War Bad Robot Cool Let's Play LancerRPG!

[Fefnir]

Woah hey, stream time? In this space economy???

www.twitch.tv/batilisk

[Jenner]

LP Double Update! Two new videos today! The first video is some bonus lore for Isadora. The second video is Session 2, which we managed to keep under two hours wooo.
Bonus Lore: Isadora Pilot Log 01: A short scene between Isadora and Gareth.

Session 2, Social Loafing: The Hex Girls take some downtime after a successful mission and give each other some constructive criticism.

[Fefnir]

[Jenner]

Jeff sent this message to the Discord back when we were organizing the ill-fated Fellowship campaign where I was being a player character for the first time and if anything this theory has been proven correct.

[Jenner]

LP Double Update! Two new videos today! The first video is some bonus lore for… Kovannin. The second video is Session 3, which is long but fun and nobody died.

Session 3, Get On Top : The Hex Girls undertake their first Faction Mission in the employ of the Common Front of the Holy Name but that’s a secret. On the surface they’ve been hired by Ulysis to chase off some raiders. Can the Hex Girls get on top and reign as King of the Mountain or are they going down in smoke?

Bonus Lore: Kovannin Pilot Log 01 : Turns out reaction videos are still a thing in 9,329 NGY.

[Jenner]

Sometimes things happen in the session and it falls upon the GMs (in this case me) to explain it with lore. In this case, Diafault got dangerously close to dying last session. The GMs and the players are squeamish about the cloning thing, they’re not ok with it. So we came to an understanding about how that’s avoided in our universe, Overture. Cloning is definitely still a thing that happens in-universe, by the way, it’s just rarely necessary in Overture for Lore Reasons… which I shall now detail. Introducing…

Lore Post: Overture Civil Duel Culture

The earliest settlers of Overture were all from the same sleeper ship who colonized the same planet and grew and developed together. These first arrivals really established a lot of the foundation for the overarching culture of Overture. One of which was their concept of Civil Duel Culture. In the early days of establishing a presence on Athena there was a lot of fighting and a few too many people died from it. So they invented Civil Duel Culture which is very simple: You may fight all you want but do not kill, do not permanently cripple, and leave no permanent physical damage to the best of your ability. If you were found/judged/suspected to have intentionally ignored these very simple demands you would be investigated and if found guilty Shitlisted. Someone who is Shitlisted for violating Civil Duel Culture will no longer be hired for jobs, no longer be served at businesses, no longer be granted housing, and driven from the community. If they did extensive harm they may be fined to compensate the injured or the injured’s survivors and, in only the most severe of circumstances, executed themselves. Being Shitlisted is a guaranteed Bad Time and once Civil Duel Culture was established precedent things got a lot more amenable on Athena and Civil Duel Culture became a foundational principle of overall Overture Culture. As more colonists moved in and the Athenians and the new arrivals spread across the system (and as technology advanced) Civil Duel Culture was quickly attached to Mech Culture. Under Overture Civil Duel Culture if you kill or otherwise permanently physically damage a pilot while meching you’re Shitlisted and now nobody will serve you at businesses, nobody will hire you for jobs, nobody will provide you housing, the printers that print mech parts do not work for you any more, etc. So once a mech shuts down from excessive damage, like Diafault’s did, continuing to attack that mech would have gotten any pilot who did so Shitlisted. This is why the raiders started targeting different targets and did not finish Diafault off as pretty much everyone inhabiting Overture is really squeamish about thumbing their noses at Civil Duel Culture since doing so is a guaranteed Bad Time.

Additionally considerations for Civil Duel Culture is built into mechs by the corporations. It is hard coded into all mechs to ensure they will not automatically lock on to or swing at/fire on mechs that are in critical condition and it’s virtually impossible to override or bypass those hard-coded protocols. So if a pilot desires to strike a mech in critical condition they must do so manually . No “oops my computer did it” excuses. On top of this, in the unfortunate circumstance that a mech lands a lucky critical hit that just explodes another mech outright every mech in Overture comes equipped with an ejection seat pre-installed in the mech. This seat is activated automatically the moment the mech takes enough damage that it might explode or otherwise kill the pilot. This automatic eject also cannot be easily bypassed, overridden, or removed. So only the most YOLO of pilots have bypassed their mandatory ejection seats. Targeting or otherwise injuring an ejected pilot is, of course, a violation of Civil Duel Culture.

