Using Book 8 In Your Games

[ShapeShifter]

I just follow the adage K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid!)

I ask myself "What does the bot do?" and then allow it 1 or more skills in the +1 to +4 range. (Would allowing a bot with more than +4 to rolls break the system?)

E.g. Cargo Robot.
Purpose: Loading/Unloading cargo from ships.
* It would have to possess great strength for handling tons at a time.
* It would have to know where to get stuff and where to put it.

Simple!

And, Engineering Robot
Purpose: Manage/Monitor/Repair either Man. Drive or Jump Drive.
* Would have to possess complete schematics of the respective engine and trouble-shooting programs for fixing it.
* Perhaps elemental audio/visual interfaces to be able to communicate with a (human) senior Engineer.

And so on...

 

[GypsyComet]

As Book 8 was used as a testbed for what would become the flawed-from-step-zero MT vehicle construction chapter, and suffers from a bit of under-documentation, I don't use it. That it remained the necessary adjunct to MT for robot design (that half page in 101 Vehicles is a joke) just adds to its "charm".

I suspect Book 8 is also largely responsible for the lack of robots through late CT and most of MT DESPITE the Digest Cycle's inclusion of one as a "PC" (I use the term loosely for those four railroad characters). The book is sufficiently gearheady that no non-gearhead would touch it, including other authors. 101 Robots buried itself in the jargon of Book 8 sufficiently that it didn't help make robots more game accessible. Result: almost no one used them.

During an era on the TML (the only game in town back then) when MT ship designs were a constant presence, there were maybe one or two robots. That's five years and a LOT of bored gearheads for there to be no robots.

 

[samuelvss]

Samuel,

I don't buy that explanation.

If you're buying a Gunnery 'bot for your pre-existing starship that stateroom you think you're "saving" already exists. If the stateroom isn't used by a human gunner, you don't magically get back the 500K CrImps and see the space converted into cargo volume either. You can save on life support by sealing it off, put pax in it to collect passage fees, or pay to have a starport turn into cargo volume, but the savings are neither large or automatic.

If you're buying a Gunnery 'bot so you can leave out a stateroom in the one-of-a-kind starship you're designing, the money you're saving by not having a stateroom for a sophont gunner is a pittance when compared to the naval architect and one-off construction fees your one-of-a-kind ship will incur.

You're exactly right, and have of course lopped the head of the straw man as I have proposed nothing of the sort. Robotics have to be part of initial standard designs, in IMTU they are for several classes by one manufacturer. Actually, the shipbuilders and the bot builders are the same (Ballard Designs) and each class is designed to have less robust crews, or "swing" cabins that can be used for high passage. If you already have the stateroom, in a non-Ballard design, then you can earn 8,000 Cr on it instead of filling it with one (or even two) crew. The maintenance costs are about a wash with the life support, and the pay is about a wash for the payments; the difference is, you need the extra space, at a premium, for a person, and you get lower skills. I typically use bots for second engineers, gunners aboard and on small craft. They are generally the exception in the 3I because of cultural factors; this acceptance, however, is at least lukewarm with "back office" unarmed designs like Ballard's Astro-Mechs.

 

[Supplement Four]

I just follow the adage K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid!)

I ask myself "What does the bot do?" and then allow it 1 or more skills in the +1 to +4 range. (Would allowing a bot with more than +4 to rolls break the system?)

E.g. Cargo Robot.
Purpose: Loading/Unloading cargo from ships.
* It would have to possess great strength for handling tons at a time.
* It would have to know where to get stuff and where to put it.

Simple!

And, Engineering Robot
Purpose: Manage/Monitor/Repair either Man. Drive or Jump Drive.
* Would have to possess complete schematics of the respective engine and trouble-shooting programs for fixing it.
* Perhaps elemental audio/visual interfaces to be able to communicate with a (human) senior Engineer.

And so on...

I'm with you. I like simple, too. Heck, that's why I play CT.

