Echo in the Hangar

Q1: What is the core emotional and thematic focus of "Echo in the Hangar"?

"Echo in the Hangar" is a game that deeply explores themes of grief, absence, and the breakdown of systems, whether mechanical or emotional. While it delves into heavy topics, the game's tone primer explicitly states a desire to avoid being a "bummer," instead encouraging "gallows humor, Pika mysticism, mech superstition, and improbable friendship." This unique blend allows sessions to range from pensive to strange, highlighting how absurdity and beauty can sustain individuals amidst profound loss and systemic fraying. The game emphasizes collective experience, captured in its mantra: "We spiral together. We witness each other. We carry what we can."

Q2: How do players navigate the emotional intensity of the game?

Players navigate the game's emotional intensity primarily through the "Tone Dial." This tool is used during Session Zero to establish shared emotional expectations for the group, with settings ranging from "Light Spiral" (✨) to "Pensive Core" (🌧), "Bleak Beauty" (🌙), and "Igloo Threshold" (❄). The Tone Dial can drift from session to session, or even scene to scene. If the group crosses into the "Igloo Threshold," which signifies "sublime silence" and "sacred futility," they are encouraged to pause, breathe, and collectively decide whether to remain in that dark space or "spiral toward the next light." This collaborative approach ensures that the emotional journey is consensual and managed by the players together.

Q3: What is the "Shred Index" and how does it impact gameplay?

The "Shred Index" is a crucial shared meter, ranging from 0 to 10, that tracks the squad's collective emotional wear, mission pressure, and quiet breakdowns. It's not about individual damage, but rather the system's overall decay. The index ticks up when a character's "Flaw" is triggered, someone "spirals" emotionally, a character is lost, behavior changes due to absence, a personal object is left behind, or a lie is told to maintain morale. As the Shred Index rises, the game's atmosphere shifts, moving from "Light Spiral" (0-3) to "Pensive Core" (4-6), "Bleak Beauty" (7-9), and ultimately "Igloo Threshold" (10). Reaching 10 signifies a "collapse" where something breaks—a character, a mech, a command, or a bond—leading to outcomes like the "Igloo Threshold," the surreal "Skyfall", or a "Final Transmission."

Q4: Explain the concept of "Echoes" and their role in the narrative.

"Echoes" represent characters who are lost but not truly gone, becoming a haunting presence within the narrative. When a character reaches the "Collapse" state, they can transform into an "Echo" with various modes:

• Ghost: Present in whispers, static, and dreams, highlighting forgotten details or past routes.
• Gadfly: A sharp, unfiltered presence that disrupts comfort with commentary, rumors, or sarcasm, often revealing unspoken truths.
• Conscience: The unresolved voice in another's head, asking uncomfortable questions or offering absolution/denial.
• Log: A dispassionate record or pattern, existing as data (flight logs, training footage), reminding others of archived truths.
• Elsewhere: Alive but distant, reassigned or spiritually detached, describing changes in the world from afar or sending ambiguous messages. Echoes serve as a "pressure valve" for the GM-less system, allowing past events and characters to continue influencing the story, reflecting the game's focus on memory and absence.

Q5: How do "Functions," "Flaws," and "Spiral Anchors" define a character?

These three elements form the emotional and mechanical core of a character's identity:

• Function Stack: This defines a character's coping profile, with modifiers (+3 to –2) across five traits: Reason (logic), Impulse (action), Recall (memory), Wonder (idealism), and Grounding (empathy). Players roll a 1d20 plus the relevant modifier to determine success in actions, with the outcome shaping the tone.
• Flaw: This represents "what breaks you—habitually, quietly, honestly." Each Archetype has a specific Flaw trigger (e.g., The Ace shuts down trust with procedure, The Bleeder absorbs others' pain). Triggering a Flaw earns "Spiral Points" and may tick the Shred Index, representing a character's meaningful unraveling rather than failure.
• Spiral Anchor: This is "what holds you—until it doesn’t." It's a memory, belief, or ritual that provides emotional stability (e.g., "I still make room for her in the cockpit."). These anchors are deeply personal and reflect the character's internal struggle and connection to their past or lost comrades.

Q6: What is "Skyfall" and when might a group engage with it?

"Skyfall" is an optional "lore module" or "post-spiral expansion" that offers a surreal change of pace. It's an uncharted jungle island covered in mech debris, where the local inhabitants, the Pika, believe a crashed pilot (or pilots) is divine. It acts as a "tone palette cleanser" or amplifier for tables that have hit the "Igloo Threshold" and want to pivot into "strange catharsis." In Skyfall, a character who vanished can become a myth, and the game uses "Reverence Meter" and "Echo Points" to track the Pika's belief and the ability to invent dogma or reshape reality through myth. It allows for a dreamlike, absurd, or even return-to-reality experience, filtered through myth and misinterpretation.

Q7: What safety tools are embedded in the game, and why are they important?

"Echo in the Hangar" places a strong emphasis on emotional consent and player safety, stating "The mission comes second. The table comes first." Key safety tools are established during Session Zero and can be adjusted throughout play:

• Lines & Veils: To identify topics that are off-limits (Lines) or should fade to black (Veils).
• Script Change Tools: "Pause," "Rewind," and "Fast Forward" allow players to control the pacing and content of the narrative.
• X Card: A simple way for players to stop or skip content that makes them uncomfortable by tapping or saying "X."
• Open Door: Players are explicitly told they can step away from the game at any time without needing an explanation. These tools are crucial for a game that delves into potentially heavy themes like grief and absence, ensuring that all participants feel safe and comfortable exploring the emotional landscape.

Q8: How does "Echo in the Hangar" acknowledge its inspirations and its unique approach to rules?

The game openly acknowledges its primary inspirations: Dan Abnett's "Interceptor City" for the concept of "Shred" and emotional unraveling as a mechanical cost, and "Mobile Suit Gundam: MS Igloo" for providing the "Spiral's edge" and the "sublime silence" of the "Igloo Threshold." The rulebook explicitly frames itself as "unapologetically, a thank-you note to both."

Furthermore, the game takes a distinctive approach to its rules, declaring itself a "memory system. Not a rules system." It notes that "Fragments shift. Tone drifts. Echoes reword what was once written." If players encounter "contradictions, gaps, or unresolved mechanics," they are encouraged to treat them as "artifacts" and collaboratively resolve them at the table, invent new logic, or "let silence answer instead." This flexible, narrative-first philosophy underscores the game's emphasis on shared storytelling and emotional resonance over strict adherence to mechanics.