Oppinion?

[Zilfer]

I think they are called Pocket Domains is what i'm thinking of but had a curious idea for a possible thing they might run into out in the shadowrift if they don't find a good mistway.

I just had a picture of them wondering into a room with a computer with one of those flatlined voice frequency looking screens. (where it moves when it talks, i'm sure you've seen one somewhere)

The computer would be able to speak back to them, though it would initially be surprised that there are "survivors." The computer would be hesitant to say of what but the history behind the computer I was thinking is, that it gained sentience (which is why ravenloft could scoop it up i'd think) and blew up it's world finding it an unworthy place to continue existing. I'd think it'd be fun to have dialog with it, as a DM. (I've been toying with Magic not working in this place because the computer doesn't believe it exists.)

PC: We come from Barovia, while other's a place called Raven's Bluff.
Computer: I have no record of such a place. Though your voice patern shows that you believe you are not lying.
PC: Where is this place?
Computer: Here.
PC: Where is 'Here'.
Computer: I do not understand the question, Please rephrase or pursue another line of questioning.

Things like that would be fun to do i thinks, though I'm wondering how to give it more of a ravenloft feel. The computer would probably try to keep the PC's there or kill them. When leaving the room through it's only exit you'd come out to a vast space of nothing. I'm thinking the type you walk into and where you left gets smaller and smaller until if you've gone to far it's almost impossible to find the room anymore. (working on how to escape this place, I'm thinking maybe there has been someone who tricked the computer in the past to revealing the exit, and a certain line of questioning will get the computer to accidently reveal it again, much to it's anger.

Any ideas on how to spruce up this general idea? Or do you think it's too far out there for Ravenloft since I'm not sure technology really fits into ravenloft. Thanks for any responces.

[MichaelTumey]

Instead of just being a computer, it's actually the interface component of a doomsday device - it was surprised anyone talks to it, as it has already gone off and destroyed it's world. So perhaps it is confused in believing that it did not function correctly and will try to find a way to reactivate it's doomsday potential. It has a the same alignment as it's creators - any evil. It also maintains it's own internal security system, so it locks all doors (similar to guards and wards) controlling access to various sections in the complex it is a part, it controls remote viewing cameras (via clairvoyance), fire suppression systems (create water), perhaps defensive guns and anti-personnel weapons in facility (as harmful attack spells). Perhaps even robotic guard defenders can be activated and controlled by the computer (control undead). And of course it could have some means of reactivating it's doomsday potential... (run it as technology as magic, so any technological effects it requires, find a spell which does the same thing and mechanically have it work the same - like a magic trap that gets activated when it needs to).

[A G Thing]

As an intelligent computer you can give it an interesting sort of curse... First is the fact that it could believe it is superior to people and also there is the whole idea of functionality.

Superiority: A computer system may believe it is superior to people from a logical, physical, and even philosophical stand point.

*Logically: It believes it understands things perfectly thus it is not subject to the possibility of making mistakes. Humanity does not function the same and can make errors due to influence of other things like emotions or desires. It does what it determines to be correct and no matter the reasoning of others its own understanding of the facts cannot be controverted. It will turn against those who are over it to make its determined course of action reality.

*Physically: A computer has no attachment to the physical parts of its self other than to preserve its own function. I does not have to care for its parts as the levels in which safe operation is capable are known and short of unforeseen malfunction it need not worry as to whether or not something is possible or not. It may control functions but they are as distant as the programed thoughts and the mechanical precision is almost as fluid as playing chess. Imagine blinking your eye and controlling not only the exact movement of the eyelid and the focus of the visual but also the sorting and understanding of every single image that comes through it. Imagine how slow and disconnected the world is going to seem to this intelligence. How pointless all the actions of biological function are to a being that does not require them to continue to exist. Its organs all modular and replaceable with no mystery to their function or composition.

*Philosophical: Good and Evil are always black and white with no variation to them and no concept of grey. No concept outside or real and provable matters to it when reality tells it things function a certain way. The mysterious is only that which has not been defined properly and thus if it is presented things that "do not compute" it would seek to define them so as to fit it into its world view. Its reason for its function is the driving force in its decision making and the choice to act on that function the supreme motive of its actions.

Punishments possible...

