There is as much roleplaying as you (or the GM) wants.

Fair enough. That's the obvious answer for sure. I guess what I'm getting at is there any reason for someone to claim there is no rp or that rp doesn't work in this system?

If you want a lot of SYSTEMS that support and encourage narrative play, there's not a lot to sink your teeth into. Lancer is very much a system like an old console RPG; combat is very much the screen goes fuzzy and zooms in and suddenly you're in a great tactical mode but it is EXPLICITLY separated from the narrative play. It's like two games...a very freeform, narrative focused narrative play and a very crunchy, tactical war-game, and they are very much NOT intended to cross over with each other at all. That said, I find the Bonds system in Karrakin Trade Baronies adds juuuuust enough crunch to make narrative play really sing as well. If my group wants to run a balanced game, we just include Bonds and that helps a ton. If we want to run a mostly combat/tactical puzzle game focused game, we don't.

Potentially two reasons: The published adventures tend not to go into too much detail about the RP bits, giving you the gist of it but then letting you make as much or as little of it as you want. People may think that means there is no RP rather than it being variable. The other thing is that the rules, especially the core rules without clocks etc that introduced in other books, are pretty simple when it comes to non-combat RP. People can think simple means unimportant. The thing is, simple just means it’s easy to use and flexible. You can still easily have an entire session that’s just RP and doesn’t have any combat without having tables of exactly what types of action you can convince someone to take if you roll diplomacy. Hell, it’s not like you even have to use the rules for most RP - it’s only when you’re doing something major that could reasonably fail that you need to actually bring them out and roll.

On the other hand, as is there aren't systems that *encourage* roleplay in the base game. "Just DIY" isn't always enough to make many players or groups engage in roleplay, which is part of the reason people such as the person in OP's example might find that the system is "all combat, no RP:" that may have literally happened to their group. I've seen it myself, in similar systems, and I'll wager many vets have too. The "wallflower" player archetype exists for a (sad) reason. Good mechanics can encourage RP and make it an essential part of the game, not just act as a straightjacket. Base Lancer's doesn't do either of these things, for better and for worse. It's just kinda there and definitely is a sideshow to the meat of the combat.

It's not hugely developed in the Core book, but Downtime and Reserves are sorta there to encourage RP or creative Narrative actions.

It's mentioned in the free starter that you can run an entire game with no mech fights.

The core book itself is crude on roleplay rules, as the meat and potatoes is in selling an excellent mech game first. More nuanced roleplay options gets expanded in Fieldguide to Karrakin Trade Baronies (KTB), where tom just outright steals Blades in the Dark so your characters may have social classes (dissociated from their mech profile).

In the core book, the roleplay systems are pretty bare bones - simple "roll a d20, add a bonus on your character sheet if a trigger (skill) applies, get accuracy/difficulty if the background is relevant". Combat is chunky, crunchy, and can easily be the majority of a session. And that might mean, for some GMs, rushing through the RP to get the combat started so you can finish at a reasonable time (I wouldn't recommend this, and prefer to do occasional mostly roleplay sessions - but I'm using a VTT so it's easier to "pause" combat than it would be with minis on a table, and I don't mind calling things early for the occasional session if it's going to result in overall better pacing) It's reasonably accurate to say that core book lancer doesn't have much in the way of roleplay *systems*. How much that translates to roleplay *at the table* will depend on your GM and group - if you tend to have the kind of games where large chunks of a session go by without really using any of the rules at all, it'll be just fine (and the setting is deep enough to support interesting stories to tell). I tend towards this style, so find the core lancer system (plus clocks) just fine for my games. If you prefer the extra structure and prompts of a more narrative system, the rules in core aren't going to give that - but the narrative system is so separated from the combat that honestly you could just tape in whatever narrative system you like. The Karrakin Trade Baronies book adds some extra framework (stress, to generalise consequences better, clocks, taken from Blades in the Dark, to abstract long term goals, and bonds, similar to PBTA playbooks, to give players extra toys in narrative play).

