Situation by situation basis. Some robots have all the sentience of a doorknob and the implacability of an avalanche.
Some are pretty much living intelligent creatures in their own right.
Maybe they can reason to the robots with logic. Not that they're out-logicing a robot in case some folks have issues with that, but they're presenting extra data for the robot to consider and hopefully will concur with the party's reasoning and request.
They should never try intimidating a robot. Immune to fear.
The RPG Paranoia had a skill called 'spurious logic' used to fool robots with. Perhaps that's what's being used/done when using diplomacy on robots.
The RPG Paranoia had a skill called 'spurious logic' used to fool robots with. Perhaps that's what's being used/done when using diplomacy on robots.
It's worth noting that Paranoia's rules were built with the intention of fueling Kafkaesque Comedy, not as a serious science fiction RPG.
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Unless the robot has a human-like sentience, they won't be able to stop a robot from pursuing whatever its current directive is but they might be able to make it go about that directive in such a manner that is beneficial to them, either by appealing to efficiency or any of its other priorities, either through diplomacy or deception.
Given that diplomacy works against other cultures and non-human races perfectly well, I wouldn't worry about it; it just means the character making the check can explain themselves to a robot as diplomatically as they can to an elf or an orc.
If it works you can think of it as exploiting ambiguities in the robot's programming or analysis algorithms, although Bluff is probably the better example. I think Iron Gods had a Bluff check to convince a guardian robot you were an authorized crew member even without the required security access badge. But perhaps Diplomacy could be used to convince the robot you're helping it fulfill its directives so that it cooperates with you.
What check would be required to convince a robot that they are not logical and in turn cause them to explode?
When I ran Iron Gods, short of actual sentient robots I wouldn't allow diplomacy. They are programmed to follow specific orders, and diplomacy will not do anything about it.
Imagine that they are like the phone program Cortana, Siri, or Google Now. They're useful, they seem intelligent because they have access to a lot of data. They could even make decision if you program them to, but at the end of the day they're just a program with no independent thought.
The robots are the same, they lack independent thought or the ability to make their own decisions. The obey their program. Any robot that is hostile to your party will continue to be hostile, diplomacy will not change its attitude.
What I would do is allow the players to use diploamcy or sense motive to talk to robots that are not yet hostile (many robots have conditions for beginning hostilities) to discern what would make the robots hostile and learn what their role was (this might allow them to obtain some limited help). However, they would only ever provide help that is within the boundaries of their programming and their active role/function.
What check would be required to convince a robot that they are not logical and in turn cause them to explode?
A diploma from the James T. Kirk School of Programming.
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I argue that it's an INT thing, and an Alignment thing: If a creature (robot, undead, ooze, plant, etc.) has an INT then it can choose the path its life follows -- meaning it can be swayed by Intimidate or Diplomacy or what have you.
Think of it this way -- if it can have a variable Alignment then it can voluntarily change its Alignment. If a creature can change its Alignment then of course it can absolutely be swayed by Diplomacy & Intimidate.