What Do You Do If You Are Shitlisted?

If you are Shitlisted you have two options. Enter Deliverance’s Rehabilitation Program and, after seven years of intense therapy and various other rehabilitative services, you will graduate the program with a clean record. This is a one-time fix so if you breach Civil Duel Culture again you’re shit outta luck and Deliverance does not take kindly to recidivists. Your other option is to make your way over to Pillar, a planet in Common Front territory, and try and make connection with The Cool Zone. The Cool Zone are a faction of anti-corporation, pro-worker, unionized rabble rousers who will give shelter and support to raiders, pirates, and other ne’er-do-wells (including Shitlisters) so long as they are making Good Trouble and causing the corporations misery. But if you’re too murder-happy even the Cool Zoners won’t harbor you and your only option is Deliverance’s Rehabilitation Program.

In closing, it is incredibly difficult to outright die or be permanently taken out by physical injury in Overture in most cases unless you want to be. You have to either seek it out intentionally, be extremely unlucky, or have made some really nasty enemies.

[Jenner]

Whose got two thumbs and labeled the original map incorrectly? It’s me. The galaxy map has been altered and labeled correctly now. Let’s pretend it’s always been like that together, ok?

We’re streaming tonight at the usual time! (8:30-9:00 PM EST) and it’s gonna be another roleplay heavy session so I hope to see y’all there!

Additionally for next week’s session I have one slot open for one of our fan(s) to make an LL2 OC in Comp/Con and send me their vault code. First come first serve. Your OC will be deployed in a squad of other OCs made by other fan(s) of this campaign and be blown up.

If by some miracle your OC survives they’ll come back in a much later mission but don’t cross your fingers! So if you would like your OC to be blown up next session then please head on over to Comp/Con and make an OC then DM me your OC’s vault code.

[Fefnir]

It’s time… for robots, (which are cool) to take a short break from war, (which is bad.)

https://www.twitch.tv/batilisk

[Jenner]

LP Update! Session 4 is now up for your viewing pleasure! There was some really good roleplay this session if you’re into that kind of thing. (I know I am.)

Session 4, Constructive CRITicism : The Hex Girls are once again forced to interact with each other in social ways that don’t involve fighting in mechs alongside each other. And every last one of them is so very good at social interaction so I’m sure this will go over just fine.

Speaking of roleplay, in game there’s gonna be a whole lot more of that as the Hex Girls have a little over a week to get to their next mission (and it’s an urgent one!) That’s 11 days that they’ll be spending prepping and then travelling (and they’ll be socializing with and cohabitating with each other that whole time). And while I can’t make any promises for the other players and what they’ll do with their characters I can say that I am going to be taking Diafault out for a spin. I have a goal: To roleplay my gay little heart out with every player character I can find the real life time to roleplay with. (And I may even throw in some NPC interactions too! Maybe even with NPCs that aren’t Kovannin–It could happen, shut up!)

Here’s the thing though, that’s a lot of capital C Content and we’re simply not gonna be able to fit all that in to next session because wowzers. I like our current organization structure of running a combat oriented session then following it up with a more roleplay focused session then repeating. I don’t want to break that pacing up with back to back roleplay focused sessions (even though character development rules!) So I’ve made the choice to just record these lengthy interactions outside of scheduled game time and I’ll be uploading them as Pilot Logs before or alongside Session 5 (Ideally way before so folks have the necessary context going into Session 5.) These Pilot Logs will be chock full of super juicy roleplay and big time character development so if that’s your kinda shit (it is so my kind of shit) then I hope you’ll give them a click!

[Jenner]

Oh how interesting, a new map has been added to the OP and several maps have been updated. See if you can spot the differences!

The Flavortown legally belongs to the Hex Girls now! It’s their property and they are allowed to alter it however they see fit to make it more of a home to them. As our campaign progresses I hope we’ll see many more additions to the Flavortown and if/when we do the maps will be updated to reflect those changes. Additionally, the three factions that dominate Overture may, at times, gain or lose territory so the galaxy map will also be updated to reflect those changes when they happen. Map updates will get dedicated posts just like this one where the most recent previous versions of the changed maps will be uploaded alongside the newest maps and the OP will be edited to depict only the most recent versions of the maps.

