Also check out our shorter video discussion of robots in TTRPGs on our YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/idleredhands

Robots, androids, replicants. They are called by many names and have a variety of origins and motivations. How can they best be used in your TTRPGs? Find out in our discussion about using robots in your tabletop campaigns, both as antagonists and protagonists. For additional inspiration, we also give you a list of possible campaign ideas (thank you, GURPS!).

In the tradition of our Creature Features, we watched the 1980 scifi film Saturn 3, starring Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, and Farrah Fawcett. It includes some interesting examples of how to use a robot as an RPG character, even if it failed in its use of the robot as a movie character.

“I know I’m human. And if you were all these things, then you’d just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn’t want to show itself; it wants to hide inside an imitation. It’ll fight if it has to, but it’s vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it’s won.”
-MacReady, The Thing

Our month of horror has been reduced to a week, so we give you a plus-sized episode about imposters: doppelgangers, pod people, jumpers, things, etc. Wayne didn’t know that we were allowed to read or see anything for people over eighteen, so be prepared for his tour of the young adult section of the library. We also discuss John Wick’s article “Chess is not an RPG: The Illusion of Game Balance.”