Do robotic / mechanical player races have a place in pre-modern fantasy settings?
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Do robotic?
Do robotic / mechanical player races have a place in pre-modern fantasy settings?
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/vt/gays please go
No.
Then at least stop publically fingering your butthole over how much you were able to troll a girl who'd never had dedicated trolls before.
Depends on the setting, if it's high magic then stuff like Warforged can work as weird magical constructs, if it's more low magic/low fantasy/historical then no, there's no place for them.
>implying wanting to frick robots is a /vt/ thing
I'm a /m/an you homosexual, I WILL frick the giant robot and you WILL watch like the cuck you are.
It's tough because their presence inherently comes with a load of questions that need answers. Where did these sentient robots come from and how do they reproduce? If a society is smart enough to create AI on this scale, where are the skyscrapers and airplanes?
And then if they're a race that brings up gameplay questions. Can they be healed by a healing spell? Do they have a soul they can devote to a god? Can they fall under hypnosis magic and love potions?
I wanted a robot race for my setting for the longest time but had trouble figuring this stuff out. The solution I came up with is that the skin, bones, nerves, etc are robotic, while the blood, muscles, brain, etc are organic. This way they are robotic enough that they can tinker around and upgrade their bodies, while organic enough that they still need to worry about dying, giving birth, being too cold or hot, etc.
Based
>giving birth
And I will make it weirder.
Based
Is it bad that I recognized instantly what this was about even before reading
?
As advanced golems, sure. There were precedents. Actual robots would obviously stand out in almost any fantasy -- that said, Rice Boy managed it pretty well! Huh. Now I want an Overside RPG.
>. Actual robots would obviously stand out in almost any fantasy
only if you restrict fantasy to not!medieval europe with magic
If it's pre-modern like OP specified, robotic technology is by definition nonexistent. Unless time travel is involved. That said, fantasy settings that still feel fanciful, but organically include advanced modern tech, are very rare. Usually it tends to exist separate from the surrounding world, not as an entire species mingling with other peoples.
Adventures in the Empire of Sahta would be pretty cool
there's no difference between "advanced golems" and "actual robots" in fantasy
THATS NO ZAKU!
>THATS NO ZAKU!
Of course not, with those head mounted intakes I'd say it's some form of Fairlion:
>Warforged were made for effectively that role, to let the players play "robots" when technically they're wood golems in armor. A lot of people probably don't even know warforged are wooden.
>Also gets around the problem of healing robots with spells by making them organic/magical.
But how do you have "War"forged when you don't have a War?
>>Why should it
>Because it's cool.
Best answer.
>But how do you have "War"forged when you don't have a War?
in this case they are peaceforged
The origin of the name has to do with something in the past, for example cars and horsepower, and there's usually no need or will to change it.
When there’s no war, you explore what a being made for fighting does when the fight is over. Which is a thing you can also do with non-warforged, but obviously they are ripe for the opportunity.
Basic b***h D&D fantasy is overdone and boring as frick anyways. Forgotten Realms sucks dick. People loved Eberron because it had magic robots and lightning trains.
i love eberrons stuff but I hate how full the world is. its the spitting image of a world undergoing an industrial revolution. bloated and faction orientated. I cant stand faction based campaigns.
Warforged were made for effectively that role, to let the players play "robots" when technically they're wood golems in armor. A lot of people probably don't even know warforged are wooden.
Also gets around the problem of healing robots with spells by making them organic/magical.
Ebberon was good, spelljammer was good, hell even Greyhawk turned out good. Forgotten Realms is straight up ass that is ONLY popular because of the Drizzt novels and the Underdark, everything else is either bullshit OR imported from other settings.
Why does that look like a fricked up warjack?
Depends entirely upon so many factors, etc etc etc.
I will say though that I strongly support non-standard genre races in premodern fantasy, because the Tolkienesque lineup of "Humans/Elves/Dwarves/Orcs/Hobbits" is so fricking dead and beaten that I hate it. I hate every one of those "default" races including western European white humans parading as some fantasy race. It's bullshit. I hate Scottish dwarves, I hate prissy elves, and I hate hobbits and any midget race in general. (Warcraft gnomes get a pass, but are on thin fricking ice)
Okay, that said, I think there is a way to do premodern fantasy artificial life. Make it like a rejection of primal magic or something completely anti-druid of sorts. The questions which follow would be
>Why were these android/gynoids created in the first place?
>Were they supposed to be servitors or slaves?
>Did they gain independence from their creators? Are they still subjugated? What is their culture like?
I think there are some themes you could touch on in a premodern fantasy setting which could be pretty compelling, and in some cases even more compelling than they are in postmodern settings like cyberpunk.
Specifically, you could reach into deep questions such as "was the industrial revolution worth the massive transformation of daily life to improve productivity- and, were we made to be slaves by technology itself?" or even like "what have we collectively lost as a society through the advancement of technology? Has humanity been overtaken by algorithms already? What would the intersection of premodern society be with postmodern concepts of transhumanism and playing god?"
I think you could look at Mary Shelley and port those themes even further back in time to the fantasy era with robots and stuff. I really love the idea, way way way better than de-villanizing evil races like vampires or werewoves
If there is no place for them, then I will FIND a place for them.
Robots such as that should be the works of the gods. If a god or one of the angels can not come down to the world of the mortals because of some cosmic laws they must obey. Then they come up with a workaround such as sending a divine beast or a god made robot as there messenger or hands in the mortal world. As long as they are weak enough and do not bust up to much stuff as they do there jobs then they are not braking any cosmic laws. And after they have done there job for there creator god the divine beast or god made robot can do whatever it wants with its free will. As that is one of the stipulations the gods have to adhere to to pull off this stunt so as to get there way in the world.
Only if it fits the GM's setting.