New Flavortown Changes: Diafault’s Gamer Space and the Swole Hole

is now

New Galaxy Changes: Deliverance expands westward.

is now

[Jenner]

@Lyrewulf/Alice--Co-GM

ALRIGHT

THAT’S ENOUGH OF THIS SPHEROID PROPAGANDA

ITS TIME TO LEARN ABOUT THE REAL OVERTURE (DOC WITH A MAP HERE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11hVPIcRiWZcSeAkWTFYXmwyIRd55keoI7mmcR0TAC7E/edit )

The Clans, the Periphery, and the Limits of "Civil Culture"

What’s the Periphery? What isn’t the Periphery? The Periphery is a state of mind. It’s the margins of every map and every highfalutin’ census-taker’s forms. Whenever you have to check the star charts to know where you are because there ain’t signposts, then you’ve crossed over. Wherever things are weird, there’s the Periphery.

Or, if you want something a little more nailed down, the Periphery denotes the areas of the galaxy where the more “civilized” powers do not hold much sway, not only far away from Cradle and it’s Union, but far away from the myriad child-regimes which spawned from our great spaceborne expansion. It is not one area but many, not just one identity but an entire smorgasbord of various cultures, nations, etc.

While the South Periphery is fairly sparsely populated (at least by humanity, but put a pin in that) the North Periphery actually has several societies as advanced as any in Boundless or in the coreward worlds of Deliverance space.

Because they live outside of the “civilized” areas, those in the Periphery are not often bound by the laws or conventions of the rest of the galaxy. Very few people care about Union here, and fewer care about the niceties of post-scarcity culture.

A NOTE ON “CIVIL DUEL CULTURE” and the Periphery: One of the conventions of civilization which are not extended past the boundaries is “Civil Duel Culture” which would govern conflict between lancers, and potentially between other combatants. Civilization demands that pilots avoid killing in mechs, and those who disregard this are proscribed, refused service and resources and denied many of the rights and privileges that make being a Lancer possible. While the metropolitans and the like may think that such things are universal, those on the fringes will tell you what you can do with your rules. You don’t ask what the CDC means when you’re mounting the bloody ruins of a pirate mech on your wall to scare off the rest. You think about scaring the fuck out of those miserable bastards. Likewise, the Powers tend to turn a blind eye to deaths caused to those outside their sphere. These are Acceptable Targets. Killing a pirate mech pilot past the sphere isn’t really “murder”, and it doesn’t usually really mean that you’ve gone afoul of the Culture. As long as there aren’t eyes watching and cameras flashing, it didn’t happen, or it happened and there was much propriety abounding everywhere, you just had to be there. Most of the combatants outside of the sphere find the whole Civil Duel Culture thing beyond ludicrous, and the more violent ones will humiliate and then podkill the “spheroids” on pure principal because they despise the whole charade. The Periphery has its own version of the Culture, however–pilots who have ejected are largely considered off-limits, even by most pirates, and those who ignore this are largely shunned by their peers. The Reavers do not care, of course.

It’s probably a hopeless endeavor to categorize these societies, but for the sake of brevity…

Settlers, Survivalists, and the Clans

Most everyone not owing their allegiance to a nation or pirate kingdom can be lumped into the class of settlers, survivalists, and those making it day by day. But there is a group that is hard to fully separate from them, which often relies upon them to exist.

Unique to the Periphery are the Clans. Clan society’s origins are hard to pinpoint, but most agree that the mythological First Khan probably did exist in the form of disgraced Union bureaucrat Pofistal Buchannan, who Union lost track of after he shot up his own and adjacent offices in a fit of what was described as, in official records, a “fundamental break with reality, accompanied by extemporaneous musical performance and thankfully unsuccessful violence with improvised weapons”. It seems that after he ran screaming out the second story window of his office building that Mr. Buchanan got as far away from civilization as he could, and in his quest found those who mistook his single-minded madness for a kind of revolution against the modern world’s ills.

