Hi there !

I was wondering if there is any rules about droid ownership and ownership transfer, beeing system rules or Cannon/fluf 'laws'.

From what i've seen in the books, you can buy brand new droids, but there is nothing about second hand ones.

As droids are 'sentient' devices, the ownership is more complexe than just possessing, especialy if you want to steal a droid.

Is ownership and ownership transfer ruled by precise protocols ? Like the 'registered' or 'droid registered' legal owner must, in front of the droid, willfully transfer ownership to the designated new owner ?

Is it only a simple 'Computer related modification' ? Like modifying the Hard drive memories to set the new owner ?

Or a more complexe one ? Like completely rebooting the droid to factory settings ? (and so maybe erasing all the XP earn by the droid in his previous existence)

Is it a restricted usage of free will ? Like you are the owner of a droid only if the droid itself want you to be... Except that droids are programmed to be overly dependant regarding being owned.

If you've got any answer, i'd be more than grateful !

The only real information about droid ownership comes from Ep IV. From that I would guess that ownership is pretty loosely used term, at least to droids. C3PO and R2D2 were both owned by Captain Antilles, but they didn't seem to have any issue being stolen and sold to Uncle Owen. Also, it seems that a memory wipe pretty much overrides whoever they thought were their owners anyway.

I would imagine that for most droids it's mainly a matter of changing permissions so that the droid responds to the new owner's commands, and there's probably also a memory wipe as a general rule. To draw a contemporary example, if I sell my laptop to someone, I'm going to reformat the hard drive to remove my data from the machine and reset to the default user account, we'll exchange money, and then go on our merry ways. The new owner will then set up their own administrator account and password.

In more tightly regulated areas (such as Imperial space near the Core Worlds), I suspect that certain types of droids would have to be licensed and registered. If there's a change of ownership for, say, an industrial loader or bodyguard droid, there may well be a title transfer as well as a trip to the nearest Department of Droid Ownership (get there early to beat the long lines) to formally transfer ownership and register the change.

I would imagine that for most droids it's mainly a matter of changing permissions so that the droid responds to the new owner's commands, and there's probably also a memory wipe as a general rule. To draw a contemporary example, if I sell my laptop to someone, I'm going to reformat the hard drive to remove my data from the machine and reset to the default user account, we'll exchange money, and then go on our merry ways. The new owner will then set up their own administrator account and password.

In more tightly regulated areas (such as Imperial space near the Core Worlds), I suspect that certain types of droids would have to be licensed and registered. If there's a change of ownership for, say, an industrial loader or bodyguard droid, there may well be a title transfer as well as a trip to the nearest Department of Droid Ownership (get there early to beat the long lines) to formally transfer ownership and register the change.

DoDO ... Just like our own DMV, but whinier... (All the protocol droids.)

If you're going to buy droids 2nd hand, you should probably take them to Anchorhead to have their memory wiped.

If I sold droids, I'd wipe their memories before the sale.

It is looking like the group might adopt the R5 from the Escape From Mos Shuuta beginner game, because they liberated him from the Vorn's yard and told him to explore if he wants. Of course he wants to spite the old man, so he'll happily slack off work for the day, but what would spite him more than leaving him? To what degree do you think Vorn actually controls that droid? Vorn at one point says that they hate each other but are stuck with one another. That's a curious statement.

Secondhand goods in Star Wars are generally the same cost as new goods because their performance is identical too. It's a galaxy where almost everything is built to last.

Secondhand goods in Star Wars are generally the same cost as new goods because their performance is identical too. It's a galaxy where almost everything is built to last.

Except when it comes to reselling loot.

EoE pg 150

"Selling legal items follows similar guidelines to selling illegal ones. Player Characters can generally sell an item for one quarter of its cost on a successful Negotiation check, increasing that to one-half with 2 Successes and three quarters with 3 Successes or more."

So the most you can expect to get from parting with 2nd hand goods is 3/4 of the value. Which would theoretically mean buying someone else's 2nd hand goods should only cost you 3/4 of the value. Now if you're buying from a merchant, expect to pay full price. But buying from some guy in a trenchcoat could be cheaper.

Secondhand goods in Star Wars are generally the same cost as new goods because their performance is identical too. It's a galaxy where almost everything is built to last.

Except when it comes to reselling loot.

EoE pg 150

"Selling legal items follows similar guidelines to selling illegal ones. Player Characters can generally sell an item for one quarter of its cost on a successful Negotiation check, increasing that to one-half with 2 Successes and three quarters with 3 Successes or more."

So the most you can expect to get from parting with 2nd hand goods is 3/4 of the value. Which would theoretically mean buying someone else's 2nd hand goods should only cost you 3/4 of the value. Now if you're buying from a merchant, expect to pay full price. But buying from some guy in a trenchcoat could be cheaper.

That is generally you selling to a merchant who is going to then resell the items. So, they won't pay what they'll sell it for as they need to have a margin for themselves to cover their other expenses, like a shop, employees, etc...

