How would you role-play a droid (or warforged)

[Turanil]

Reading another thread, I got the idea that probably, droids and artificial intelligence would best be portrayed like this. Okay, I am primarily aiming at droids (biodroid race in d20 future), but maybe this could be interesting to see if that can alos be applied to warforged.

So, I was thinking that biodroids are incapable of intuition, have little subtility, and extremely poor grasp of non-verbal communication. As such, if a woman asks a person "Do you think I am fat?", a human interlocutor may understand (rightly or wrongly) that she is insecure about her appearance and wants to be comforted, so will answer accordingly. On the other hand, the droid will probably give a litteral answer (i.e.: "according to medical and beauty statistics you are 18% too fat").

Then, droids are primarily programmed to perform some tasks, so may be awkward and out of place in situations that have nothing to do with the tasks they were manufactured for. Thus, in the tavern, while the human soldier may enjoy a drink and relaxation, the combat droid will scan the area for possible threats and will analyze how to best attack or defend the place, then add the data to his memory.

Otherwise, I have been thinking, if the following would describe well a droid's personnality:

<...> characterised by an inability to understand how to interact socially.
<...> limited social interaction, communication skills and impaired imaginative abilities that can result in restricted or repetitive behaviours. Language and cognitive development are normal.
<...> social impairment with extreme difficulty in understanding social cues, limited interests and/or unusual preoccupations, repetitive routines or rituals, speech and language peculiarities, and non-verbal communication problems.
<...> are able to be very successful in a particular field and until recently would not have been diagnosed as having the disorder, but would have been seen as brilliant, eccentric, absent minded, socially inept and a little awkward physically.
<...> may have a wonderful vocabulary and even demonstrate hyperlexia (tendency to talk excessively), but not truly understand the nuances of language and have difficulty with pragmatics.
<...> have an excellent rote memory and musical ability. They usually have a very restricted interest range and can become intensely interested in or preoccupied with one or two subjects (sometimes to the exclusion of other topics). They may talk at length about a favourite subject without being aware of the recipient's interest level in what they are saying, or repeat a word or phrase many times.
<...> Social skills are normally weak giving the impression that the person is walking to the beat of a "different drum”. They tend to be "in their own world" and preoccupied with their own agenda. <...>

Thoughts?

 

[DragonLancer]

In an Eberron game, I play a LN Warforged fighter who is quite simply a machine. He was constructed to fight in a war and take orders. For the purposes of roleplaying him, he does what he's told by whichever party member he views as the leader in a given group. Does whatever he's told quite literally.

Example being, the party was locked in a jail cell with two ogres outside standing guard. The door wasn't locked and he was told "use the door and hit the ogre behind it." So he did. He pulled the door off its hinges and hit the ogre with it.

Thats a bit of an exaggeration on the concept, but if someone is playing a droid or similar I usually expect them to play something servial and with few grasps of society/social behaviour.

 

[Warehouse23]

The one warforged I have played (a CG druid) focused on the tiny details which he could observe, in a similar manner to the way I have heard autism described.

For example, he first encountered the party while they were exiting a city (he was hiding out in the forest) with a mule carrying their goods. His first comment, "You are travelling with an animal. How is it called?"

"Droids" or warforged, what have you, should focus on whatever part of their "programming" has been most developed. For Une, the druid, this was his attention to natural creatures and objects.

 

[Timeboxer]

I must admit to instantly thinking, "Wow, low CHA," rather than a droid or warforged.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Turanil, where does the quoted text come from?

I ask because it looks to me like something out of a dictionary of psych disorders. Does this describe some kind of autism?

 

[Umbran]

You might have some conflict there with the musical ability. I am reminded of a description of Data, from ST:TNG, who had perfect musical technical ability, but his music had no "soul". He could get the instrument to do whatever was required, but wass incapable of the subtle variation that human performers use to work greater emotion into their performances. A character that doesn't grasp social interaction would also fail here, because musical performance is a form of social communication as well.

 

[Turanil]

I must admit to instantly thinking, "Wow, low CHA," rather than a droid or warforged.

In d20 Future, biodroids have a starting charisma score of 5...

Turanil, where does the quoted text come from?

I ask because it looks to me like something out of a dictionary of psych disorders. Does this describe some kind of autism?

The quote describes some aspects of the Asperger's Syndrom. I found that on the Internet, but don't remember where (googled, copypasted, and then adios).

You might have some conflict there with the musical ability. I am reminded of a description of Data, from ST:TNG, who had perfect musical technical ability, but his music had no "soul".

For me Data is almost an epic droid. In any case, a step above what I had in mind...

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

The quote describes some aspects of the Asperger's Syndrom. I found that on the Internet, but don't remember where (googled, copypasted, and then adios).

Okay, that sounds right. I've done a little bit of reading and some informal interviews on autism, much of it specifically on asperger's. Perhaps that's why this rang a bell. Thank you.