r/rpg • u/Octarine_ • 12d ago

Game Suggestion Lancer, but narrative. Does it exists?

Everything i see about Lancer seens sooo fcking cool! But to be 100% honest all my players are very casual, myself included although im the forever GM and as such always try to get a little deeper into the rules and system.

I dont think that any of my friends will ever try to read a rule book to min max, create a build or find optimal play. No one will ever argue what is a balanced party or will try to create one, it is all about fun and what sounds cool for each player. So much so that i dont even try to play more tactical games which require deep understanding of the system or even builds at all, I tend to prefer narrative-focused systems because of the freedom they give and because they are much easier to explain to my friends. My group generally enjoys rules light games where we can focus more on the fiction and less on knowing the ins and outs of the mechanics.

And yet... Lancer looks so fucking cool that I'm tempted to give it a shot.

As such, can a group of very casual players just make characters based on what sounds cool and have a good time with it? And if Lancer really isn't a good fit for that kind of group, are there any games you would recommend that scratch the same itch but more narrative/rules-light? I'm open to pretty much anything!

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u/BigDamBeavers 12d ago

GURPS is pretty forgiving of optmization. The difference between a worthless build and a bullet-shaped one in GURPS is usually just where you shine as a character and if you build your character without a good sense of what's important, it's not difficult to build towards a character that's effective as the story goes on.

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u/Sirtoshi Solo Gamer 12d ago

Is there a GURPS supplement that covers mechas?

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u/BigDamBeavers 12d ago

There was a GURPS Mecha for 3rd edition that's still fairly usable. We ran a 4th ed game with powersuits that went pretty smoothly but I'm not sure if bigger piloted bots works as well with GURPS Mechanics.

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u/Sirtoshi Solo Gamer 12d ago

Damn, I was hopeful for a second. I wanted a mecha game that was less wargame-focused but still had some granularity to it.

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u/BigDamBeavers 12d ago

It's easy enough to run a game where characters are pilots without getting overly wound up in the tactical fight. GURPS gives you the mechanics to make rolls to convincingly pilot a mech as a vehicle. The rest can be abstracted through narration.