I suppose. It just seems to me that regardless of the RPG you play, you rarely get 100% of your investment back when you sell stuff. Even if it's in perfect quality, functions exactly like one fresh off the shelf. If that were the case, players will turn into murder hobos, killing and looting everything in sight. Then half of every session turns into a flea market, haggling on prices for the slightly used armored suit with just a little bit of bloodstains on it.

I suppose. It just seems to me that regardless of the RPG you play, you rarely get 100% of your investment back when you sell stuff. Even if it's in perfect quality, functions exactly like one fresh off the shelf. If that were the case, players will turn into murder hobos, killing and looting everything in sight. Then half of every session turns into a flea market, haggling on prices for the slightly used armored suit with just a little bit of bloodstains on it.

Which is why the selling systems all exist the way they do. The players don't open shop in a city and keep it full of inventory via their adventuring. Instead, they sell to some known quantity (a mage shop, a traveling merchant, etc...) who then carries the real risk of having those items to try and sell for some unknown amount of time.

That doesn't mean that you can play Star Wars: Star Traders with the players trying to build up a shipping magnate by buying goods on one world to ship to another to sell. It will certainly have a different kind of mindset about what is exciting for the players. "Will they get the right terms on that new loan so they can lease a new ship?" "Uh, oh. Can they get their shipment to market before a competitor with slightly bigger ships can?" heheh.

This puts me in mind of the video game Recettear. If you wanted to run a more exploration-based campaign, having the group be sponsored by a merchant looking for resources they can sell to pay off their own debts could be interesting.

Seems like I remember something about "Droids Right" as a movement, perhaps it was in an adventure somewhere. I would think the 'owning' of droids as a sentient being is tantamount to legal slavery. Im just pulling this off the top of my head without research at the moment but its bares a look.

Except these slaves have control bolts attached to them, allowing you to paralyze them at will. Then you can erase their memories and reprogram them to enjoy being your servant without complaint.

As far as most "civilized" folk would be concerned, you're arguing whether your toaster, microwave, or PC deserve rights and privileges. =)

I suppose. It just seems to me that regardless of the RPG you play, you rarely get 100% of your investment back when you sell stuff. Even if it's in perfect quality, functions exactly like one fresh off the shelf. If that were the case, players will turn into murder hobos, killing and looting everything in sight. Then half of every session turns into a flea market, haggling on prices for the slightly used armored suit with just a little bit of bloodstains on it.

Ah, but this is the limited edition R2-RN "OT" with the Matt finish and the Factory Installed Astrogation OverThinker Unit. Only 12 of these were made as units for the Galactic Republic Diplomatic Courier Service. Rare as you can get and this one still has the original service records intact. A must-have piece for a collector like yourself.

Selling second hand is about finding the market for your goods, knowing the market, and, well... marketing it to them. You can always find a rube in some backwater to buy your "Second hand" Droids at cheap rates, but in a major market, it's gonna be harder to sell when there are reputable dealers around that shoppers trust.

Ownership of droids is complicated. Restraining bolts are a temporary measure to force obedience until memory-wipe or reprogramming happen.

Reprogramming is about re-writing the personality and memory code that the Droid Neural Code has expanded upon. Reprogramming an older droid whose memory functions have been extensively overwritten and expanded upon by 'personal' experience is just going to be too complicated and memory wipes would be more common in such a case.

Some clever owners have installed "Personality Back-up" systems in their droids, so a basic factory-reset memory wipe would re-install the droids ongoing personality from it's last backup. So you can sell a droid, let the customer "Wipe" it, and then next week it could trundle back to you and you could run your scam in another place with another rube.

I suppose. It just seems to me that regardless of the RPG you play, you rarely get 100% of your investment back when you sell stuff. Even if it's in perfect quality, functions exactly like one fresh off the shelf. If that were the case, players will turn into murder hobos, killing and looting everything in sight. Then half of every session turns into a flea market, haggling on prices for the slightly used armored suit with just a little bit of bloodstains on it.

Which is why the selling systems all exist the way they do. The players don't open shop in a city and keep it full of inventory via their adventuring. Instead, they sell to some known quantity (a mage shop, a traveling merchant, etc...) who then carries the real risk of having those items to try and sell for some unknown amount of time.

That doesn't mean that you can play Star Wars: Star Traders with the players trying to build up a shipping magnate by buying goods on one world to ship to another to sell. It will certainly have a different kind of mindset about what is exciting for the players. "Will they get the right terms on that new loan so they can lease a new ship?" "Uh, oh. Can they get their shipment to market before a competitor with slightly bigger ships can?" heheh.

I played in a GURPS campaign years ago that was essentially based on Firefly and one of the players tried to turn the campaign into something like this; mostly moving livestock. However, none of the rest of us had any interest in that and wanted to more traditional Firefly missions. In game, however, the party's ship belonged to his character so we were sort of forced to go along with him. It ended up ruining the campaign...and we never got to do that train heist job the rest of us were interested in.