A Star Wars Gaming General Thread

[Reynard]

Recent developments have shown us that we can certainly make things SOUND sentient without having any actual sentience -- or even be able to think at all. Protocol droids are designed to mimic sentience and unique personalities in order to perform their function. Other droids likely get to know their owners over time and their "personalities" reflect how they interact with those owners. That is why the heroes seem to have cute and spunky droids.

Of course that only accounts for the commonly manufactured droids. We see all kinds of mechanical beings in Star Wars that act more like a species -- the maintenance droids on Tatooine, for example, have much more "personality" than would seem necessary for maintenance droids, but they are also all the same (as far as we can tell). Maybe they were locally developed and just not very good. Maybe their original owners and designers were Jawas, who seem like they would appreciate the antics of that droid class.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Recent developments have shown us that we can certainly make things SOUND sentient without having any actual sentience -- or even be able to think at all. Protocol droids are designed to mimic sentience and unique personalities in order to perform their function. Other droids likely get to know their owners over time and their "personalities" reflect how they interact with those owners. That is why the heroes seem to have cute and spunky droids.

Of course that only accounts for the commonly manufactured droids. We see all kinds of mechanical beings in Star Wars that act more like a species -- the maintenance droids on Tatooine, for example, have much more "personality" than would seem necessary for maintenance droids, but they are also all the same (as far as we can tell). Maybe they were locally developed and just not very good. Maybe their original owners and designers were Jawas, who seem like they would appreciate the antics of that droid class.

It's really the Chinese Room philosophy thing. I err on the side of caution and grant Droids sapience because they appear to be in all discernible ways. I would loathe to not do so and then find out later that they are indeed spaient. Guess if I lived in the Star Wars universe I would elect to not own a Droid, and if I was indeed a militant type would probably belong to an organization like the Droid Liberation Front.

 

[Reynard]

In the end, fro

It's really the Chinese Room philosophy thing. I err on the side of caution and grant Droids sapience because they appear to be in all discernible ways. I would loathe to not do so and then find out later that they are indeed spaient. Guess if I lived in the Star Wars universe I would elect to not own a Droid, and if I was indeed a militant type would probably belong to an organization like the Droid Liberation Front.

m a Star Wars TTRPGing perspective, it really only matters if a player decides they want to be a droid and what they want for sentience.
i would not particularly enjoy a campaign that was ABOUT droid sentience in Star Wars though.

 

[Deset Gled]

Since this the Star Wars gaming thread instead of the Star Wars general thread, I will say that the actual sentience of droids doesn't really matter. What actually matters is if players are allowed to make droid PCs or not. And the answer there is there is: yes, that should be a viable character option.

That being said, it should be kinda hard. Droids need repair, not healing. They can't be Force users. And IMNSHO players should have to be at least human-like enough to have regular movement, speech, etc. Gimmicks like being non-vocal or not being able to use tiny wheels in rough terrain can be fun under just the right circumstances, but can also get old fast.

Edit: Well, I guess @Reynard and I are not only in agreement about this, we're posting about it at the exact same time.

 

[Sketchpad]

Gimmicks like being non-vocal or not being able to use tiny wheels in rough terrain can be fun under just the right circumstances, but can also get old fast.

I think most droids are vocal, they just speak something like Binary. Not being able to speak "Droid" really isn't an issue in most Star Wars games that I've ran, or really read. I believe it was in the old d6 version that, when addressing a Wookie's inability to speak basic, the rules pointed to one person knowing the language or being able to understand them. So long as that person is in the room, it's not an issue. If a non-Basic speaking character is around other characters enough, I think it's fair to say they either understand them, or get the gist enough where it's not an issue. A great example is R2-D2 and Luke.

As for the terrain issue, that's why R2 units have rockets built into their legs.

 

[zarionofarabel]

In the end, fro

m a Star Wars TTRPGing perspective, it really only matters if a player decides they want to be a droid and what they want for sentience.
i would not particularly enjoy a campaign that was ABOUT droid sentience in Star Wars though.

I think a campaign about Droid sapience (use the right term ) and Droid rights and fighting for them would be awesome.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Since this the Star Wars gaming thread instead of the Star Wars general thread, I will say that the actual sentience of droids doesn't really matter. What actually matters is if players are allowed to make droid PCs or not. And the answer there is there is: yes, that should be a viable character option.