But...go back and read the middle section of the opening post, where I describe the bot I wanted to make...then put it through the design sequence.

 

[Whipsnade]

Robots are everywhere but our brain does not register them.

Dave,

That's one of the reasons, honestly.

Next time you're out driving, try counting all the telephone poles you pass. And try and remember the last time you actually paid attention to telephone poles.

We take for granted (due to PSI implanted thoughts) everything the robots do to the point that we ignore them.

Leaving aside the psionic conspiracy idea, that's exactly what happens in the 57th Century. Unless they do something out of the ordinary or are physically out of the ordinary, robots and the work they do are simply taken for granted. That's the idea behind "Robots Are Toasters".

It's a technological adaptation thing. If you told someone from 1909 you had a device on your wall that measured the temperature in your house and then turned your furnace on and off as needed, they'd say you had a robot(1) instead of a thermostat. Similarly, if we saw a 57th Century grav vehicle that responded to hand or comm signals, picked people up, asked their destination, took them there, and collected fees, we'd say it was a robot taxi instead of just a taxi as people in the 57th Century would say. Just what devices are called robots and just what are not has more to do with how long that device has been around, how long it has been familiar.

It's a anthropomorphic thing too. We're more likely to call things robots the more they look like people. You thermostat is a very simple robot. A screw machine is a robot too, it'd programmed either with cams or by computer to do anything a human lathe operator can do, but because it's a squat, blocky machine tool it's called a robot very rarely. As with familiarity above, just what devices are called robots and just what aren't has more to do with how human the device looks.

I often post this thought experiment in robot threads. Imagine an apartment in 2109. It repairs itself, cleans itself, cleans it's occupants' clothes, prepares meals and cleans up after them, arranges for deliveries of food, drink, and other items, pays bills, handles various communication systems, gathers news and entertainment for the occupants, and juggles hundreds of other chores critical, mundane, and unknown to us in this century. Quick now, is the apartment an automated housing unit or is it a robot?

By one definition, it is a robot.

That's where all the robots in the OTU are. They're in plain sight doing a myriad of jobs and everybody rarely notices them. They're toasters(2). They're telephone poles. They're so ubiquitous that they're all but invisible.


Regards,
Bill

1 - Yes, I know the term "robot" as we use it today dates from roughly 1920, so that person from 1890 would actually say "mechanical brain" or "mechanical man" or something similar.

2 - Lately I've been told that the latest version of Battlestar Galactica used the term "toaster" as an insult towards Cylons. My use of the phrase "Robots Are Toasters" to describe robots in the OTU dates from, at least, 2001 when I posted it on the TML and saw it rapidly adopted. I don't believe anyone associated with BSG reads the TML, so the use of the term in that show is just a case of parallel invention.

 

[rancke]

2 - Lately I've been told that the latest version of Battlestar Galactica used the term "toaster" as an insult towards Cylons. My use of the phrase "Robots Are Toasters" to describe robots in the OTU dates from, at least, 2001 when I posted it on the TML and saw it rapidly adopted. I don't believe anyone associated with BSG reads the TML, so the use of the term in that show is just a case of parallel invention.

The toaster on Red Dwarf predates you both.


Hans

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Ahh, Red Dwarf.

The toaster on Red Dwarf predates you both.


Hans

"Are you sure you don't want some hot buttered toast"

 

[aramis]

I suspect Book 8 is also largely responsible for the lack of robots through late CT and most of MT DESPITE the Digest Cycle's inclusion of one as a "PC" (I use the term loosely for those four railroad characters). The book is sufficiently gearheady that no non-gearhead would touch it, including other authors. 101 Robots buried itself in the jargon of Book 8 sufficiently that it didn't help make robots more game accessible. Result: almost no one used them.

During an era on the TML (the only game in town back then) when MT ship designs were a constant presence, there were maybe one or two robots. That's five years and a LOT of bored gearheads for there to be no robots.

