Burning Robots

[Flaming Circle]

I'm planning on running a big fat Burning Wheel campaign set in a Dying Earth/Square/Enix game in a (largely) non-technological future, but with a few remnants. My question is, how could I use the Burning Wheel rules to approximate a robot, not a generic crappy one but one as playable and customizable as any other BW character?

As far as a model is concerned, if anyone's played 7th Saga on the SNES I was thinking something along the lines of LUX, the tetujin.

I know, I know, it's a fantasy game, but it would be a super-sweet fantasy game that could support a little of the sci-fi too.

[Viper]

Well, there's no reason you couldn't work up a set of lifepaths for robots- simply frame them as "program upgrades" or something- like, :this unit started out as a factory worker, but was upgraded with combat functions during the invasion of sirius 6, or whatever.

As far as making robots distinct from other races, the way you do that is with general traits. A trait I worked up for machines in my steampunk campaign was called "Automaton", which basically meant that poisons and spells of the "anima" domain did not work on the trait bearer. You could make up other traits with the trait burner (in the MB) for things such as advanced sensors, multiple arms or legs, etc.

Now, just because robots have metal or plastic skin, you don't have to assume that they're THAT much tougher than humans- I mean, just think about hitting your computer with a big heavy mace. It would leave a big dent and screw up the internals pretty good. For this reason, stuff like armor and weaponry can be purchased with resource points as normal... it's something only combat-hardened models would have.

If you're not making a player race, it's even easier, as you can just use the process in the Monster Burner to crank out a bunch of different robots/types - I made several for my old campaign.

[luke]

perhaps Dro will divulge is patently awesome ideas for Automata.

-L

[Kublai]

You could indeed create lifepaths for your robots. I imagine these types would be similar to the Modron of D+D. They are machines that level up, learn new programming, and adapt as they "adventure."

Modrons are the opposite of a Star Wars droid. SW droids don't change unless one actually purchases the upgrade, whether hardware or software.

[Drozdal]

perhaps Dro will divulge is patently awesome ideas for Automata.

-L

You mean my Golems, Automatons and Complexity ideas?

[jc_madden]

Or perhaps you could have both. Say a robot is just a construct with no real sentience, you just stat it out like any other mook. But lets say for that really special AI that's existed underground for 400+ years or that quirky droid that ever since you spilt coffee on has been acting kind of "strange" those should have their own lifepaths. The life path would start with "transcend" or some such rather than born. This represents at what point the robot became more than the sum of it's parts. Lifepaths that I can think of off the top of my head. "Locked in a vault" this robot/ai has had a long time to think about the nature of existence and as such has access to a lot of philosophical skills but is just a little bit psycho. "Loyal companion" would be a robot that had spent a lot of time around humans or other sentient beings as such would be a lot more well adjusted but limited in the skills it could pick up it might also have some 3-laws type traits. I haven't seen this before in BW but I think that many robot lifepaths would be mutual exclusive the above examples seem to be opposites of each other and as such a robot could not take both. Thoughts?

[Redoid]

You could have different settings with no leads between each other for that. If you want detailed robots, you could have a small "Walking among humans setting", a small "Factory setting" with the opportunity to learn utility skills and gain various built-in tools, a "Warzone settings" for military droids... I don't think a robot would be converted from one role to another, especially if droids are mass-produced.

[jc_madden]

And why praytell not?

Example.

Artemis Droid Company model APD-001 (all-purpose Droid)
Same Schematic and design, bipedal titanium alloy frame, ceramic exterior, rechargable lythium-polymer batter pack for 12 hour independant power supply.

Variants:

APD-001a
Protocol Droid, ceramic exterior replaced softer ruber exterior, memory module added including expanding linguistic capacity

APD-001b
Security Droid, ceramic exterior replaced with steel fiber/ceramic compasite bullet resistant coating, CPU speed enhance for better reflex response time, right arm servos replaced with gyroscopic ehnahnced units for level firing, memory module added including up to date Law enforcement procedures and handgun skills

APD-001c
War Droid, cermaic exterior replaced with biosteel armor frame and stealth coating to reduce radar signature, powerplant upgraded to mini-fusion for longer field deployemant, arms legs and torso outfitted with gravitic induction units (which speeds up and strengthens the unit), memory modules addes on assignment to represent specific weapons and demolitions training including martial arts.