All the World in Shackles | A Mixed Module Lancer Campaign

Creating your character

Bring character concepts with you to session zero. We'll discuss characters and combat roles together, and anyone who wants to can receive assistance in creating a LL0 pilot. Pilots will be made on Compcon.app and transferred to Foundry for session 1. All first party Lancer modules and supplements are allowed during character creation. Player-facing information can be provided or downloaded for free from the appropriate itch.io pages.

Preparing for the session

Upon acceptance to this game, you will be provided a link to the Discord where sessions will be held via voice call. There, you will find a link to the Forge hosting service, which you can sign into with your Discord account, where you can access the Foundry VTT we will be using. Other than Discord, you will not need to set up any accounts or download any programs.

What Aletheia brings to the table

This game will feature a mix intense, tactical combat and dense, narrative play. As GM, I will use my narration to set the scene for you to play in, providing a world which responds to your actions and a scenario wherein your characters must rise to the occasion. Mech combat will take place on battle maps and will require tactical decision making and teamwork to overcome. To account for this difficulty, combat scenes are fail-forward: rather than having a loss mean the end of the campaign, being overwhelmed by enemy forces will cost you in opportunity or resources you might have otherwise saved, adding to the overall sense of mounting tension. Narrative play will be ran Theater of the Mind, with some scene images as is useful to convey the tone of the setting. We will be using the Bonds system, meaning that just as mechs take on wear and tear, pilots too will have stress that builds until they cannot take it anymore and Break. This will, ultimately, be a game about grappling with the weight experience and trauma. We, as both players and GM, will take care to treat these themes with respect as we tell the story of imperfect characters in an imperfect world.

How Aletheia creates a safe table

A discussion of the themes of the game will be had during session 0, wherein potentially triggering topics that are likely to show up in game will be disclosed. During play, we will take regular breaks at around every hour, and can call for an early break if needed. Using the Luxton technique, if we come across a triggering topic, a player can call for a break, during which we can discuss what needs to happen in the story for them to be safe and have fun, turning all creative control over to the players who need it in the moment. If anything comes up in session that a player feels they need to talk about, we can debrief after the session or at another point in the week to discuss what, if anything, needs to happen.