I used, and continued to use through MT, the Robots rules from Dragon #64 (p 47-52).

The ones in CT's Best of JTAS were almost as fiddly as those in Bk 8, and are a clear precursor to Bk 8...

I didn't find the TML 'til 1995, well into the TNE era. But I'd found more than one WWIVnet sub that covered Traveller, and the hostility to any Dragon articles was horrendous, and it seemed the TML contained the same people... and so did the XBML...

I had about 6 designs I used... one, the George, was a .75m sphere, and basically an astromech. Pilot 1, Engineer 2, Electrician 1, Mechanic 1, HE Weapons 1... and an integral fusion welder, armor as battledress. 0G capable. Price into the MCr range.

I never adopted the Bk8 robots because I had a working system with standards that was both simpler and 'in my game' already.

 

[Whipsnade]

The toaster on Red Dwarf predates you both.

Hans,

The toaster is Red Dwarf is a comedic character, Robots Are Toasters is an aphorism, and Frakking toasters is BSG is an insult.

I don't see any real the correlation between any of them and that's what my footnote pointed out. This isn't a question of who was first, people thought I'd stolen the "Robots Are toasters" bit from BSG.


Regards,
Bill

 

[flykiller]

I wonder if anyone has composed a point-buy system for building bots, much like some homebrew systems use point-buy for PCs...?

I have a spreadsheet. totally homebrew, never even seen book 8, but it does help rationally standardize and control bots in a game. if you're interested I'll see about getting it to you.

And try and remember the last time you actually paid attention to telephone poles.

yeah, but telephone polls aren't interactive. when the coke machine starts talking to you, when a phone system voice recording is voxing at you saying congratulations for calling it, when you're yelling at the 411 "tell me" software and it doesn't understand anything you're saying and it finally reaches the algorithm step where it transfers you to a real operator, you notice. in the future I imagine there will be a lot of han solo - "shut him up or shut him down!"

 

[Icosahedron]

Yeah, my robots are toasters too.
I have a few broad houserules I've found useful:

No, you can't play a robot. It's a machine, you can't play an air raft either.

Robots are designed to perform routine labour tasks in a low pop universe (planet pop 2D6-2). There are very few 'expert systems', those few are custom built. A robot with Instruction-4? Sure, go find a robotics engineer with Robotics-5, Instruction-5 to build one for you - and ask him when it will be ready.

People don't trust machines. You have no objection to a robot cutting your lawn or painting your ship, but you don't want one looking after your kids, removing your appendix or calibrating the flux regulator on the jump drive.

 

[savage]

Toasters the insult

Incidentally, in a forum the reimagined BSG team played hommage to a fan designed ship by mentioning it in the series. I'm not so certain they haven't done a significant amount of research on robots gone amuck.

Whipsnade and DaveChase bring up excellent commentaries on the use of robots in traveller campaigns. further, the entire TNE scenario revolves around that infrastructure collapsing and numerous entertainment pieces from books with Berserks to film with Terminators, Andromeda, Robots, and Wall-E each creating their own universes around the concept.

Robots in my campaigns require supplies just as sophonts. They require people or other robots to maintain them. Book 8 is antiquated in many ways (for example, secondary storage is lacking) but the best we have. TNE Vampire Fleet really adjusted those rules to TNE and didn't modernize them. Others the same to my knowledge.

IMTU Avatars are rare but not unseen NPCs affecting the PCs lives, robots (aka Rift) gone crazed pillage and destroy while others repair hull damage and save lives on the medical table.

Have any of the SF RPG rule books successfully (Gurps etc) tried to modernize the robot? Or beat what Book 8 offers?

 

[far-trader]

Hmmm, a flash of memory is stirring, of another robot build system that was in many (if not all ways) superior to Book 8 and more compatible to my view of Traveller.

