Character Creation

Oooh yes, of course that's an interesting flavour addition! It'd be equivalent to the 'make' and the 'model' of a car, eg BMW 530i, Mercedes E200, Lexus LS. Some cars have other monikers attached to them, a Nissan R31 is also known as a Skyline.

So sure! It's possible that one particular series of security car bots are Halcyon TRVs. The number at the end shows the variant, 871. Or maybe the letters show the different models, and the number is the unique identifier, eg there are Halcyon TRCs, Halcyon TRLs, etc.

I'd think about whether you'd have yet another name somewhere, one that identifies you uniquely. Only because that seems to be a property of all the robots, even the cookie-cutter assembly bots. So go ahead and think of this addtional one if you like!

Also, in the lore all robots also have a manufacturer if we want to add those names too. (We can make those up or use the lore.) Names could be one long string!

On the matter of names, character creation (p15) describes it as:

"Every robot that is not a junk robot has a nickname and a serial number. The nickname is something that a human could have. Whether it is the name of a man or a woman does not matter. The serial number comes from an ancient registry. It consists of three letters followed by three digits. The serial number is unique. No other robot in Mechatron-7 has the same serial number as you."

Go ahead and get creative with what's been specified here. TRV-871 is the unique identifier. (Fun fact, that's over 17 million possible combinations!) The word before that is a nickname. Like I said, if we want to add more details, such as make and model number, go ahead!

Sure, no concerns there at all for your character, please go ahead!

So all TRVs are Halcyons, makes perfect sense. That said, I imagine there might be other Halcyon TRVs out there who do have unique additional nicknames, much like most other robots do. It's a nice touch to imagine why 871 doesn't have one. :)

Yeah, many of the cleaner bots are decommisioned or defunct, I'll bet there's only a handful of ESKs left. Any lower in the hierarchy and you'd be a scrap bot! (which btw has its advantages)

I drew Halcyon & Nemo (my NPC-Protect connection) chilling together. Partly to design Nemo, partly to figure out how big Halcyon would be in relation to other robots (Nemo is approximately human-sized). :D



(Let's pretend that Halcyon's signal can turn; it's much more fun to draw it an angle than in profile.)

(Also, Nemo is not actually smoking, it's an aromatherapy thing. Pointless without humans now, but he does it anyway.)

Love the art! If this were a game for which I could give out inspiration or free rerolls, you'd deserve one for this!

Hope it's okay for us to keep up the fiction about Halycon's size. Most of the scenes imagine the robots to be able to get into rooms and interact with other robots at certain locations, without worrying too hard about robot size. The book itself depicts robots of all sizes, including vehicular ones, so I don't think we have to think too hard about size matters unless the plot specifically demands it.

You may look at p25 for Develop your Robot, referring to the section on Awarding XP, or just follow these questions. In this thread, answer them. For each of the following questions that you can answer with a "yes," you get one XP:

Did you try to eliminate an Error as ordered by a superior robot?
Did you risk or sacrifice something for your PC buddy?
Did you risk or sacrifice something for the NPC you want to keep safe?
Did you risk or sacrifice something to mess with the NPC you hate?
Did you risk or sacrifice something to reach your big dream?

Feel free to modify the references to other robots/PCs/NPCs in order to answer the question.

It's possible you might 'level up'!

Not yet. That will be chapter 2.
We didn't have buddies. I guess we will choose one in Chapter 2.
The coordinate roll and Sir's orders for Halcyon to escape was a risk, I guess. Edina could have considered it as justification to send Sir for terrorwatt?
They didn't appear. I will probably choose someone else during Chapter 2

Let me clarify further, I know we didn't declare who the PC buddy is, or the various NPCs we want to protect or hate, and that's okay because I expected them to arise organically. We agreed on that at the start of the game.

So, in the course of the first chapter, Hal for example helped Pluto very clearly and dramatically at risk to themselves, so that's a +1. Sir's Coordinate roll is certainly a risk, because he didn't know if helping the others could've incurred the ire of an authority like Edina, I'd award XP for that. I'd say currently Hal 'hates' Edina, so trying to rebel against Edina at risk of burning themselves out is 1XP as well, and so on.

Please think along these lines! XP in this game is awarded for actions and relationships.

That's totally reasonable from both of you. Gonna let KoldikSteelSkin and Timplausible do theirs as well.

I wondered about the extra XP for showing up, I like the fact that it's a very positive reinforcement, but feels strange in PbP (if no one showed up to post there wouldn't be a game). Anyway, I'll reserve GM's discretion on that first, but I'll freely dispense more XP in other areas maybe? :)