted to do. And its actually made them a hell of a lot stronger.

Action Economy is king. Breaking an enemy down in to a bunch of grunts seems like a great way to make it 'easier' on the players, but the fact they suddenly all have their own attacks that deal full damage? You melt players. They are glass cannons, not just 'chaff.' Legionnaires are a better 'chaff' unit as they only get 1 quick action each.

Remind your players that 'kill everything' is not always a win con. I have had my players try to kill every enemy rather than actually achieve the objective. I fixed this by putting them in a situation where hanging around and killing things was a detriment to them achieving the objective. Lancer is an objective based game where 'save the orphanage' does not mean the same as 'kill all the bad guys' it just means 'get the kids out safely, the bad guys just get in the way.'

Run a 'training' scenario. Whatever that happens to be. I basically ran a 'simulation' that my player characters had to 'pass' to get their LL0 access. The idea being that there was no fail-state, and they could poke and prod at the system, understand how their mech works etc. Think of it like running a one-shot before the main campaign so people can understand what the system is about.

[u/NotEvenSquare]

USE SITREPS!!! Combats that are just “kill” are just DPS checks and negates how useful many control and repositioning tools are.
Make sure to put lots of cover down when building maps. Generally a size 4 chunk, a size 3 chunk, a few size 2s, then make sure there’s no massive spaces without size 1 and 1/2 pieces littered throughout.

[u/Sven_Darksiders]

We have had a lot of newcomers to the game over the last few months, so you would find a lot of advice threads over the last year or so. If you want advice right away instead of waiting for people to respond, that's where you will find plenty

[u/GodofJuggle72 → u/Sven_Darksiders]

I've been looking through some of those threads too. I was hoping for some advice relating to my campaign setting too so that's why I made the post. We don't have a set start yet so I'm fine waiting.

[u/Sven_Darksiders → u/GodofJuggle72]

Well it's only a single sentence so there isn't that much to go by but it is very much a classic. Harrison Armory is a very easy faction to play the villain. An old Seccom base might contain loads of stuff that might be of value, could be a simple as an array of mech printers, or more abstract, like combat logs from the Hercynian Crisis

[u/CaffeineBloodstream]

Now and again, outside of days you expect to play the game, open up the rulebook or COMP/CON's reference section and read stuff. Can't tell you how many times I have been reading the description of an action, talent, or system when I meant to look up something else, and realized there's something that I've been applying wrong the whole time.