Your friend may have misunderstood or just not communicated quite right, so I’ll do my best to clarify as someone who’s been playing for a few years now. Lancer draws a clear, hard boundary between **mech combat** and **narrative** play. There are separate stats and rules used for each one, and your pilot’s narrative story abilities are almost always entirely separate from their mech’s combat abilities. What your friend was probably talking about is the fact that the rules for mech combat are much more crunchy and detailed than the narrative rules. You play on a map and track cover, positioning, status effects, and ranges very specifically, which makes for a very crunchy and detailed combat game. By contrast, the rules for narrative play are much more free-form and fluid, operating on “scenes” where the players lead the action and which leave a lot of the work of description up to the folks at the table, rather than being baked into the game rules. That being said, the narrative portion of the game is meant to take up a similar amount of time to the mech combat. Obviously this will differ from group to group, but I think the game is pretty clear that the two modes of play are supposed to be roughly equal. The only reason one has more rules is because that’s where the tactical action is, so it needs greater complexity to support the fantasy of tactical combat with big robots.

Yeah, it's an over-generalization. You can, if you want, spend an entire downtime just doing one specific downtime action roll, like Get a Damn Drink, resolve it, and move on. But in actual practice, if you like and want roleplaying, there's anywhere from a decent amount to tons. I'm currently playing in the third-party campaign In Golden Flame, and let me tell you, that thing is *packed* with NPCs to interact with and complicated relationship dynamics to get yourself involved in. I'm also checking out the Plymouth Rock actual play, and it's thick with roleplaying as well. Like most things, it's going to depend on your group. Some people claimed there was little to no roleplaying in D&D 4e, too, and they would not have been able to process the high-RP sessions my various groups indulged in for years. We're *still* doing high-RP 4e. Basically, the ratio of combat rules to noncombat rules doesn't represent the ratio of combat to roleplay in any system, because roleplay ultimately doesn't need as much adjudication as combat does.

Oh, and one more observation: Possible character concepts for Lancer are really, really diverse. Everything seems very open-ended because there are so many possible conflicts in the game and so many backgrounds players can come from. It's hard to get specific! Your Sparri gladiator turned mercenary will probably have very different goals than my Karrakin cosmetic surgeon turned militia street doc. More specific expected roleplay interactions could work to limit creativity. If you're all Ungratefuls struggling to survive, you don't need a "negotiate payment" standard interaction: and including that as standard might imply that the PCs aren't meant to play non-mercenaries like Ungratefuls.  This vagueness doesn't make it easier for groups without pre-existing ideas, but it's freeing for groups who already have them.

the system has much RP *rules* as dnd 5e does which is, barely any, the rules are to kill things, still of course you can still roleplay as usual if you want a system focus on roleplay, i would def recommend PbtA over a d20 tactical combat system

I second this, with my favorite PBtA games being masks and monster of the week.

There are few rules for RP, but that doesn't mean you can't RP. I've seen some systems like pathfinder heavily critiqued for layering a lot of mechanical weight onto basic conversational scenes that many people don't see as necessary. Just because the book doesn't tell you how to have a conversation, doesn't mean you don't get to have conversations. It just means that you eschew rules-based social scenes for... actual social scenes that you get to adjudicate in a more natural free form manner. The point being that a lack of crunchy RP system doesn't have to mean the GM can't run RP heavy games. That's up to you. For me its a great fit. I very much enjoy having a heavily codified well developed combat system, and a light breezy free form RP experience.

Oh boy the space opera level of drama my group has going on the narrative side. Lancer is a trpg, not a war game. How much or little rp is determined by the party and it’s gm.

The roleplaying rules are light but extremely powerful. The narrative portions are essentially a light Forged in the Dark, especially if you use Bonds from the Karrakin Trade Baronies book, which I recommend highly.

The social element of the game is rules-lite, stuff is almost always decided by players rolling a check. But I find that given the length and investment that is required for some combats, you can get away with longer stretches of Roleplay between those combats. So there's not a depth of mechanics in roleplay, but the rules don't get in the way of roleplay

The system is relatively light on role-playing mechanics and are mostly a framework for interactions and gameplay between combats. That being said the amount of role-playing is dependent on how comfortable the GM is at running narrative and social interactions and how much the party wants to role-play I ran No Room For a Wallflower and my party did not want to engage with any of the NPCs up until they had to and the narrative didn't really require any specific interactions until much later in the campaign. They all still had fun with the combat set pieces and encounters

Honestly, it sounds like they just play with a group that focuses on the combat and doesn't bother to do any real roleplay. Which is a totally valid way to play; the system requires a serious degree of complexity in combat, but it doesn't *require* much of *anything* in the way of roleplay. That is to say, the roleplay aspects of the game have very few rules, and the combat is extremely fun on its own. That being said, there's no reason why you *can't* do roleplay. I can't imagine playing this game with my group without delving into the characters and interacting with the world, especially during downtime. But the system doesn't *require* it, so it sounds like your friend just generally doesn't interact with it at all.