I want to say it was part of (original) Gamma World but I'm not at all sure where it was from (or just where my old Gamma World box is at the moment to check). And I can't recall any details. Or it could be some mish-mash from several sources I cobbled together including the Dragon magazine version mentioned earlier.

It did lead me early on to more of an appliance (Bill's toasters) universe than other visions (Star Wars, etc).

 

[GypsyComet]

yeah, but telephone polls aren't interactive.

Oh, they are. You are simply paying too much attention. Telephone poles only "speak" to the inattentive, distracted, and drunk. And sometimes the phone company.

Hmmm, a flash of memory is stirring, of another robot build system that was in many (if not all ways) superior to Book 8 and more compatible to my view of Traveller.

I want to say it was part of (original) Gamma World but I'm not at all sure where it was from (or just where my old Gamma World box is at the moment to check). And I can't recall any details. Or it could be some mish-mash from several sources I cobbled together including the Dragon magazine version mentioned earlier.

It did lead me early on to more of an appliance (Bill's toasters) universe than other visions (Star Wars, etc).

There was an actual game called "Droids" running around for a while back in the day. Digest-sized rulebook, even. Gamma World didn't acquire a useful robot design system in the box until much, much later, though there may have been an article at some point.

Within the last decade or so the first edition of WotC's Star Wars had a droid building article in the dedicated (but short-lived) magazine for the game. Obviously slanted toward what WotC thought Star Wars droids were, but its all grist for the Traveller mill.

 

[Supplement Four]

Hmmm, a flash of memory is stirring, of another robot build system that was in many (if not all ways) superior to Book 8 and more compatible to my view of Traveller.

Not sure if it's what you're talking about, but WEG's D6 Star Wars game had a brilliant, very easy to use supplement for designing Droids. You could slap one together in five minutes flat. Great book (like the rest of that game).

Next time you're out driving, try counting all the telephone poles you pass. And try and remember the last time you actually paid attention to telephone poles.

I submit this one for Brilliant comment of the month.

 

[flykiller]

Telephone poles only "speak" to the inattentive, distracted, and drunk.

(laugh) brings back a painful memory ....

 

[Whipsnade]

No, you can't play a robot. It's a machine, you can't play an air raft either.

Icosahedron,

Agreed. That was one of my house rules that, thankfully, never got tested. None of my players ever expressed interest in playing a robot or android.

AB-101 of DGP's Four Knights was a case of DGP saying "Oooh, Lt. Cmdr Data is cool so let's 'port the idea in to the OTU!". Nothing actually wrong with that, but the intentions and antecedents were blatantly obvious.

I never quite groked the reporter character in the Four Knights either. His skill set didn't click for me. I don't like characters that are "tools"; i.e. "You're the doctor, just sit there and wait until someone is shot", so I didn't see the reporter working as anything more than an interrogation "tool".

The character's occupation was fine, being a reporter meant it was plausible that he'd be curious to the point of being nosy an driven to find things out. However, nearly all RPG characters are curious to the point of being nosy and driven to find things out, it's the nature of RPGs. Stacking the character with little but investigative skills mad him dangerously close to being just a "tool" IMHO.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Maccat]

TLC Mech-O Bot

URP 55402-12-ML11F-F932(3)
TL C (12) Cr 113,700. 1159000 w/software
fuel=21.6 Duration 3 days
20/50 (mesh) hits 233.382kg weight
2 light arms
standard sensors (2 eye 2 ear 1 olfactry), Voder, Touch sensors, Power Interface, Program Interface, 5km distant radio, Janiot package, Mechanical package, electronic package. 33.4L reserved for brain enhancement.

Standard Software package: 1 additional language, Engineering 1, mechanical 1, electronic 1, communications 1. High data, Basic Command. (2200Cr)
20 (15) CPU, 5 parralel CPU, 20 (8) Storage, 1 (1) synaptic storage. are free cpu/storage after logic and command programs: (15/9) CPU/Storage. 5(6) max skill. StF Dx9 In3 Ed2(3).