Sure why not? Golems, magitech, robots from an ancient precursor civilization, schizo da Vinci tech. These are just a few examples. There's a lot of ways you could include robots/mechanical player races.
Why not is the dumbest question you can possibly ask.
You should be asking "Why should it?" instead.
>Why should it
Because it's cool.
What is the best system to run a mech fantasy game in?
Also, how to involve players?
>what is the best system
your favorite system + some ancient japanese TTrpg.
I dislike this chart because it implies that Dark Fantasy is the only acceptable setting with naked b***hes in it.
I love high fantasy, but the "me and the boys" vibe of medieval is pretty great
I like the justification from the hubris book for DCC where their warforged are made by essentially, dunking a person into a vat with a suit of armor with weapons built into it, and then tortured until only the suit and their soul remained, then they would dumped out to join the evil queen's army, and some times they escape the army and become players.
Etrian Odyssey does it just fine.
Sure. Grandia II literally has a standard fantasy setting where one of the NPCs is a gynoid from an ancient magitek army literally made up of cute robot girls.
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Looks like something from templeOS
>Do robotic / mechanical player races have a place in pre-modern fantasy settings?
Bionicle.
>Bionicle.
Based. Have you ever played a Bionicle game?
What about Homunculi and other more biologically based constructs as playable races, have you seen settings, fantasy or otherwise, that handle that well, or have any yourself? Because I think that having PCs literally be created the specification in the starting character sheet within the setting itself would be a based idea.
Yes. I fricking love construct characters. Love the theme of someone being made for something at another's behest and dealing with that. Whether that becomes just being cool with having a preset purpose in life or finding their own purpose and agency. Also the two combined where they eventually outlive their purpose and have to deal with the "what now?"
Hell yeah.
It's a little bit of discordance to make the viewer go "what the frick?", because androids or mecha aren't supposed to be in the war of the roses.
It's kino fantasy. Realistic historical, but one or two utterly fantastic things in there, with contrived or unexplaned lore to back it up.
if you made them a place yeah
"Electronics driving servos with advanced chemical products all over the construction" as per actual robots no, the dependencies have too much that'd nuke the "pre-modernity" if available at sufficient scale to be "a race". Unless you're talking "theme park" settings where shit's insulated as frick and there's either aliens or tech-based precursors poking their heads in, like Golarion or Faerun.
Automata extrapolated from the "advanced" technology of the time facilitated by but not all that strictly dependent upon magic, usually in the form of clockwork, is surprisingly often present if you go looking, but also tends to be rare-beyond-playability between not "feeling" right and similar setting-bricking reasons to above.
"Conventional" golems rendered as playable entities are oddly scarce to my knowledge, probably because "literally statuesque" is very awkward to work with in visual design terms. Has the handy "Because Magic" to paper over the industrialization issue.
Depends on the setting.
It depends what the writer wants for his setting
Sure, why not? There's golems, Talos, Galatea, and so forth. You could make it work if you wanted to.
No wait, make that giant robots... /m/echa even.
Nice. What system would work best for that, Lancer?
Battle Century
Not familiar with it. Why that particular system?
God that's cool.
Thanks. Have another fantasy mecha.
>Do robotic / mechanical player races have a place in pre-modern fantasy settings?
Not really but at the same time who the frick cares it's a "fantasy."
No unless the setting is scenario is specific to them. Stuff like:
>A Byzantine king of Turkey is invading your kingdom and he has an army machines that can move on their own! He rides a dragon that bellows steam!
>A wizard for unknown reasons has populated a ghost town with enchanted wooden puppets of all sizes! What a mystery could lie in this city?
In both cases the robots have a plausible reason for existing and are a key point in the story. You are going to learn a lot about them because they are very important.
Shit like rolling a gollum or warforged for the hell of it is lame.
>A wizard for unknown reasons has populated a ghost town with enchanted wooden puppets of all sizes!
That seems like a lot of effort, why might a wizard do something like that?
Talos
depends how Pre Modern.
Gimmie robot girls based off of Metropolis built by fantasy ww2 Germans.
last time I've played d&d this was my last cleric
Did it cast magic?
yeah, I made it so being unable to use most equipment wasn't a drag on the party, so there were a lot of spells
Looking at running a 40K knight/titan game.
Folks over at 40kg recommended Lancer to me for a system.
Given what I've heard of it, and its mixed reviews, I figured I'd ask you guys if you agreed, or had any alternate ideas.
Is Lancer good, or are there better options?
Wait, frick, wrong thread.
yes and I love them. especially the aesthetic you posted is just about perfect. overall I think its cool.
They can
Wooden robots are just weird to me. Like, how do you keep them from overheating and catching fire?
I'd imagine that such races would wear armor, do you agree? What about clothes that are simply cosmetic in nature?
Sure. but honestly I LOVE the idea of robots being the monsters for the juxtapostion of genres. Knights charging robots with lances because "They are the spawn of the robot devil and must be sent back to bielzabot" just makes me smile
An interesting concept, albeit probably not with such on-the-nose terms as "robot devil" or "Beelzebot". Perhaps there could also be a distinction drawn between the machines that must be destroyed to protect society and those that can be tamed with the proper incantations, mystical artifacts, and/or noble bloodline.
In Greek Myth Hephasteus is said to have created thinking mechanical assistants. So yes.
Where? I know that he made Talos, but that was more of a guard dog than an assistant.
The Iliad mentions him making tripod delivery drones as well as
>There were golden handmaids also who worked for him, and were like real young women, with sense and reason, voice also and strength, and all the learning of the immortals; these busied themselves as the king bade them,
Where's the source for that? Colour me interested.
Just copy and paste the text, you goof
Yes but you haven’t explained what kind of nails are mentioned in the Iliad. Why?...