[gurps] TL10 hard science space background

[Knapp]

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Onno Meyer <Onno.Meyer at gmx.de> wrote:
> Douglas wrote:
>> This
>> plane could take off, fly, land and taxi 10 years ago!
>
> One huge problem with robots in GURPS is just how smart and
> powerful they become at high TLs. If you want a human-sized
> machine at TL8 which is not a complete moron, then by TL10
> a ship-sized machine is pretty smart. That can be a problem
> for game play, even if it makes a realistic setting. Either
> the ship is an extremely powerful PC, or it is an extremely
> powerful NPC, and both will unbalance the party.
>
> A possible way around that would be to rule that there are
> no AIs and that robots are 'inflexible'. They can excel in
> those tasks which are covered by their programming, but
> they cannot go beyond it or apply 'common sense'. A robot
> pilot might have rules like "in case of hydraulic failure,
> use ...", but unless there are rules for "in case of fire,
> hydraulic failure and low fuel over water, during a high
> priority mission, try this first", they cannot cope with
> multiple emergencies.

This problem is not limited to GURPS. How about a new way of looking
at it. What you say is a true problem but lets instead say we have a
new game. In this game each player plays a dog. The dogs live with
humans. Could you have a fun dog RPG game this way? OK, now make the
dogs humans and the humans the computers/robots. This idea just struck
me so I am not saying it is deep. Feel free to tear into it. It think
thought that it might prove insightful after some deep thought about
the implications.

-- 
Douglas E Knapp

Why do we live?