Ever since getting my hands on the AOR rulebook, I've been wondering about the possibilties for droid PCs. And I have questions

Do all droids have to be of "gently rolling tin can" or "awkwardly walking mechanoid" variety? Or are there examples of SW droids that are fast, agile etc.? I know some droids were quite dangerous in the prequel trilogy, but I feel that these movies, with its video-game stylistic choices, are at odds with the real SW feel...

Also, are there droids with normal, complex and non-quirky personal personalities? Or are they all cute or awkward?

Lastly, do all of the droids obey their biological creators instrinctly, or are they sentient enough to rebel?

A droid PC can and should move and behave however the Player wants them to (within reason).

Mechanically, remember that lots of species start with a value of 1 in an ability and they don't seem any less "natural" than the human default. If you wanted to impose a limit on yourself, you could say that if you buy your Agility up from 1 and you are no longer clumsy, or if you buy your Presence up from 1 and you can imitate or be as empathic in conversation as you'd like.

Narratively, the original trilogy did have droids be a little junky, yes, but the expanded universe opened the scope dramatically. From the strange Sith War Droids to human looking Guri. I've played games that featured all kinds of droids and none of them felt out of place.

I would personally be fairly open to ideas for droid PCs, as long as:

1) the droid doesn't implictly impose too much difficulty on the player or the group (my initial thought was an immoble type droid, such as some of the FX models)

2) the droid doesn't impose too much of an advantage for a player (a droid that can't be knocked down or can avoid movement penalties altogether because of how it moves, for example)

That said, most of the droids I've had in games have usually been bipedal or the "rolling tin can" variety.

All variety of droids. The EU had a large variety of protocol droids similar to C-3PO turn into assassins and bounty hunters. The battle droids from the prequel era, especially the BX commando droids in The Clone Wars, are a little more maneuverable than 3PO and R2 are. And any assassin droid, like the IG-series and the HK-series, are pretty mobile -- in fact, The Clone Wars showed some IG-series droids go all acrobatic like it was a wuxia film.

And again, any personality is doable. Whether or not a droid is still loyal to their master is also dependent on how the character is conceived, and everything is still possible.

Image: a trio of Magnaguard droids with the center one saying "'Awkward Mechanoids?'Gentlemen, I believe we've been insulted!"

Just read a bit on Guri. Interesting... I thought that this kind of droid would be considered not fitting with the SW setting stylistically...

I recommend reading about HK-47, IG-88, 4-LOM and Guri. You'll get an idea of what some bipedal models are capable of in the EU (we don't really get to see IG-88 and 4-LOM do anything in canon). You can choose what to take with you to your table.

As for other things, choosing the droid's chassis and design should be fun and interesting, but it shouldn't convey mechanical benefits for free. Narrative benefits, sure, whatever, mechanical, no. For example, look at the Droideka. Say a player wanted to be a droid like that. The roll up and move ability is not mechanical, it's just narrative. If they want a shield generator they need to buy one. If they want to have two light repeating blasters they need to buy them, acquire lots of ranks of burly, get one of the LRB's encumbrance down to 4 and have "armor" with 2 hardpoints to put a hands-free weapon system on to "hold" one of the LRB's. All possible, just very expensive.

I do agree that if a droid has an agility of 2 or more, it shouldn't be awkward anymore like C-3PO. And so on with characteristics in general. 2 represents normal average no penalties. 1 represents some limitations.

We all role play the flaws of our characters, Droids by design in this system tend to have more chassis drawbacks (Characteristics that are lower), but rely on skills (or programming/software as i like to think of it). Use this when designing your PC's to make a droid your happy with. Build the Characteristics to match the Chassis your wanting to use, then choose skills to match your idea of personality.

There is a wide variety of droids in the various FFG books too, there is a great K-9 series in Enter the Unknown that a PC could be modelled on. There are Astromec droids in Stay on Target and Protocol Droids in Desperate Allies. All could be used as a reference to build from. The core books have a boat load between them too in the Adversary chapters.

One problem I have with the droid write-ups in the books: there are rarely pictures for how these droids look! There are quite a few protocol droid models presented in Desperate Allies, but almost no illustrations for them

BTW. I have a rules question: quite a few of the droid models are of the levitating variety. When creating such a PC, does one need to purchase some sort of levitation system? Or can such a way of locomotion be handwaved as flavour?

Ever since getting my hands on the AOR rulebook, I've been wondering about the possibilties for droid PCs. And I have questions

Do all droids have to be of "gently rolling tin can" or "awkwardly walking mechanoid" variety? Or are there examples of SW droids that are fast, agile etc.? I know some droids were quite dangerous in the prequel trilogy, but I feel that these movies, with its video-game stylistic choices, are at odds with the real SW feel...

Also, are there droids with normal, complex and non-quirky personal personalities? Or are they all cute or awkward?

Lastly, do all of the droids obey their biological creators instrinctly, or are they sentient enough to rebel?

1. Separatist commando droids come to mind, as do Magnaguards.

2. Are you asking about existing characters or whether you can roleplay a "normal, complex, non-quirky" droid? Because the answer to the second is always yes.

3. The general rule is, the longer a droid has gone without a memory wipe the more of a personality they develop and the more "quirks" (Re: any individuality/free will whatsoever) they develop.