Why do you think warforged = robots?

[BryonD]

I like the Warforged. They just fall short of being *more* construct-like for my tastes... I want machine like beings. Fantasy robots with souls... the ghost in the machine...

I agree with this statement except that they fall so far short of capturing the idea for me that I can't agree with the "like" part.

I love the idea of a golem with a soul. But it wouldn't be mechanically re-built with the arbitrary goal of being playable at first level polluting the original concept into destruction.

I'm not certain if I have ever used the term "robots" in a moment of laziness. But android has always been a closer fit for how they come off to me. They really remind me most of all of Star Wars Battle droids a lot more than they make me think of the hebrew golem or Frankenstein's monster. And even if you through out the large number of them as a factor they still come across as more akin to Lt. Cmdr. Data.

Make 'em a construct. For starters, get rid of their CON. But don't stop there. Make constructs be constructs. I am personally still uninterested in a campaign world with an entire "race" of these. It completely undermines the coolness of it. But if a player wanted to use Ronin Arts' sentient mechanical race as a unique individual PC I'd be all over it.

Sorry, I rambled a little of topic.....

They don't seem like robots. But they don't seem like classic fantasy constructs by any means either. And some of the other examples (which I tend to rarely use, if at all) get a big pass from me because they are extraplanar and the form becomes a reflection of "their" reality. Which is a very significant distinction to me.

 

[Mallus]

But it wouldn't be mechanically re-built with the arbitrary goal of being playable at first level polluting the original concept into destruction.

No more so than the way D&D 'pollutes' Tolkien elves down to a race playable at first level...

 

[Hamburger Mary]

I am personally still uninterested in a campaign world with an entire "race" of these. It completely undermines the coolness of it.

You're not alone in this - a bunch of other people on the thread have said that it's their population that kills it. The funny thing is that for me, it's 100% the opposite. A single construct PC? Whatever. Given all the weird races and creatures in D&D, it's just one more drop in the bucket. What makes the warforged interesting to me is that they ARE a race - a race without a home or a purpose. It raises a bunch of issues:

• They can't reproduce. What's that do to a species?
• They were built by humans to fight and die. Now there's no war... and they're a race of warriors. What do they do?
• As a race that's only 30 years old, they have no established culture; the only foundation they have to build on is war.
• They're uniquely suited to survival in the Mournland, since they don't eat and don't heal naturally anyway.

Taking all these into context, we get to explore the evolution of a culture. We get things like the Becoming God, the Lord of Blades, and others, as the warforged as a race try to find a place in the world. Will they try to found a peaceful nation in the Mournland? Will they seek vengeance on their creators? These issues provide warforged PCs with the question of loyalty to race or friends... a central theme in the novel The Shattered Land. They aren't like elves, dwarves, or even kalashtar, who all have thousands of years of history: they're a race born of war, in a world that wants to forget the war. ("Don't mention the warforged!")

So to me, a single warforged is dull; a single warforged IS Data. But the evolution of warforged society is a fascinating theme, and something that does move them into a different space than Frankenstein.

 

[Imaro]

You're not alone in this - a bunch of other people on the thread have said that it's their population that kills it. The funny thing is that for me, it's 100% the opposite. A single construct PC? Whatever. Given all the weird races and creatures in D&D, it's just one more drop in the bucket. What makes the warforged interesting to me is that they ARE a race - a race without a home or a purpose. It raises a bunch of issues:

• They can't reproduce. What's that do to a species?
• They were built by humans to fight and die. Now there's no war... and they're a race of warriors. What do they do?
• As a race that's only 30 years old, they have no established culture; the only foundation they have to build on is war.
• They're uniquely suited to survival in the Mournland, since they don't eat and don't heal naturally anyway.

Taking all these into context, we get to explore the evolution of a culture. We get things like the Becoming God, the Lord of Blades, and others, as the warforged as a race try to find a place in the world. Will they try to found a peaceful nation in the Mournland? Will they seek vengeance on their creators? These issues provide warforged PCs with the question of loyalty to race or friends... a central theme in the novel The Shattered Land. They aren't like elves, dwarves, or even kalashtar, who all have thousands of years of history: they're a race born of war, in a world that wants to forget the war. ("Don't mention the warforged!")

So to me, a single warforged is dull; a single warforged IS Data. But the evolution of warforged society is a fascinating theme, and something that does move them into a different space than Frankenstein.

This sounds just like I, Robot.

 

[Klaus]

If the Shfter could get adamantine claws, I'd consider playing one!

Otherwise, I'm just not seeing the connection. Oh well, -- N

You mean, a connection besides, for instance, the Shifter feat called Healing Factor?

 

[Hamburger Mary]

This sounds just like I, Robot.

