Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

I am working on an emulation of Gamma World... in it Pure Strain Humans are recognized as "being humans" by most robots, mutant humans are sometimes recognized this way but not always, mutant animals can occasionally be recognized that way also but mutant plants cannot ever be (naturally, this is for robots that retain their original programming.

Would this best be a trait of the robots (thus it can be changed innately with their programming), a trait of the characters or both? That beiing answered, how would you stat it?

I was thinking that it would be a trait of the character's and be built as a Reputation (robots only, etc... thus a reaction modifier) but I began to second guess this.

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

I dimly remember the mechanic... Robots would only take orders from humans, right? So the idea was to see which characters could get robots to do stuff for them?

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

Right, unless a robot is reprogrammed to accept other types of people as "People" they won't accept orders from them, possibly overridden by security cards or requiring those (that's a whole other discussion really I fear).

The more I think about it, I'm thinking it really needs to be a trait of the robot's... possibly as a Duty?

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

I'd make it Duty(Serve All Humans) and Detect(Human, Vision based -20%)

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

That's a good idea... would this (due to the IQ roll) be sufficient to cover the sometimes mistaking mutant humans and humanoid mutant animals as humans also?

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

For the recognition of humans vs. mutants, I'd roll the robot's Per (or possibly Observation skill if some of them are better at it than others), with a penalty equal to the number of levels a mutant has of Unnatural Features. Disguise skill on the part of mutants/non-humans could cover up such features and trick the robot's recognition skill.

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

so... something like this: Detect (humans) (Common, 20 points; vague, -50%; Vision Based, -20%; Based on Per/Observation instead of IQ, +0%; Affected by Disguise and Unnatural Features, -5%; 5 points total)

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

I'm not positive, but I thought KP had the same idea that I did, that the roll would be an ordinary Sense one. I don't remember the original material well enough... were the robots supposed to be using some sort of super-science detectors? That's what a Detect would be representing.

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

What NAS said. Detect is what I'd suggest using if the robots have some ability to recognize humans other than purely human-sensory recognition. Can they notice a human hiding behind a wall? An invisible human? Can they tell the difference between a "pure" human, and a mutant whose mutations are all internal and look totally superficially human? If any of those are the case, then they probably deserve Detect. If, on the other hand, they're simply very good at recognizing subtle cues that would be potentially perceptible to a human, just give them high Perception, high Observation, or a high "Recognizing Humans" optional specialization in Observation.

Re: Robot Recognition - How would you build this?
 

Good points. TYVM! :)