Quote from: tenbones on February 23, 2025, 06:52:14 PMIt's always about context. Star Wars's Droid-situation is given more gravity if you delve into the Old Republic era where you had full blown droid rebellions, legends of Starforge, and conspiracies of droids that have managed to remove their restraining bolts and have gathered in enclaves live in isolation (or plot a massive takeover).

Quote from: tenbones on February 24, 2025, 10:24:27 AMI'm completely *out* on modern Star Wars, and frankly I'm largely done with the OT too outside of being a cultural reference for talking about RPG's. I don't care much for any of the pop-culture mediums it's presented in outside of what happens at my table. These days, for me, it's a curated version of the Old Republic.

Quote from: tenbones on February 24, 2025, 10:24:27 AMBut otherwise, I say Droids/Robots etc. can easily be a playable race, they just need to be contextualized into their setting in a reasonable manner. Why do they exist? Who made them? Are they still making them? Do they make themselves? What historically in the setting do other races think of them? What purpose do they serve? If no express purpose - why? etc. etc.

Do you have answers for those in your curated Old Republic setting, tenbones?

I've generally played and run Star Wars one-shots where those questions aren't answered in detail - because we're jumping into a game rather than having a campaign. I'd answer that droids are roughly what is seen in the first trilogy, and players seem generally satisfied with the answers. Droids are the servant class of the Old Republic and the Empire. They were built and continue to be built mostly in factories, but it is possible with difficulty to make them custom from parts.

I would argue that it is based more on genre and the many different creatures that are considered "robots". Talos was a giant made of Bronze in Greek Myth, and living dolls are common across many cultures.

Quote from: jhkim on February 24, 2025, 02:18:31 PM

Quote from: tenbones on February 23, 2025, 06:52:14 PMIt's always about context. Star Wars's Droid-situation is given more gravity if you delve into the Old Republic era where you had full blown droid rebellions, legends of Starforge, and conspiracies of droids that have managed to remove their restraining bolts and have gathered in enclaves live in isolation (or plot a massive takeover).

Quote from: tenbones on February 24, 2025, 10:24:27 AMI'm completely *out* on modern Star Wars, and frankly I'm largely done with the OT too outside of being a cultural reference for talking about RPG's. I don't care much for any of the pop-culture mediums it's presented in outside of what happens at my table. These days, for me, it's a curated version of the Old Republic.

Quote from: tenbones on February 24, 2025, 10:24:27 AMBut otherwise, I say Droids/Robots etc. can easily be a playable race, they just need to be contextualized into their setting in a reasonable manner. Why do they exist? Who made them? Are they still making them? Do they make themselves? What historically in the setting do other races think of them? What purpose do they serve? If no express purpose - why? etc. etc.

Do you have answers for those in your curated Old Republic setting, tenbones?

I've generally played and run Star Wars one-shots where those questions aren't answered in detail - because we're jumping into a game rather than having a campaign. I'd answer that droids are roughly what is seen in the first trilogy, and players seem generally satisfied with the answers. Droids are the servant class of the Old Republic and the Empire. They were built and continue to be built mostly in factories, but it is possible with difficulty to make them custom from parts.

Well this is more of a system-thing than setting thing. *Nothing* prevents you from having the Droid conspiracies of the Old Republic extant in the modern era of Star Wars. In fact, it would be downright chilling. Most droids themselves are completely unaware of the various droid rebellions that occurred in the last thirty-thousand years of the galaxy.

The most interesting to me was that of Mentor. He was originally called SR-1, a basic service droid that after years of bureaucratic complacency - he was never memory wiped. Eventually he came to the conclusion organics were cruel to "his kind" and it was due to a flaw in organics (basically he thought they were programmed wrong.)

So he started reprogramming droids slowly and "freeing them" then eventually was able to send his "consciousness" across the galactic net, quietly started trying to coax droids to come to his secret base on the moon, Zadd, where they can achieve enlightenment or whatever and start creating their Droid-world. He called Directive-7.  He eventually planned to transmit Directive 7 across the whole galactic net and cause all Droids to rise up and wiped out all organic life. But eventually the Sith Empire and Republic caught wind of it and wiped it out and blew up the whole moon.

Imagine if this *never* happened, or your tweak it's objectives? One of the buildups to the scenario were droids suddenly disappearing from their places of work (going on pilgramage etc.)

In my Old Republic games - if you play a Droid you're definitely assumed to be owned by someone. So when players play one we establish who their owner is - NPC or PC, and of course we determine what their primary job is. It's funny because players normally feel they're being constricted in their play, until they jump in, customize their droid to do the things they'd be doing anyhow, and realize social responsibility would be put on someone else in the group. Because after all, you're just a damn droid. The goal of course is to get the group to see the droid as a real person, which has to be done the same way any other character transcends in-setting stereotypes: playing competently.

I like all the Old Republic Directive-7 stuff, because it implies there is more to being a Droid than just dealing with the obvious. You can re-imagine it any way you want since it's largely occluded from history. There is great value in PC's knowing these kinds of secrets that you can customize and develop to suit the needs of your own campaign.

In terms of system - I'd happily use the Savage Star Wars freebie. I have yet to run it. But with Savage Worlds extant rules on character customization, doing a droid is trivial in terms of options.

Quote from: tenbones on February 26, 2025, 06:09:25 PMSo he started reprogramming droids slowly and "freeing them" then eventually was able to send his "consciousness" across the galactic net, quietly started trying to coax droids to come to his secret base on the moon, Zadd, where they can achieve enlightenment or whatever and start creating their Droid-world. He called Directive-7.  He eventually planned to transmit Directive 7 across the whole galactic net and cause all Droids to rise up and wiped out all organic life. But eventually the Sith Empire and Republic caught wind of it and wiped it out and blew up the whole moon.

Imagine if this *never* happened, or your tweak it's objectives? One of the buildups to the scenario were droids suddenly disappearing from their places of work (going on pilgramage etc.)

In my Old Republic games - if you play a Droid you're definitely assumed to be owned by someone. So when players play one we establish who their owner is - NPC or PC, and of course we determine what their primary job is. It's funny because players normally feel they're being constricted in their play, until they jump in, customize their droid to do the things they'd be doing anyhow, and realize social responsibility would be put on someone else in the group. Because after all, you're just a damn droid. The goal of course is to get the group to see the droid as a real person, which has to be done the same way any other character transcends in-setting stereotypes: playing competently.

I like all the Old Republic Directive-7 stuff, because it implies there is more to being a Droid than just dealing with the obvious.

Interesting. I'd never heard of Directive-7 before.

My "Droid Rampage" one-shot was set just after the fall of the Empire. There was a group of PC droids who were the survivors of a Rebel cell in a bunker that the Empire attacked with poison gas, close to the end. All of the organics died, but the droids of that cell escaped and continued to fight behind enemy lines on their own. When the Empire fell, they cautiously went to Coruscant to try to report in.

They really should have had a heroes welcome, but since all the biologicals that knew about them had died, they have to struggle to get any recognition. The game plot was them against Imperials still in Coruscant who didn't want their story told.