DwD Studios

I was recently asked...

Why such large descriptions for robots, but a common merchant is dealt with as a minor NPC?

This was actually something we struggled with during FrontierSpace development.

Robots common-place enough that you should be able to use minor NPC rules for them, right? Like "robot security dog: 55% (bite 1D)" would that be good enough? Then as a Referee you know it has a 55% chance to do something a security dog could do well, and half that for things a security dog would have no reason to do well. Other than that it's a robot so you know it has all the standard robot immunities and such.

During game development, we decided it wasn't enough detail since robots need to have some amount of definition to their abilities, limits, integrations, etc. But we always struggled with this, because it *should* be possible to hand-waive mechanics for robots in the same way they're waived for minor character people.

In the core rules we present a robot with a lot of stats though. Maybe we swung too far the other way when deciding not to abstract them into minor NPCs. They're like fully fleshed out characters, other than lacking WIL. They have skills ("programming"), and have specific lists of integrated equipment. But is all that really needed?

A Robot Hound for instance has integrated infra-red goggles, lifeform scanner, weapon scanner, and a scent scanner (active uses of these scanners are powered by a 50 EU integrated EU beltpack). Without having these spelled out, would you know that a "robot security dog: 55% (bite 1D)" robot can see in the infra-red spectrum? Would you know it can sense whether a fallen person is dead or alive or that it can spend 2 EU from its integrated EU source to identify/analyze all lifeforms in a 10m radius? Or is none of this important? Could the Referee just decide whether the robot, in the moment of needing to know, can do any of these things?

Probably, once he's familiar enough with the rules, what different scanners do, etc. But we didn't want that ambiguity to be an obstacle to a new Referee.

Also, minor NPCs all have 10 BP and initiative values of 1. Would we need a separate rule for robots, where they list their BP and INIT specifically in the minor NPC block? What about MOV? Surely some robots are designed for various types of modes of transport and have different speeds. Could that be hand-waived? Or would a special rule be needed to explain each robot's movement rates and types? Too many special exceptions needed.

What about number and configuration of limbs? That's another reason we wanted to have more fully fleshed-out stat blocks and descriptions of robots. A medical bot's four arms is intentional; it needs no assistant during surgery to sponge away blood or to keep pressure on incisions during stitching, etc. You'd not know a medical bot had those extra limbs just from a minor NPC stat and description. I mean... I guess you could say "four-armed medical bot: 65%" or something.

Anyway - just thought I'd answer the question here in the forums in case any of you have wondered why the robots are given so much stat space. But here's the real reason: I like it that way :-)