https://massif-press.itch.io/corebook-pdf
Set in a world where mankind has long taken to the stars and achieved true communism, Lancer is a game about piloting big fucking mechs and saving people, be it for profit, for honour, or for the goodness of your heart. Lancer is $25, but people who wish only to see the player side content can get a player's handbook entirely for free. Lancer was the first post in the tumblr blog for good reason, its the perfect game for people attempting to try new things beyond 5e, having a complex and interesting ruleset and a strange yet engaging setting.
Union's third committee is indeed founded on utopian pillars, committed to ensuring nobody lacks for anything. But if that were the whole story, why would you be fighting deadly mech battles?
It's the places where utopian intent meets reality's limitations where your missions and the interesting gameplay and story play out.
- The second committee was an imperialist fascist project, and the galaxy the third committee has inherited was shaped by that aggressive colonization. Many worlds distrust Union for good reason. Fighting seccom remnants or local imitators is one mission theme.
- the fringe of human space is controlled by corpro-states, not directly by Union. Their commitment to the utopian pillars is sometimes only lip service for the sake of not angering Union. Resistance groups formed against them on frontier worlds fight because sometimes even that lip service disappears. Mercenaries are hired to put down such rebellion, but sometimes the Lancers decide the underdog is more worthy and turn on their employers.
- besides the resources extracted from the frontier by corpro-states, Union also quietly runs on the (arguably) enslaved labor of NHPs, non human persons. These beings present like AI constructs mostly, but in fact are n-dimensional minds existing in and capable of manipulating nonreal paracausal space. When one enters a fractal cascade and breaks the programs literally called shackles used to control them into human time and subjectivity, it can potentially carve out its own Madoka Magica witch's labyrinth, a Metavault, and turn into a godlike Eidolon. At that point it's them or you, because rapidly their pursuits become damaging or deadly to nearby humans, and their perspectives don't even consider humans for a moment.
- The 3 worlds of the nation of Karrakis are known as the Karrakin Trade Baronies, which might give you some clue that they never fully capitulated their sovereignty nor adopted Union's system. Between duels of honor and the clone slave revolt on the under-terraforming third world in the system, plenty of conflict arises here.
- Never ask an NHP the true name of RA, a member of the New Humanity Front what they were doing during the second committee, or Harrison Armory about the Hercynian crisis event.
- there's a whole other swathe of inhabited human worlds known as the Aunic peoples. They get psychic powers from their very own godlike paracausal entity. The second committee was scared of them so they launched a nearlight automated planet killing spike at the Aun homeworld called PISTON-1. It's still in transit. We made a mistake. It's possible they will come for us.
Because I love Lancer, I felt the need to add this color to my share of this description. "Achieved true communism" really doesn't do justice to the breadth of the setting, which provides ample opportunities for both sides of a conflict to be right and wrong in a complicated mix.
Yep!!! sorry i had to sum it up in few words so i couldn't too into how much i fucking love the setting, Lancer has issues in implementing its setting in gameplay but the setting itself is not the problem