There are 27 actual clans of various sizes, each comprised of Septs and from then on into families. Clanner society is inherently martial, focused to the point of monomania on combat and its attached glory/honor. One’s place is determined by ones valor and fervor, or by ones raw charisma, and it is not unheard of for Clanners to settle disputes of leadership with songs followed by bareknuckled brawls to the delight of onlookers. Art and poetry, science and learning, all things are bound up in the Clanner need to prove that they are emphatically alive and living every single moment to the fullest. To refuse the call of adventure, to deny the winsome song of life and death is abhorrent to them. They sing their battles into being again and again in the bowels of old-model starships, conjuring up foes long dead and allies remembered, content with knowing that one day they shall be the enemies conjured up from the dead, happy to know that the boisterous clan way of life continues.

They are, in the eyes of the civilized sphere, barbarians. If being labeled a barbarian means they are free from the confining, life-denying laws of others, then that’s okay to the Clans, warring over petty slights and honor and for the hell of it, but most importantly over nominal control of hundreds of isolated worlds and the tribute there from. The homesteaders don’t care which clan collects the scraps they leave out, so long as the fighting doesn’t bother them personally. The Clans war their way through the stars keeping their fighting mostly away from civilians, compelled by honor to avoid dragging others into their conflicts.

Finally, those who violate clan laws (they DO have some) are often punished severely. To do some small grievance is no crime–that can be settled easily, and often peacefully. Damaging others property can be solved similarly, especially if it was accidental. But true crimes can only result in death, exile, or in rare cases by a pledge of bondage to the aggrieved. Cowardice, the murder of tributaries, breaking solemn oaths, acting in a way that shames the larger clan or sept, these things are true crimes.

The Clanners, oddly, despise those who they see as taking life frivolously. A life not remembered in song or story by the one who claimed it in honorable combat is a life forever lost. Modern war, with its potential for slaughter and ruin, is utterly foreign to them. The very idea of something like an orbital bombardment would break the Clanner conception of everything. The idea is heretical beyond belief. The fear of civilization, where one death is a tragedy and many is paperwork, that drove their forefather to the farthest reaches of space still reverberate in them to this day.

(Player note: Lyra Wulfstan is from Clan Wolf, Sept Wulfstan, family Roarke. They were formally stripped of their name and sept when ejected from Clan Wolf unfairly and perhaps by the design of dishonorable rivals, but took on their Sept name as an act of defiance when they settled in a new home. Lyra is actually unaware of this.)

Minor Nations

The settlers who arrived in Overture across the vastness of space through the experimental gateways settled as dictated by the placement of those gates. After the first network died, they scattered in every direction, driven by civic strife, open warfare, and other disasters. Unviable worlds that had been kept going by gateway access were abandoned for worlds out of the way that could handle large populations.

The periphery is home to many small nation-states of many different ideologies. Star kingdoms rise and die in decades, built by warriors beyond the ken of most men, and you’ll never hear about it in the news in Boundless. Haggard Republics cling to life along ill-defined trade routes, carrying cargo both mundane and exotic. A few strange radical communities can be found here and there, everything from Theocratic realms with heraldric knights to fascist geno-states, flash cloning the perfect humans in the thousands, ready (they think) to fill the stars.

These states share some things in common. One is that they tend to be unstable, plagued by internal frustrations common to any independent-minded population, and pressured from without by numerous pirates, clanners, and ravenous failed states eager to fuel their decadent societies with blood, slaves, and plunder. Another is that with the chaos inherent to this region of space, the divides between the rich and poor tend to be wildly wide. The poorest man on Hygarra III, on the edge of Overture, is ten times better off than a cattle baron on any of the moons of Midas Prime. Thirdly and lastly, because there was no real central authority guiding the colonization of the periphery, these states are often spaced out, with daunting distances between worlds nominally belonging to the same government.

Pirate Realms and the Reaving Fleets

Pirates are everywhere. They want treasure, fame, freedom. They’re malcontents who can’t adjust to the reasonable demands of society. They are free spirits, or murderous savages. Whatever they are, pirates aren’t hard to imagine. They come in many forms, and the only different thing they have out in the wild wild Periphery is that there are more of them and that they have the space to organize themselves.