That being said, it should be kinda hard. Droids need repair, not healing. They can't be Force users. And IMNSHO players should have to be at least human-like enough to have regular movement, speech, etc. Gimmicks like being non-vocal or not being able to use tiny wheels in rough terrain can be fun under just the right circumstances, but can also get old fast.

Edit: Well, I guess @Reynard and I are not only in agreement about this, we're posting about it at the exact same time.

Repair instead of healing is more of a semantics issue than not. As long as parts and a tech are available repairing a Droid wouldn't be an issue, in fact it could make for Droids being instantly "healed" in many cases. I don't think it matters that they can't be Force uses, I didn't run very many campaigns that had Force uses, and even when they did it was maybe one or two out of a party of 5 or 6 players. Speaking and mobility issues are only an issue if one makes it thus on purpose, but like the other poster said, it's easily mitigated.

 

[Celebrim]

Since this the Star Wars gaming thread instead of the Star Wars general thread, I will say that the actual sentience of droids doesn't really matter. What actually matters is if players are allowed to make droid PCs or not. And the answer there is there is: yes, that should be a viable character option.

I think since Star Wars typically has "alignment" (light side vs. dark side) GMs need to work out for themselves what the morality of droids are.

As I see it, the question of sentience isn't really important. Not only is sentience a scale rather than quality, but sentience alone doesn't determine what somethings rights are. Rights are particular to the mode of the thing's creation. The Xenomorphs from Aliens are clearly sentient (to a reasonably high degree) but clearly owed no "rights" as we use the term.

Droid rights to me fall somewhere between animal rights and "human rights", and it's about to become a hugely important real world issue and not just something for Sci Fi. Star Wars hits the sweet spot for me with it clearly being evil to mistreat a droid, but clearly compatible with good to own one. Luke is a clear example of someone with a strong moral foundation (thanks Owen and Beru, the real heroes of the trilogy) and he treats droids as things with feelings and rights, but understands those feelings were created to be complete and satisfied when they are in a proper relationship with an owner. Trying to push C3-P0 into some sort of "Droid Liberation Movement" would be cruel to C3-P0 (who would emotionally suffer even more than usual) as well as foolish both from a practical perspective (war between organics and machines) and a logical perspective (C3-P0 isn't an organic being with organic needs or instincts, but a created being with a particular purpose). It would be a category error to treat a droid as a human or a human as a droid.

 

[Celebrim]

Repair instead of healing is more of a semantics issue than not. As long as parts and a tech are available repairing a Droid wouldn't be an issue, in fact it could make for Droids being instantly "healed" in many cases. I don't think it matters that they can't be Force uses, I didn't run very many campaigns that had Force uses, and even when they did it was maybe one or two out of a party of 5 or 6 players. Speaking and mobility issues are only an issue if one makes it thus on purpose, but like the other poster said, it's easily mitigated.

The big thing is that you'd probably have to be careful how you define upgrades, otherwise credits could be used to subvert the character progression mechanics (or character points could be used to subvert spending credits). This wouldn't be a huge deal, since Star Wars like D&D has more expensive equipment as part of its planned character progression, but there would need to be some thinking about it.

I have cybernetics in my own game and one PC has some fairly significant cybernetic upgrades, but they are expensive, medically and spiritually dangerous, and the more you get the more you accumulate cyber points. You can buy off cyber points with character points, but each point increases the risks of further modifications. So while you can use credits to subvert character progression and upgrade your character without character points, there are enough balancing factors only one player has tried it. (Spending money on gear that if it breaks doesn't break you is for the most part more logical.) Some sort of similar balancing might need to used in the case of a wholly robotic being.

 

[jian]

I think it’s quite a stretch to assume all droids want to serve and therefore should be kept as slaves - while I agree it would be logical to build them like that, we don’t even know if that’s possible. All we really know is that building AGI in GFFA is ridiculously easy, a kid with a soldering iron and some spare parts scrounged from the garbage can do it.

As such it’s quite possible that droid rights are simply an issue that neither the writers nor the characters (or GFFA society) have decided to grapple with as yet. Yes, Luke in ANH is a good person and also thinks owning droids is fine, but he’s young and he was brought up to think this, and he’s not yet encountered a situation to contradict this. What if he does, what does he do then? That’s the question.

It’s not a good question to put to canon PCs but it might be one that you want to bring up in your campaign. If you don’t, that’s fine, but doing so is not in any way contradicted by what we know from the media.