Cargo transfer 30kg/30sec, 3.6t per hour. Zero-G transfer .33t/hr

URP 55402-12-NM22F-FA54(5) Cr229450 no software 236.782kg
Upgrade to Low Autonomous Logic, Full command, (15/9) CPU/Storage.
23(15) CPU 10 parralel CPU 1 synaptic CPU 25 (8) storage 1 (1) Synaptic storage. 3.1L reserved for future brain upgrades. 9(10) max skill.
URP 55402-12-NM22F-FA64(5) Cr279450 no software 236.882kg
Upgrade to Low Autonomous Logic, Full command, (15/9) CPU/Storage.
23(15) CPU, 10 parralel CPU, *2* synaptic CPU, 25 (8) storage, 1 (1) Synaptic storage. 3L reserved for future brain upgrades. 10(11) max skill.

A standard Engineering Robot at TL C (12), including additional language capapability allowing for foreign/alien/export usage. Education can be increased to 3 with usage. Can serve as 2 engineering crew with engineering 2 skill. Dumbot (skill 3 max). Available with low autonomic logic and full command for greater utility and expert bot rating capability, at added cost.
Power usage requires operation of only one toolset (janitor, mechanical, electronic) at once. Full command version can switch itself, otherwise user selection of toolkit is required. Humanoid shape, including head (5L).

Heres one i worked up as a potential muster out benefit, trying to keep the price down (below 120kCr). I figure the toolsets are on like a ring around the torso (sorta set in as well so they don't stick out so much), it uses the one in front which is powered. It has the ability to get better CPU and storage, and even some room left for maybe a weapon. Used Contoured configuration figuring more acceptability, mostly to be able to use existing crew stations. This one is severly downgraded, I wanted a medium cargo lifter arm, a metal working toolkit, and a laser welder as well <s> maybe i'll work that one up as well. The language ability is included and able to run in addition to the Eng Mech Elec and Commo. Usually runs Language, Eng 2, and mech/elec/commo1. Reason for language was figuring it is an export model, allows for "complicating" operation when designed and built one language/culture/tech, operated by others, sort of like the idea where guard dogs are trained in a different language for security purposes. Otherwise it could be for greater utility to lower tech cultures say. I was figuring Alien/different, mostly for color. Dropping the language lets it get a fair bit better in skills (say Eng 3 Mech/elec/commo 2 running). Was trying to have 1 week operating, but not enough room for fuel. There's .5kW extra/reserve, 5kW design rating for the toolkit operation.

 

[savage]

Robots. searching...searching....

Ok lets see RPG Products... Robots searching.. does not compute.

• Terminator 2 - minatures?
• Gurps Robots
• Gurps Reign of Steel
• Paladium Rift - I use these basics mechanioid for my Virus..but compatible?
• Gamma World - I actually have a supplement with minor robot stats. Nothing to see here (but its D20) move along move along
• Alternity Dataware - Perhaps this was it Far Trader?
• Space Master
  
• Robotech - nothin' here, Mechwarrior and Living steel ... just mechs and more mechs... and more mech...

So here is the list outside of CT Book 8 and TNE VF. Am I missing anything?

:toast:

 

[coliver988]

Ok lets see RPG Products... Robots searching.. does not compute.

• Terminator 2 - minatures?
• Gurps Robots
• Gurps Reign of Steel
• Paladium Rift - I use these basics mechanioid for my Virus..but compatible?
• Gamma World - I actually have a supplement with minor robot stats. Nothing to see here (but its D20) move along move along
• Alternity Dataware - Perhaps this was it Far Trader?
• Space Master
• Robotech - nothin' here, Mechwarrior and Living steel ... just mechs and more mechs... and more mech...

So here is the list outside of CT Book 8 and TNE VF. Am I missing anything?

:toast:

I played Mechanoids a bit - some really, really, REALLY big robots in there.