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Rogues beeing Rogues
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Reminds me of why torture as a means of information gathering is ridiculous.
I will absolutely tell you what I think you want to hear when you start stabbing me, whether its the truth or I ever knew it at all.
But I also hate you for torturing me, so If I do happen to know the thing then I also know enough about the thing to alter the answer to something false but plausible for a moment of relief while you act on it, because we all know if you’re torturing me, you have no intention of letting me out alive.
This is why the lets be pals/wine and dine approach is more effective.
Well, real pros say:
“Thanks for finally providing some info. We are going to go corroborate it. If you lied, or if we can’t find convincing evidence your info was right, we will take this conversation up with your wife/kid/family”
Joel did that in last of us
Joel pretended to do that in the last of us, only to turn around saying “I believe your friend” and killing the second guy immediately.
Well they really shouldn’t have stabbed him to begin with!
This is why I liked the how Torture skill in Burning Wheel does just this: you decide what the victim says. It’s not true, it’s just what they admit to.
Yeah but I have a friendly cleric. Zone of Truth doesn’t care about how you feel regarding your interrogation.
Zone of truth removes the need for torture. You can interrogate someone without causing physical or psychological harm.
They do still have the option to remain silent, though, as per the spell text. It doesn’t compel an answer, it only compels any spoken word to be the truth as you know it.
Speak with dead + zone of truth, I now have an incentive to kill you if you don’t cooperate
You don’t torture for the truth, though… causing physical and psychological harm is the whole point.
Who says we torture because we need to?
Yeah, sure, but where’s the fun in that?
Pulls out skinning knife.
Which is why you get the deets, stab anyways, check for accuracy. If incorrect, revive, repeat.
The CIA hates this one weird trick!
I doubt their soul would be willing to be revived just to be tortured and killed again.
Torture is wrong
That what the brits did to get Germans to talk in WW2
Pain can be efficient or counterproductive depending on the individual. The threat or pain is usually more efficient than the pain itself. Your “let’s be pal” approach is not far from the KUBARK’s recommendations, but it is not incompatible with coercitive methods: On the contrary several of these consist in putting the interrogatee in a state where the interrogator is perceived as a reassuring presence.
You can either tell me what I want to know, or your corpse can. slaps Speak with Dead Scroll against palm
Reasons why I like systems that have rules for this sort of thing.
“Sure, you can torture the captive. That’s a rank 8 check against Violence, so go ahead and roll. Oh, you don’t want to risk any mechanical consequences for your horrible actions? Ok then”
I feel like there’s a lot of overlap between powergaming min/maxers and war crime doers. It really keeps players in check without having to resort to hand wave-y deus ex machina like “it turns out the bartender is a level 20 barbarian lol”
rank 8 check against Violence? huh
That’s from Unknown Armies (2e). A great game with a great rulebook. It really made me think about some assumptions I’d been making about how games work.
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