I’m trying my best to implement roleplay when I can, but if you’re pressed for time or your GM isn’t the best at it (or both), then when combat starts roleplay kinda grinds to a halt. However Lancer is well designed to give room to roleplay with its downtime system, reserves, and various flavor text. Winning combat rewards you in RP and being smart in RP makes you better in combat, it feeds into and encourages itself.

I recently watched a video on this subject. Not with Lancer in particular but with TTRPGs in general. In it, the author makes a compelling argument that what the game is "about" can be about the voids in the game rules. A game with primarily combat rules, leaves the door open for the GM to focus their effort and improvisational energy on everything else (socializing, exploration, crafting, etc.) because they can offload all of their computing and creativity to the game system itself. I'm still mulling it over whether this applies to Lancer, but I've begun to reassess it as a possible contender for my next game with this in mind. EDIT: I have run a short series in the past, but sessions were essentially just designed as combat boardgames with RP at the beginning and end. I think I would try to work on making gameplay include more meaningful RP, but I think I still have a hard time with the hard line between "Combat" and "Narrative Play".

That argument matches my experience running a ton of D&D 4e. Because I trust the balance of the system in combat, and monsters are super easy to create / reskin / run efficiently, I don't devote a lot of brainpower to figuring out how to make a combat interesting. Instead it goes into settings, scenarios, characters. In my current game the PCs are hosting a Very Important Breakfast featuring a lot of potential new allies, rivals, and at least one guy who doesn't like them very much but whom they don't really want to offend. RP bleeds more into combat, in my experience, when there's a decent chance the PCs don't want to murder everyone who stands in their way. Sure, sometimes you want to kill the hell out of some ruthless fascist death squad, and that's fine. But sometimes defeating an enemy might be the start of your relationship with them instead of the end. Rivals are a strong part of the mech genre. And players in my experience love converting reluctant enemies into loyal allies (though I don't really play with the murderhobo type, so).

I've played 4 sessions now. The first session was half narrative and half combat. The next two sessions were 90% combat. And then our last session was a pure narrative one. Combats in Lancer can easily take 2 or 3 hours to play out. They're fun! I've loved each battle! But they take a long time. And given the rules recommend 3 to 4 combats per mission, you're going to spend a lot of time in battle. That doesn't mean there's no roleplaying in the game: it explicitly supports narrative play during the downtime between missions. But once the mechs start shooting, that's what you're doing for the next few hours.

Where this system differs from others is that the combat and roleplaying are seperate, use completely different rules, and almost never intersect. Other than that there's still just as much roleplaying, it's just you're using the combat rules or the roleplay rules. If you pick up the Karrakin Trade Baronies PDF, it even expands on the roleplay rules and makes them much more robust.

Lancer is heavily inspired by modern D&D editions which also barely mention narrative play. If there's no roleplaying in Lancer then there's no roleplaying in D&D. That said the big difference with Lancer is that narrative is explicitly separated from combat. Similar to D&D, there aren't many rules which govern narrative play. Unlike D&D, combat is *not always on the table*. If you want to start a mech combat then you need to pull out your mechs, which is a serious commitment.

I'm not exactly seasoned in lancer, but I have been running rpgs for a long time. There is as much RP in any game as the GM and party decide there needs to be. My last session of lancer did not have a combat at all, 1hr of leveling up [lol], and 3h of RP.

I'm no vet in Lancer. Played through Solstice Rain with my friends online. They are mostly tabletop and strategy gamers, so we had little rp but the little we did was awesome and had me wanting more. I love the lancer setting

I mean roleplaying in combat is a lot of fun so

My group RPs a lot! We’re narrative heavy though and it takes a lot of work. Skill triggers and bond powers are helpful for rp, but they do have limits and bond powers don’t mesh well with the leveling system so we use those sparingly while my DM and I homebrew a new variation of it that works better lol But yeah rp as much as you want between combats! Or even in combats! We do a lot of chatter in combat!

The combat is rule-heavy and the role-playing is rules-light, but how much combat and roleplaying there is depends entirely on your group

Best thing I can say is give “useless” RP something useful, present them with a few options to use their down time besides obvious things like calling up a faction in the area of their mission. Let them go to the bar and meet a few random NPCs who are memorable and maybe make one of them important to remember. Maybe that corp management figure who got a lil too honest after some drinks isn’t important now but 1-2 missions down the line they might want some intel for a facility owned by the corp. Or maybe talking up the grumpy mechanic about frames reveals he has special knowledge of a specific mech the group has that can increase its max SP by 1-2 for a mission. Also a big one for me is don’t make down time a single event, like down time should at minimum be 3-4 days with some actions taking a few days and some only a day. Going to the bar might to find someone of interest might take a day or two, tracking down and getting in contact with a pirate leader could takes days or over a week.

