Campaign Toybox
The Story: Sometime in the next thousand years, the human species reaches the utmost potential of its biological form, and, faced with that limit, chooses to upload itself into robotic form. By this time, these anroids are not only exact replicas of humans, but practically immortal and need almost no external power to operate, creating a society without need or suffering. Humanity reaches a new level of being, a transcendental state beyond any physical concerns. As a result of this robotopia, culture and science flourish. Soon enough, such trivialities as time travel are conquered - and then comes the horrible discovery.
There is a twist in the time stream, a self-replicating knot which soon proves to mean only one thing: that the robotopia is not the only future possible. And, what is more, the only way to ensure that this best of all possible futures comes about is for the robots to go back through time and ensure the correct path is followed. The greatest scientists do not speak of the other possible futures they have glimpsed, saying only that they are "truly abominable". Their task is urgent, desperate and immediate, for the time juncture seems to be shrinking - and there are only so many moments in the 21st century they can change, and that is the century which they must change. Or else they will never be.
When asked who they are, the robots have only one answer: "we are the future".
Style and Structure: The beautiful thing about time travel repair is that absolutely anything can come under your remit. The tiniest thing may turn out to be of monumental importance, and it may be key to do everything from saving lives to exterminating them with prejudice. Whatever your preference for an adventure or campaign, it can be said to fulfill the best predictions the robots have of creating the most propitious timeline. Meanwhile, you can also use the bendiness of the space-time continuum to justify the robots not quite knowing everything. Likewise, time travel has its limitations. For the most part, technology in the future is biotech, and nothing living can survive travelling in time. This vastly limits the access PCs will have to plot-destroying toys and stops them from time-travelling around their problems. Unless you want them to do so, of course.
PCs and NPCs: Just as you may need to limit the access to toys, having robot PCs should be limited by making them lower men on the totem pole, not always privy to the foresights and decisions of their masters. They may indeed, at times, question their insight and their orders: what if they are asked to kill a friend or an innocent to preserve the perfect future? Meanwhile their human helpers can be anyone from some highschool kids who stumble onto their friends' robotic nature (cue a Roswell or Buffy type game) to super-secret scientific organisations (like the Men in Black) or even other time travellers (like The Doctor). When time is in trouble, it's everyone's concern, and when time is malleable, you can draw characters not just from everywhere, but everywhen. Superintelligent T-rexes? Uplifted canines from the aborted Jupiter colonies? Mary Antoinette with a robotic head? All this and more.
Plots and Villains: Future repairing tends to suggest an episodic style of campaign which, as mentioned, can include any kind of event you can imagine, from homespun drama to world-shaking monster fighting. All that needs to hold it all together is the knowledge that this is pulling the world towards a better future - although a good GM should make sure that this slowly becomes a visible change as well. Alternatively, campaign cohesiveness can come from recurring problems and villains: once word gets out that robots are trying to change the future, people are going to want to know how much the robots know and what sort of futures they can create themselves. Shady government agencies will try to steal the tech while idealistic FBI agents may try to expose these alien visitors. Meanwhile, enemies from the future may have a preference for or stake in alternative futures. One can imagine an awesome campaign centering on ensuring that a certain key individual does the certain things he needs to do, with both light and dark opponents appearing at critical junctures in his life to ensure he does what they want. Having most or all of the campaign focussed on this individual would make the campaign very unique, and give the players a huge personal connection to their goal. You don't have to go so far, but it's a nice idea - it might even be an idea for a subsequent toybox...
Sources: While your sources will depend on who your robots work with and how they choose to operate, time travel sources will still be useful. It is vital to watch Doctor Who, especially The Girl in the Fireplace, which is a superb example of robots trying to extract what they need from Earth's past. Quantum Leap and Journeyman are also good examples of "making the future better", and the classic Star Trek episode is City On The Edge of Forever. If you can find it, Terry Nation's Dr-Who-but-darker 1980's show Sapphire and Steel is also great grist for any time travel stories.
RPGs: I originally pitched this idea as a Buffy campaign, and either it or Angel would be perfect - Buffy even comes with the Robot trait ready to go. The world of Conspiracy X could always use another time-travelling association, and the author of that is currently working on the new Dr Who RPG which would also be perfect. Almost any superhero RPG could have futuristic robots leaping into the modern day, and they also fit perfectly well in the pulp genre, although in that case they are more likely to be leaping from the far future of 1999 and trying to stop World War Three, but the principle is the same. Finally, GURPS Time Travel is also a great resource - for this and frankly for anything.
