Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mini]

Given the number of mecha-based RPGs available both for free and purchase, I really don't think HBS, Harmony Gold, WotC, or Activision would have any form of legal ground to stand on.  That hasn't stopped them before, but I REALLY doubt they'll bother.

Maybe you didn't catch that.  You said Mecha, not Mech.  LANCER uses Mech.  Plus, the Mechwarrior franchise has already released RPGs.  Its a concern.

Battletech always (including in the trademark) uses 'Mech (with the apostrophe). Lancer doesn't use that apostrophe.

[NullForceOmega]

Yah, that part too, since 'Mech is intended as shorthand for "Battlemech" which is trademarkable, since it is a proper noun referencing their very specific brand of giant robot.  Just like "Mobile Suit", "VOTOM", "Arm Slave", "Guymelef", and an unholy host of others.

Honestly, I'm just vastly more interested in where Abbadon is going with this product, it sounds really engaging, and I've needed a new PnP game to stave off imagination stagnation for a while.

[Iduno]

Who's ever heard of a Lance of Mechs in Battletech? They should have put in any amount of effort to come up with at least one new word.

If they're lucky, Catalyst will be the ones to try to sue them, and everyone involved will be dead of old age/heat death of the universe before they get around to it.

[BluarianKnight]

Ignoring the lawsuit-conversation for a moment, I'm fairly excited to try this system out.

[n9103]

Who's ever heard of a Lance of Mechs in Battletech? They should have put in any amount of effort to come up with at least one new word.

Not entirely sure I get your meaning here, but a group of mechwarriors used to be called a Lance, back in the MW2 days. I believe it's a Clan-term for a squad-equivalent.

E: Mixed up Clan and IS. It's been 25 years

[Hanzoku]

No, it’s the standard Inner Sphere base unit for ‘Mechs and vehicles. Clans organize themselves in Stars of 5 ‘Mechs or 10 Vehicles.

[Trekkin]

Ignoring the lawsuit-conversation for a moment, I'm fairly excited to try this system out.

Well, there's a free pre-release version out already. Having read it, I'm not impressed; it's got a lot of individually cool things in it but it doesn't feel mechanically cohesive, and it doesn't solve the inherent fragmentation of vehicle RPGs between vehicle parts and everything else. The licensing system and most of the out-of-combat rules/tables are vague and extremely brief, which could be forgivable as a desire to focus on the much more specific (and mechanically cumbersome) mech combat except it's clearly supposed to lend context to it. It wants to be FATE until it turns into MechWarrior, but instead of making the non-core gameplay feel streamlined it just feels vestigial.

[Paul]

Who's ever heard of a Lance of Mechs in Battletech? They should have put in any amount of effort to come up with at least one new word.

If they're lucky, Catalyst will be the ones to try to sue them, and everyone involved will be dead of old age/heat death of the universe before they get around to it.

Lancer isn't used the same as Battletech is using it, though. From what I can tell it's being used to reference the pilots. Either because they use the weapon ("thermal lance"), or possibly as an in-universe term for the pilots. Perhaps a play on freelancer?

Looks like an interesting setting.

[Hanzoku]

No, if I remember the rulebook, characters are all some form of mechanized cavalry, and the term Lancer is used to denote the pilots of the Mechs, which are for some reason really hard to train in great numbers to explain why the PCs are special.

[Trekkin]

No, if I remember the rulebook, characters are all some form of mechanized cavalry, and the term Lancer is used to denote the pilots of the Mechs, which are for some reason really hard to train in great numbers to explain why the PCs are special.

Yeah.

It is important to note that the term “Lancer(s)”, in Lancer, is a catch-all term for mech pilots across the galaxy who are roughly equivalent, by Union standards, to a contemporary ace. Not all pilots or people who crew mechs are Lancers -- the majority of them are just competent pilots -- but all Lancers are pilots.

In other words, Lancer is a term for special snowflake PC pilots.

[Cyroth]

Would lance in the battletech sense even be trademarkable, considering it is an actual historical word/designation?

If I remember my history lessons correctly "Lanze" (literally lance, like the weapon) is the old german designation for a knight and his squires/retinue outside of the larger structures of the army. It is basically a very archaic word for "squad". It would be like trademarking words like "company" or "battalion".

For example in the context of "the count of aaa sent 10 lances to support the ducal army of bbb" would mean the count sent 10 knights plus whatever soldiers each of them could muster to support his duke. Considering the whole "'mechwarriors are the modern knights" theme Battletech has going on, that can't exactly be a coincidence.

[E. Albright]

Yep. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lances_fournies :

The lance fournie (French: "equipped lance") was a medieval equivalent to the modern army squad that would have accompanied and supported a man-at-arms (a heavily armoured horseman popularly known as a "knight") in battle. These units formed companies under a captain either as mercenary bands or in the retinue of wealthy nobles and royalty. Each lance was supposed to include a mixture of troop types (the men-at-arms themselves, lighter cavalry, infantry, and even noncombatant pages) that would have guaranteed a desirable balance between the various components of the company at large; however, it is often difficult to determine the exact composition of the lance in any given company as the available sources are few and often centuries apart.

Given that mech games in general are frequently romanticized "high-tech knights" it makes a lot of sense to see people coming back to this idea.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

~Moderate Necro~

Now that some of the more... apparently controversial dust has settled, would anybody be interested in starting a regular Lancer session???

I've been reading the rulebook and despite some of its clunkiness, the setting has really captivated me! Not sure I can really DM rn, but I'd love to join a Bay12 game!

[Iduno]

~Moderate Necro~

Now that some of the more... apparently controversial dust has settled, would anybody be interested in starting a regular Lancer session???

I've been reading the rulebook and despite some of its clunkiness, the setting has really captivated me! Not sure I can really DM rn, but I'd love to join a Bay12 game!

If you can throw together a one-shot or something, we could try it out before having decided.

[Blood_Librarian]

I'd be interested, is it gonna be voice or text?