Recently I have gotten in the the Tabletop RPG Lancer, a sci-fi game that blends together narrative roleplaying with turn-based mech combat. Normally making a fat homebrew for such a game would be difficult at best and impossible at worst, but a few quirks about Lancer made it not only possible, but with plenty of pre-made integration.
- 1: Player characters are separate units from their mechs
- 2: Certain units like pilots can have the Biological tag, signaling they are an organic being.
- 3: There are already lots of mechs at different sizes in addition to having ways to increase the mechâs size and cockpit.
This initially started off as a small project to try getting some friends into the game, but eventually things spiraled and I ended up making a surprisingly long guidebook on. Currently I have had no major playtesting or feedback to work with along with not having any custom artwork implemented either. In the future I plan on better balancing game mechanics, adding in artwork, and overall improving what has been created here. I hope that you all enjoy this system and have fun with your butterball pilots.
Current Version:
PortlyPilotsHomeforge_Draft3.pdf (2.7 MB)
Past Versions:
PortlyPilotsHomeforge_Draft1.pdf (2.6 MB)
PortlyPilotsHomeforge_Draft2a.pdf (2.6 MB)
3 Likes
This looks excellent, and I definitely have some ideas to retrofit my homebrew manufacturing company and licenses and some other homebrew work Iâve done on this to fit this core system. There are a few design notes/clarifications I had in mind after reading it though:
is fattening presence meant to clear itself after it emits that burst? It should probably say so, because otherwise things like radiative missiles or the radiative hardsuit just keep going until cleared with a stabilize, which is a lot of potential out of a thing that doesnât cost much.
Thereâs a slight bit of clunkiness with the Roomey(should be spelled roomy) cockpit talent of the Lard Wall tree. The way it reads means theyâll be making engineering checks -every turn- so long as theyâre oversize, which means it will at max buy them a handful of turns and wonât last for very long until they just get unlucky and roll low. I might recommend the edit âon a success, you stay inside your mech for the remainder of the scene or until your size changes, at which point you may need to roll again.â
Caloric Silo refers to the effect it puts out as Nutritional Smog rather than Nutritious Smoke.
The Hijack Controls effect on the Jesterâs Pie is -very- strong, especially with no limitations on things like biological targets. I get itâs a piece of exotic gear, but especially since a player investing in engineering could add extra charges to it, it might be worth putting some rails on that one or theyâll just start taking over boss monsters and decimating their enemies.
These aside, this looks amazing and I canât wait to play around with it and see if I can build on it at all with some homeforging of my own.
Glad you are liking it and thank you kindly for the feedback! I expected there to be some issues or faults at first so all the feedback I can get is welcome. Plus, again, I havenât really had much if any playtime with this system aside from hypothesized playtime.
The lack of clarity around the Fattening Presence is something I need to work on so I appreciate that.
Now that I think about it, the Roomy Cockpit change would make it feel better.
Caloric Silo issue was an oversight I will work on.
For the Jesterâs Pie, I may need to reign in its strength considerably since it was one of my more prototype builds. Certainly needs some more fine tuning.
Heads up, I decided to release a small update for the rulebook. This one does not change a whole lot or add a whole bunch of new features, just acts as a quality of life improvement overall.
- Personal Changes
- Added a section on the New Mech Equipment - Overview explaining what exotic equipment is for new players or GMs
- Added âAssimilationâ Code Injection and Caloric Field Resonator Exotic Equipment
- Addressed small grammatical issues, typos, and other minute problems throughout
- Renamed âAction System Nameâ to Oversized Sound Generators
- Changes from Storymakerâs suggestion
- Clarified that FATTENING PRESENCE lasts until the end of the afflicted characterâs next turn
- Improved Roomy Cockpit
- Fixed an misinputted word in the Caloric Silo object entry
- Significantly nerfed the power of the âJesterâs Pieâ Remote EW Harpoon
After one of my friends expressed concerns about Size 1/2 Lancer mechs (e.g., Goblin, Dusk Wing, Caliban, and Atlas) becoming practically useless with this homebrew, I decided to put some more work into making them more viable and giving two mechs a lore-appropriate frame trait. In addition, I also put some work in to provide GMs and players more options along with other kink content of the groupâs choosing.
Patch Notes for Draft 3
- Added new and changed existing mech Frame Traits
- New: âSelf-Calibrating Exoskeletonâ to all player mechs that start at Size 1/2
- New: âComfortable Cockpitâ to Metalmark and both Swallowtail variants
- Adjusted Lard Wall Rank 1 to work with this new trait
- Changed: Calibanâs âWrecking Ballâ and Atlasâs âGiant Killerâ
- Added a section for GMs titled âThe Blob Behind the Curtainâ
- 11 New Mission Hooks
- Multiple Optional Statuses, Equipment, and other goodies involving other kinks such as blueberry/fruit, lactation, and pregnancy (again, these are all optional)
- Made Starvation Syringe a Limited 3 pilot gear
- Moderately reworked Hacker Rank 2âs âJam Cockpitâ Invade Option
Cool to see more work being done on this! Though, there is a few questions I have on the âFruity Bodyâ status. For one, while itâs listed as a pilot status that can be cleared by taking the STABILIZE action. However, on page 74 of the rulebook itâs stated that
âPilots can take the following actions, using the same rules
as mechs: BOOST, HIDE, SEARCH, ACTIVATE, SKILL CHECK,
DISENGAGE, PREPARE, MOUNT. Pilots can OVERWATCH, and
use the FIGHT action (below) when they do so.
Pilots can also take three special actions: FIGHT,
JOCKEY and RELOAD.â
Notably missing the STABILIZE action, which means pilots on foot, or in downtime have zero ways of actually stabilize. Which is an even bigger issue if a pilot ends up too big to even get into their mech and therefore effectively stuck unless a GM does something or a specific pilot gear is used.
Also for excessive production the overnutrition if blocked seems like it can get out of hand very quickly, especially in combination from fruity body. With every round being considered 6 seconds, just one stack would translate to gaining enough nutrition to go up a size every minute. And if you get fruity body and start at say, size 2, by the time you hit size 4 youâd be getting 8 nutrition per 6 seconds, or more then one size increase every 3 rounds.
Perhaps fruity body could be adjusted so that if a pilot hits size 4, then, they gain excessive production for some time, and excessive production itself could either scale slower in nutrition output or have some cap to stop one instance of fruity body from spiking a characterâs weight in the long term. As well as perhaps add in a special action to attempt to âjuiceâ the character that the person themselves or someone else assisting can do rather then relying on STABILIZE which is impossible for a pilot to do themselves.
The mention of Stabilizing is intended to be use if you are inside of a mech, though I do need to specify that in hindsight.
I could perhaps throw in an âjuiceâ full action to clear an instance of Fruity Body without equipment that can be done both by the person or by an adjacent character.
As for what counts as having âproduction blockedâ, in hindsight I should put more of an explanation as to what counts as blocking production. And yeah, perhaps I could make the fruity body production something that occurs after hitting size 4. Thank you so much for the feedback!