How???

First let's just look at the basics.
In the universe of I, Robot, robots are about as common as iPods. They're everywhere, used for almost anything you can think of. By contrast, there's only around 10,000 warforged, and most people don't want them around. Next, you have the fact that robots in I, Robot have the three laws as a fundamental guide for their behavior. Warforged have nothing like this. Third, in IR, robots are property. Warforged aren't - they are free citizens, which is why the questions of society and culture are relevant. Given that they no longer have a role in society, it's up to them to create their own culture. Do they assimilate into Galifar or found their own nation in the Mournland? Do they take a hostile attitude towards their creators, or seek coexistence? Do they accept their inability to reproduce or try to find a way around it?

Looking specifically to the MOVIE of I, Robot (spoilers to follow), I'll also point out that the movie focused on an artificial intelligence which controlled the NS-5s... a single villain that could make them all do whatever it wanted. We're not talking about a charismatic leader like the Lord of Blades, we're talking about "I flip a switch and you work for me." Again, no bearing on the warforged.

I see the warforged as being much more like the replicants of Blade Runner. They were created and sent out to fight ("I've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion"). In Blade Runner, they return, seeking answers, vengeance, and above all, life. Philosophy and religion are as relevant as technology. But even there, if there was just one single replicant in BR, it would be a tremendously different story. They're a created race. There's people out there whose job it is to create their eyes. There's a police force specifically tasked to deal with replicant crime. And it raises all kinds of ethical questions about creating creatures to fight your wars, and creating sentient beings in general that wouldn't be there if it was just a single creation.

The cylons of the new Battlestar Galactica are another example - just one that hasn't fully come to pass yet in Eberron. Humans created them - and in the end, they evolved and came back to kick humanity's @$$. So the issue in Eberron is whether we're laying the groundwork for that - or if it's possible to have the races live in harmony. Where do the warforged go from here? It's that issue of their fate as a RACE that I find interesting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've seen it a lot, especially lately. "I don't like warforged. Robots belong in sci-fi."

As a fan of warforged (in Eberron and certain settings, not everywhere), I honestly have to ask where the idea comes from.

Personally, I see Warforged as robots..."Not that there's anything wrong with that."

I have no problem with robots or robot type concepts in my fantasy, and have referred to other D&D critters besides Warforged as robots as well, like the aforementioned Clockwork Horrors. And in all honesty, Warforged have many classic robotic attributes.

There are all kinds of "robotic" characters outside of sci-fi: Bubo from Clash of the Titans, The Tin Man from the Oz stories, Pinnochio, animated armors and the aformentioned golems spring to mind. So does the RW story of the Turk chess-playing automaton hoax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk)- from the 1770's no less- predating the invention of the term "Robot" by Karel Capek in 1921. I'm sure if you looked, you could find stories of similar automatons coming to life in any culture familiar with automatons in general...like China and Japan.

I think that the knee-jerk relegation of robots to sci-fi is just the product of people not being aware of the other sources of robot stories. After all, robot stories are just as much a hallmark of sci-fi as ghost stories are of fantasy and horror, so its easy to think that there aren't any robot stories outside of the genre.

 

[Drowbane]

Chiming in...

I, for one, don't consider Warforged (or any other D&D constructs) to be "robots".

Droids (SW, any edition)? yes.
Soulmechs (Dragonstar)? yes.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Warforged are SO anime!

There is plenty of anime with "robots" that are similar in theme to warforged, though they nearly all look like cute girls.

"Mahoromatic" has a combat android trying to adjust to peace.
"Chobits" has android/servants but some unexpectedly gain free will.

Ironically, the anime character that looks the most like a warforged (Alphonse Elric in the picture above) is actually a human. They stuffed up a transformation and are trying to find a way to return him to his original body.

Geoff.

 

[Gez]

Sentient constructs have been around for years, too. Maugs. Nimblewrights. Clockwork horrors. To my knowledge, nobody ever called them "robots."

While the modern definition of robots is different, I'd like to point out that the original robots were kinda like warforged...

The play begins in a factory that makes 'artificial people' - they are called Robots, but are closer to the modern idea of androids or even clones, creatures who can be mistaken for humans. They can plainly think for themselves, though they seem happy to serve. At issue is whether the "Robots" are being exploited and, if so, what follows?​

Warforged can hardly be mistaken for humans (which, considering they weren't intended for a play where they'd be played by human actors, isn't surprising), but otherwise they fit the warforged to a T.

Also, for those who say that robots belong to sci-fi, I'd also like to ask them to look at the wiki page for robots, particularly the timeline

Date: 1206; Significance: First programmable humanoid robot; Description: mechanical boat with four automatic musicians; Inventor: Al-Jazari​