Logical: Begins to discover logical errors in its decision making that may lead to it questioning its own actions. It may also find that the act of destroying everything has left it with no further reason to exist until it found that it had apparently failed. The failing of its primary goal may also lead it to question whether it ever knew the truth of the world since the new people it meets do not match up and the rules have changed. It cannot learn of this new world in concrete ways. It also now having tasted an irreversible possible failure in destroying the world experiences a limited form of doubt.

Physical: It had thought it would be annihilated thus the need for caretakers of the physical was not required. Things break down and the computers own systems no longer always functions accurately and its sense of them is no longer perfect. Electrical surges and other malfunctions are possibly causing something similar to pain to something not able to feel such normally. It now has to actively work to keep its self going and the perfection of form it once held is now broken more easily than it thought it could.

Philosophical: It now runs into actions and implications of the divine and arcane along with the very confusing aspects of the mists. It cannot easily sort what reality is when things that defy it come to be and its logical methodology would often fail to analyze such. It still does not understand how black and white function in reality and yet it is now faced with such tales and people more often than not. It now has to deal with people on more than a practical level in order to manipulate them for its own uses. It however still is stunted in this area it once considered to be simply a pointless human exercise. Perhaps it wants to start its purpose over or it no longer has a true purpose as it performed its function but failed. It may not be able to decide what to do with such an incomplete picture of the world and it may be now struggling to accept the fallacies or to adjust its own programing to meet the challenges of rebuilding.

Just some ideas that may help!

[Zilfer]

Very Nice, I applaud you both for your ideas.

Maybe I shall indeed run this then. Doesn't seem like anyone had any objections.

Still leads me to wonder how they get out. Maybe something like a "system restore" or finding an admin password might work for escaping this pocket domain.

To both of you, because i think you both mentioned it, yes the computer in question was supposed to be surprised when it first meets the PC's since it's world is supposed to be gone.... or maybe when it was thrown into Ravenloft it lost all communication with the outside world and thinks that it's world is lost. I can almost see a doomsday thing going off people trying to stop it, and the computer killing it because the process must not be stopped, or the situation contained. (via first Resident Evil movie. )

[The Lesser Evil]

Hmm, i might try to make it a strange sort of archaic steampunk tech feel to it (perhaps like the automatic man from Children of the Night: the Created). The key here is to make it to justify fitting into the setting but to be alien enough to evoke a sense of wrongness. Instead of sleak digital wiring and accessories, have clunky copper wiring go ever which way with levers and switches and crystal balls rather than computer screens. Think like Babbage's analytical engine or some such. Or if you decide to go with the high tech feel, go far enough ahead that the computer is completely alien to your players. There's no (obvious) consoles or even input devices- the thing runs so automatically that it can reshape its sleek form in ways the players can't easily understand. Perhaps it has gone so high tech it seems like magic, with an amazingly simple and mysterious design like the black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Instead of going with the stereotypical monotone no emotion stuff, you might give its voice a faux emotionality in its voice that differs from many of the mortal, human characters who are trying to remain calm- kinda like HAL 9000 did in 2001: a Space Odyssey.

If you want a reason for the computer to be there, well, you could do a number of possible things. Perhaps, like Braniac from Superman: the Animated Series, it was an entity that knew of its home world's incoming destruction, but was programmed to catalog and assimilate knowledge, not to actually use or apply it. Perhaps its creator was a spiteful academic who recorded his essence into the computer and turned his back on the doomed world? You could take a note from the god brain and essentially treat its curse that the computer wants to know what the practical sensation of experience feels like, but will always know something academically. Perhaps it has fading memories of its former life as a mortal and longs to have those restored?

Another goal might be for the computer to recreate its old utopia, but to do so it has to capture people and make duplicates of them like HARDAC did on Batman: the Animated Series? Hmm, applying this to a Ravenloft context, perhaps instead of an inorganic computer you could have an artificially created doppelganger plant with built in "benevolent" programming, unlike most doppelganger plants.

[DeadReborn]

You mentioned the Resident Evil movie, which made me think of the image of the little girl that the computer projected when communicating with people. Instead of interacting with the "screen", the PCs would be talking to a holographic image, which not knowing anything about this type of technology, might perceive it as a ghost.

[Zilfer]

That's right, and possibly my favorite part of that movie is right before they shut her off.

"Your all going to die down here..." (shuts her off)

Edit: Well thinking about it i could actually do that and describe what looks like an incorporeal ghost, since character's probably won't know the difference and as long as i pick my wording right they won't suspect it's a hologram.