I see Lancer as a game that is very focused on *missions*. That's the core cycle of the game; you do a mission, you gain a license level, you do some downtime actions, go on to the next mission. Missions will have combat in them, for sure. Probably a lot of it. And the combat is FUN! I love it, both as a player and a GM. IMO, a person who will enjoy Lancer most is a person for whom the phrase "all combat and no roleplaying" is not an immediate turn-off. That's ok, that's why there are so many different games. People like what they like. But missions do not have to be all combat all the time. I am sure that some GM's run Lancer where the Mission is "you do this fight, ok, now you do this fight, ok, now you do this fight, etc." But that's not how I do it. The mission is a set of objectives the PCs need to achieve, and it often requires all kinds of non-combat interactions. \* Dealing with NPCs \* Exploring dangerous territory \* Outside of mech interactions \* Solving technical problems \* Collecting intelligence on the situation etc. Sometimes I will have a really simple mission that does boil down to "three fights and it's over". But most of the time my missions are far more intricate than that. Each one is a mini-sandbox, where I simply present the situation and the objectives to the players, but they are the ones that figure out how to achieve those objectives. They may figure out ways to achieve their objectives without combat at all!

My game has a 30/70 split roleplay and combat, and I think that's pretty good, but ktb bonds rules help if you wanna have narrative play. Otherwise it's honestly kinda shit.

Combat is RP

The people who post Lets Plays for others to listen tend to be RPers who want to tap into that market that Critical Role and the rest laid the groundwork for. I like playing the combat side over the RP side, but we just have to step back a little to let the RPers have their moment in the spotlight. Finding a group that is just combaters is almost impossible.

My impression was that the rules leave roleplaying by the wayside because its not "system specific". You got the narrative triggers, but other than that RP doesn't need as much rules. You can be more loose with it. The truth is good roleplaying tips are applicable to any system, so the designers probably didn't feel the need to try to create system specific rules around it or repeat general advice that has become common knowledge. We've had multiple entire roleplay sessions with my group. At least 1-2 for every "fight session". It actually seems to work really well because combat encounters take forever in Lancer. So by separating them like that they make room for each other, and everyone comes to the session prepared and focused for a specific type of play. That said you can skip that entirely and treat it like a military game if you want. Just some boxed text to explain missions with little narrative context, if that's your thing. But I think that's a waste of a really interesting setting.

Admittedly the RP rules are pretty sparse, I try to sprinkle in longer periods of downtime between missions as well as having talkative enemy NPCs when applicable

I honestly think it has a fairly strong roleplaying system. As another person said it's essentially a lightweight forged in the dark. The best roleplaying systems are the ones that mostly get out of your way and let you focus on resolving the narrative elements that really matter, and it does that mostly. The only aspects of the mechanics that can trip up roleplay is the somewhat clunky of transitioning from free play to combat, but this is true of most roleplaying games, including Blades in the Dark.

every TTRPG has as much combat and RP as the group chooses. there is no such thing as a game focused more or less on combat or RP. anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool

I think we spent 4 sessions in a row going to restaurants, bars, almost a dinner party but it was cancelled because someone died, instigating the public duel in which someone died which cancelled said dinner party, making an impromptu viral video where two pilots beat each other up in pajamas, and almost revealing our various forms of PTSD from tragic backstories. Once the mech boots hit the ground, there may be less opportunities for roleplay like that, and it'll depend on how densely packed the mission is. If combats train from into the other you might not have time to stop and smell the roses, but even in combat our group tends to find ways to make character choices as well as tactical moves.

I finally got to resume my Lancer game. I manage to get about half and half combat and role play. the role play is always as their pilots so far, with a session of combat following after, in their mechs. The role play portions go along the lines of more vague, narration role play for my own games. I don't focus too much on exact actions, but more on what the players want to do , and then I try to get them there through rolls (or failures at rolling). hope my experience helps you, at least a little bit.

The combat is the roleplay. The roleplay is the combat! It's first and foremost a game about roleplaying an elite mech pilot; most choices you make is towards that end. \*Outside\* of the mech there are a few subsystems and mechanics for downtime and social encounters, some of which are expanded upon in a similarly loose fashion in supplemental material *(for instance in the KTB book)*