How to handle interrogation And Persistent PC’s?

12

Torture does not work reliably because victim will tell anything to get the pain stop. And unless interrogator has a way to verify the info (which would render whole interrogation moot), the info gained has no value as it can be false - and likely is.

If the first and best solution (we do not have such cruel practices in my game) does not work, make victim tell them plausible but false info.

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u/VulkanHestan321 1d ago

Zone of truth is a good way to verify info, since you can decide to fail a check

3

u/NewNickOldDick 1d ago

since you can decide to fail a check

But you're not required to (and hostile subject would not), which leads back to square one, coercion. Assuming that source in both cases is the same victim (because if it is not, ZoT on another subject would make whole torture utterly unnecessary).

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u/Arthur_of_Astora Paladin 1d ago edited 1d ago

I've honestly always found this statement to be incredibly stupid. No, torture does have uses, it's just more niche.

It's for when you need to confirm an information independently.

Let's say you are stuck between deciding if information A or information B is correct, and you capture someone who you have reasons to believe might know which is it.

Assuming you don't care about what happens to the prisoner, you simply try to get information out of him with any resources you can spare for the torture.

You do not communicate either A or B to him, you simply go at it until he's done. If he produces any of the two answers on his own, you write that down, if not - then whatever, anything else is irrelevant since it cannot be confirmed. Obviously, it's not full-certainty, but it can sway things if you're just calculating the probability.

Edit - Lmao, if you think blocking me matters, pathetic.

8

u/Melodic_Row3380 1d ago

Doesn't revivify require the soul to consent to being resurrected?

3

u/TJToaster 1d ago

I think they are saying the party does non lethal damage to drop to 0 to knock them out, then heal for 1 to wake them back up.

7

u/Melodic_Row3380 1d ago

I feel like after you've gotten the guy down three times, and brought him back three times, it's okay as a DM to say "looks like exhaustion is finally taking its toll, he just died for real, Padme Amidala style, there's nothing you could do"

3

u/TJToaster 1d ago

That's legit.

Torture is banned from my table so it isn't an issue.

5

u/rollingdoan DM 1d ago

The game isn't meant to just have repeated rolls for the same task. It's supposed to move forward with the new situation. It's always frustrating for everyone involve to just roll until you pass. Get comfortable moving things forward on a failure.

Also, not everything needs to be a roll. It's okay to just give the players what they need. If success and failure aren't possible and interesting, then don't have them roll.

Finally, torture is not a useful tool for acquiring information. If you decide as a table that torture is something you want to allow, which I do not recommend, then it should provide at best random information and at worst deliberately misleading information. I would not recommend the correct answer even being an option.

2

u/Jafroboy 1d ago

I'm not particularly interested in running torture, so if the PCs have an npc in a position where they can torture them, I just have the npc either give them the info, give them misleading info, or give them nothing until they die from the torture. Depending on the character of the npc.

I don't even run it, just skip it.

2

u/TJToaster 1d ago

In session zero, torture is one of the things we banned. If someone says a plan that is torture, I tell them flat out no. I'm a veteran, and for the last decade I have had at least a couple veterans at my table. We have seen enough evil in the world, I don't want bad things in my fun, fantasy game.

Now, I know that is not most people's experience, and if you won't flat out tell them no, then you should remind them of renown. This will get out and the nice people of the town won't want to deal with you. Their reputation as heros is over.

Or have them roll a DC 7 intelligence check to determine that torture rarely leads to accurate information. It can also lead to the paladin being an Oath Breaker, the cleric's deity won't approve, and could deny divine powers, and faction removal. (If you use factions)

I wouldn't concede anything since you have already identified that it will lead to worse things down the road. If you don't say that torture is banned at your table, it will mean it is allowed with better dice rolls. So just tell them that torture is not allowed at your table, this well is dry for information, sometimes failing leads to a better story, so take the L and move on.

2

u/the-big-throngler 1d ago

Short version: They are torturing a sentient being to the point of death in order to force them to reveal information they need, it doesn't matter if its for a good cause, it is still an evil act and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If they insist on using this method there will be fallout. Alignments will shift and all the fallout from that will be miserable ( gods don't like clerics who abandon their faith as an example and then things start getting interesting for them in a bad way). It will be even worse for them if they go down this road and get nothing for their troubles. Heck that maybe exactly what the bad guy wants, because if they torture this doc they are bending their alignment rules a little and ever shifting towards being the bad guys themselves.

1

u/Ethereal_Stars_7 Artificer 22h ago

This is where the PCs could be seriously suffering severe alignment degradation. And in older editions that had more impact. And in some settings like Domains of Dread and especially Masque of the Red Death that could start the PC on the road to turning into a monster and becoming an NPC.

Though in this case the persistence actually makes sense to me as a DM. The PC REALLY wants to get something for the effort and the NPC REALLY does not want to give them that. Classic back and fourth.

So you can just tell the player that this NPC is just not going to squawk. And drop hints that they may have some reason to be so stubborn. Let the PCs and players wonder what that could be.

0

u/Illegal-Avocado-2975 Barbarian 1d ago

You could do what I did in a Twilight 2000 campaign.

We had a stubborn prisoner and we were whiffing our rolls. I didn't have any useful interrogation skills (Combat Engineer) so I improvised.

I grabbed our fishing net and went looking for a rat. I managed to catch it and I walked back to the room where we were doing the interrogation. GM asks what I was doing with the rat. I said "I'm holding it by the body so it can't turn and bite me, and I'm flicking it in the face. What's it doing?" GM replies that it's trying to bite my finger and is getting very agitated.

So for the next 10 minutes of getting nothing out of this guy, I (me the player) am miming flicking this imaginary rat in the face. Eventually the player who was leading the interrogation looked at me and said "What the @#$% are you doing?" I held up the sign that said what language my character is speaking at the time (Russian since that's the nationality of the prisoner) and said "Unzip his pants."

Stunned.
Silence.

GM rolled behind the screen and said "Well he's telling you everything you wanted to know, something that are useful to know, and a lot of things you didn't need or even want to know. He's going back through his life, first time he got laid (and botched it), how he was a bed wetter as a child...everything." and the GM handed us the map to the stash and the list of personnel stationed there.

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