It is not uncommon for a pirate in possession of treasure, a sizeable fleet, and a working brain to decide to settle down on an ill-defended world and invest themself in building a nice little kingdom. While some fortify asteroid belts in more secure space, pirates-turned-monarchs are a common occurrence here. Ironically, many of these new potentates are actually rather good at the business of government (it isn’t that far away from being a pirate sometimes). Pirate realms can expand by force, but they also expand by voluntary annexation, with troubled or vulnerable worlds paying tribute and requesting the protection of former pirate fleets in exchange for flying a warlord’s flag.

When we say “pirate king” or Pirate “queen” we should perhaps note that this is very literal. Unlike the minor nations or the larger powers that be, the overall structure of these micro-states is largely feudal, very like the old kingdoms of cradle. Monarchs demand tribute from governors who in turn collect the tithe of a hundred “dukes” or whatever title creative former marauders come up with.

But settled pirates and wandering opportunists aren’t the only harriers of the untamed skies. The Reaving Fleets are a collection of massive armadas who move from system to system, stripping them to the bone, leaving only husks in their wake. Few, if any, have survived the advent of a Reaving Fleet, and those that claim to did not last much longer. Their motives, culture, even the basic facts of “are we sure they’re human?” are just blank spaces in dossiers kept secret in the board rooms of Boundless megacorps. Those in the know in tamed space keep a wary, watchful eye to the galactic north, waiting for the dark days when the Fleets decide to move down in search of new feeding grounds.

Their ships are ramshackle, their mechs are alien in construction and crude in design, and their weapons are shockingly effective. Lancers are advised not to tangle with them if at all possible. If conflict with Reaving scouts is unavoidable, then we suggest annihilating them quickly, before they can make a report and bring the leviathan down on your head.

The Periphery and the Sphere

The Common Front is perhaps the faction with the most in common with the periphery. After all, Kyrie was considered a world of the periphery a few centuries ago! There are cultural connections to many of the peoples out there among the stars, and most of its members could all have said the same. This isn’t to say that the periphery is favorable to the Communards, of course! Some just despise them all the more, and some are ideologically hostile. Still others see the Syndicalist menace as just another empire in a galaxy filled to bursting with imperial ambitions.

Boundless reviled, but also seen as the best trading partner one could have. While the rigidity of the corps does not endear them in the frontier, their lucre and wide array of products do. The minor nations on Boundless’ border have collaborated with their security and relief efforts before, and will most likely do so again. Everyone else? Can take or leave them. Clanners in particular avoid Boundless entirely as if it were taboo. Perhaps it is.

Deliverance strikes cold fear into many hearts across the wild stars. Some say that they are liberators borne on fire, others that they are blind murderers hellbent on genocide, and some suggest that they might be more myth than anything else. In the north periphery, you try to keep your head down if you’re a few gates from Deliverance space, and you wait and see who was right. As a whole, there’s less of a consensus about the movement-cum-empire, but few are excited to meet them face to face.

[Jenner]

@Lyrewulf/Alice--Co-GM

THE SOUTH PERIPHERY:

To the south, the Periphery is largely… empty.

Unless you count the BlankZones.

BlankZones are mysterious regions of space from which no ship returns and out of which no signal has ever come. They defy categorization and exploration, seeming to be embargoed by a kind of impenetrable field. The purpose of these areas is unknown, but prospectors and scholars have made the locals very rich as they try to find out! Small communities prosper on worlds right outside of the zones, littered with ruins and inscriptions, and dozens of religious orders can be found inhabiting these places. Trade here is slow but safer, and in many ways the south periphery is peaceful as can be. No Reaving, no Clans, few pirates. The south is mostly… empty.

Peaceful! But empty. And sometimes the emptiness seems a bit much. Many worlds of this part of Overture carry with them a solemn, almost maddening sense of weight and rpessure. Travelers report being unable to bear visiting the admittedly stunning worlds of the southern reaches for more than a few hours, unable to stand whatever oppressive something there is here. The locals don’t seem to mind. They also don’t… seem to mind much, honestly. People do not leave the southern periphery. They just don’t. Ever.

.

[Jenner]

Putting these in the OP! Thanks, Alice! One of our wonderful co-GMs, folks, already "well actually"ing my established lore. It’s Good!

