Per usual with all Metatopia recaps, everything presented here is based on playtest material and not final published versions.
Day 1, continued
Robot Cities by Melissa Lewis-Gentry
Presented by Melissa Lewis-Gentry
Robot Cities is a game about artificially intelligent robots living in a society without the humans that constructed them. The system is largely Fate-inspired, and the game seems to be geared toward mystery-type stories. Largely, though, the game is about making your way through a robotic world and coming to terms with your own sapience and (illegal) emotions and not freaking out the robots around you.
This game approaches some deep questions, issues, and themes, but the tone can definitely head to the goofy. One of the characters in our party was an automated breakfast-serving trolley! It was a fun time, but I think this is going to be one of those games that will need tone discussion and player buy-in beforehand to really come together. I think it's also geared toward longer-term play, as it's largely driven by discovery, both about the world and the characters themselves, and I think that's the kind of theme that benefits from multiple buildups and reveals. Also there's a lot of pre-built setting, so being able to explore that in campaign play would also be rewarding.