RPG Critique: Flying Circus

Erika Chappell's Flying Circus has one of the most instantly appealing premises I've ever seen for a tabletop RPG. Players are ace mercenary pilots in a fictionalised quasi-European setting that leans heavily on the look and feel of classic Studio Ghibli - Laputa and Porco Rosso are both explicitly called out as aesthetic touchstones. Flying Circus was successfully Kickstarted in 2018 and released in PDF just a couple of weeks ago; at time of writing, it's available for $25 on DriveThruRPG, with a physical release and plenty of supplementary material forthcoming.

RPG Critique: Lancer

Lancer is a tabletop RPG written by Miguel Lopez and Tom Parkinson Morgan and published by Massif Press in 2019, following a meteorically successful Kickstarter campaign. Players take on the roles of the titular lancers, elite mecha pilots in a largely post-scarcity future where humankind has spread itself thin across the galaxy. Notably, Lancer's player-facing rulebook is free; only the GM needs the paid version, which is a pretty reasonable $25 and comes with extra setting material and NPC stats. This piece covers the paid version of the game.