Reality sucks and if I made all the caveats I needed to cover for all the ways in which reality complicates and compromises absolutes lore posts would be like 100 thousand words long. Civil Duel Culture (CDC) is everywhere and applies to everything the way all laws and rules are everywhere and apply to everything. In that folks with enough wealth, connections, influence, etc can often get away with violating them. And certain individuals are often designated by the self-proclaimed Civilized People as Acceptable Targets and as such there is little to no consequences for “eliminating” an established nuisance. In the best case scenario the acceptable targets are actually depraved and violent (in the wrong way) raiders, pirates, criminals, Shitlisters and the like but more often than not once folks start drawing these lines some badly off people get put in that category. It is very gross and depressing. I hope folks can go into these lore posts with that kind of understanding. That nothing is absolute but in the best case scenario we’re all trying our best to make it as equitable as possible.

Overture isn’t there yet. Let’s see if we can get there.

[Fefnir]

We live again! We’re live again!

www.twitch.tv/batilisk

[Jenner]

Hey Untitled Gaming Group (unofficial name) fans, do you like freeform roleplay? Have you enjoyed our previous Pilot Logs? Well have I got a treat for you:

LP UPDATE: ::Just pours an entire bucket of Pilot Logs into the thread::

I strongly recommend all viewers view all Pilot Logs because they always contain additional important background details into our PCs and universe but these following Pilot Logs in particular are especially recommended as I’m not sure anyone could keep on top of everything going on in the campaign without viewing these. They are posted in chronological order. Enjoy.

Bonus Lore: Isadora and Diafault Pilot Log 01: Isadora and Diafault talk about Horus.

Bonus Lore: Sylvia and Diafault Pilot Logs 01 and 02: Sylvia and Diafault bond and get a bit more real with each other.

Bonus Lore: Kovannin and Diafault Pilot Log 01: Kovannin and Diafault have a lengthy conversation that consists almost entirely of miscommunications. Warning: Contains Extensive Amounts of Jenner Soapboxing In-Character.

Bonus Lore: Lyra and Diafault Pilot Log 01: Lyra and Diafault bond over gaming but not over the realities of war.

Bonus Lore: Sylvia and Diafault Pilot Log 03 Sylvia and Diafault talk about girls and communism (and armadillos.) Contains: Communism

[Jenner]

LP UPDATE: (d-d-d-d-double update!) Here’s last week’s session!

Session 5, Deescalation: The Hex Girls spend eleven days in transit to undertake an urgent mission in their first mission in service to Deliverance. An escort mission of all things. Everyone’s favorite. Can the Hex Girls seal the deal or is this all a foregone conclusion?

​I’m really sorry I didn’t get this up sooner because we’re playing the next session in just a few hours and I’m not sure any of you will have enough time to catch up now. I got so caught up in things and didn’t get this up when I planned to. If you fall behind or drop off I get it but I do hope you stick around.

[Jenner]

LP UPDATE! Lancer RPG episode 6 is now up for viewing!

Session 6, Mere Image : Bryn discovers the father of his estranged fiance put a bounty out on him 40+ years ago. Sylvia pursues removing her spine jack and taking her body back for herself while also figuring out how to make her pain manageable. Lyra finishes the Swole Hole and puts a huge cannon on her mech. And Diafault is fine.

[Fefnir]

Stream time!

https://www.twitch.tv/batilisk

[Jenner]

LP UPDATE! got some Pilot Logs and an episode for you all this week! Have a watch/listen!

Pilot Logs:
Bonus Lore: Sylvia and Kovannin Pilot Log 01: Sylvia and Kovannin familiarize themselves and get to know one another.
Bonus Lore: Unknown Horus Mech Pilot Log 01: Some mystery mech went on some kind of rampage? It took one of our best hackers weeks to recover and restore this.
Bonus Lore: Boundless Council Pilot Log 01: Raise your hand if you hate fascism.

Episode proper:
Session 7 Part 1, Miners and Minors: The Hex Girls are tasked with doing some tame boring mining so they can act as propaganda towards the goal of demilitarization. Unfortunately, several people had other plans.
(Alternative title: Just Deserts)

[Fefnir]

Once we finish audio setup, it’ll be time for some more bastardly actions.

www.twitch.tv/batilisk