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Kingscourt
2011-05-17, 09:39 PM
In several campaigns, I find my good-aligned characters to run into problems, right after they catch a 'bad guy' or a minion and try to gain information from him, is that they more often then not, will simply refuse to talk. And short of torturing them (which my players wouldn't do), I keep on running into the problem of not being able to make them give up any information. Has anyone else run into this problem/know a good solution?

BluesEclipse
2011-05-17, 09:45 PM
Magical compulsions.

Kingscourt
2011-05-17, 10:03 PM
Magical compulsions.

That... is probably the most obvious and straightforward solution, I suppose. Except I continue to find myself in situations where I don't have access to things like suggestion or charm person (this most frequently occurred with my Paladin) so I end up turning them in after getting no information from them.

Archpaladin Zousha
2011-05-17, 10:04 PM
They don't try to use Diplomacy? Or possibly Intimidate or Bluff? Those skills exist for a reason, you know.

Gamer Girl
2011-05-17, 10:11 PM
This runs into the classic problem:

Orc mook knows about the Big Bad and the plan to kill everyone in the city. And orc mook is captured by the Good Guys. The good guys ask about the plot and when/where can they stop it and save the city. The orc mook refuses to talk, so the Good Guys just 'try another way to do something to stop the plot they know knowing about' and just watch the city die as there was 'nothing' they could have done.


The trick is that torture, like everything else such as killing, depends on context. For example killing farmers for fun is wrong, but it's OK to kill the goblin bandits that attack you. It's the same with torture. It's wrong to grab someone and torture them for your fun, but it's not wrong to do it for a good cause.

But if you don't like that, there are still the classic fantasy tricks:

1.This is why good folks often keep an evil or at least a 'shady' person around. So that when they need some dirty work done, they can leave the room and turn a blind eye to it.

2.You can let the foe go free or let them escape, so that you can follow them and learn the plan.

3.The Reverse Interrogation--A bit complicated, but you basically trick the guy in to telling you the information in various ways. For example, you say 'we are going to castle A' and he lets out a 'Ha, not even close', then you can eliminate castle A. But if he is quiet or tries 'too hard' to get you to go to another spot, you might be getting close. This can take a lot of time.

4.The Spy--You put the real bad guy in a cell with your under cover bad guy and then you 'torture' the undercover guy. The idea is to force a bond between the real bad guy and your plant, so they might slip up and tell them information.

5.Bribe. Simply offer them anything to help you. This can work out great as Good folk often have access to powerful healing and such magic.

6.The Trick. Do the old 'evil boss visits the captured guy' to see if he has talked. This can work even better if you do let down your guard and really let the evil boss do so for real.

Talakeal
2011-05-17, 11:00 PM
1.This is why good folks often keep an evil or at least a 'shady' person around. So that when they need some dirty work done, they can leave the room and turn a blind eye to it.


IMO Ordering someone else to do your dirty work for you is every bit as evil as doing it yourself, even if you pretend that you don't know anything about it. Otherwise the majority of BBEGs wouldn't be evil, as its their minions that do all the actual killing.

And yes, you can play really dumb, but honestly, if every time you leave Bob the CN rogue alone in a room with the monster and 10 minutes later you find that Bob has their secret plans and the monster is covered in burns and screaming for mercy something is obviously up.

Pippa the Pixie
2011-05-17, 11:01 PM
The best thing to do when you don't want the good guys to torture is to simply remake the game reality so that is not an issue. Cartoons and good themed fiction do this.

Make the bad guys Chatty Cathy's. So that they always, automatically tell the good guys thier whole evil plan and all the details and how to stop them.

Always leave Big Huge Clues. No matter what else, always have the players find something like a scroll that says 'big plan to go off at midnight at the square'.

The classic puzzle. Have the Bad Guy wait until the Last Possible Second to do even Obvious Things, so that the Good Guys can put two and two together easily.

Have the Bad Guy do Obvious 'look at me' things.

Glimbur
2011-05-17, 11:05 PM
Depending on the captive, it might be possible to convince them that their previous actions were wrong and to feel remorse. Cause a Heel Face Turn (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeelFaceTurn), if you will. It's nontrivial to do and might not always work, but it is distinctly Good.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-05-17, 11:16 PM
Diplomacy: Convince the Bad Guys to talk. Offer them a bribe, be their friend - the usual Good Cop routine.

Intimidate: Be Batman. Frighten them, talk a big game, make them be too afraid to lie.

Those are your two prime choices. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but most people that you've just beat in a fight can be convinced with enough effort.

BluesEclipse
2011-05-17, 11:23 PM
Here's a question: Does the captive KNOW what the PCs can do?

Example: In a campaign I'm in, we had captured a hobgoblin. One of the PCs in the party, a caster who had used spells in the fight, told him he was casting a spell that would tell the caster if it lied to him or disobeyed him - and would allow him to kill the hobgoblin with a word, at any time - mentioning that the spell would cause a bit of disorientation when it took hold. He then cast Daze. If the captive doesn't know much about magic, or doesn't know just how powerful the PCs are(it helped that we effectively curbstomped the hobbo and his comrades when we captured him), it could easily be enough.

A successful Bluff with the right gambit could make a captive far more compliant. Couple with Intimidate for even more effective techniques.

Have someone ELSE in the party with Diplomacy, to do the whole "good cop, bad cop" routine.

Use a Bluff to try and convince the captive you already know what's going down, and just want to know his role in it to decide if he's worth keeping around or not. Specifically, convince him that you have no need to keep him alive if he can't/won't tell you anything - and if he seems more afraid of the BBEG, remind him that the BBEG isn't there, and if he cooperates, you'll be keeping said BBEG too busy to deal with a single stray mook. If he doesn't cooperate... you can let him go, with the knowledge that the BBEG will find out he DID tell you everything he knows.

And no matter what, you have someone on hand with a good Sense Motive there, to help determine if the captive IS being honest with you. Bonus points if said person is out of sight of the captive(or invisible), to make it more impressive when you catch him in a lie.

Kalirren
2011-05-17, 11:25 PM
Your players clearly don't know how to conduct interrogations.

The most effective way of getting people to talk is to treat them like human beings. A defeated person's first reaction is to cling to their pride. Brute-force interrogation strategies (I wouldn't even call them techniques, because they just don't work well) like torture bring out exactly the wrong reaction because it attaches the prisoner's pride to their non-cooperation. This gets borne out consistently, especially in the face of cross-cultural interrogations. The closer a captive holds their identity as a soldier, as someone who continues to fight their captors, the less the captors get.

You have a prisoner who might know something? Make it clear to them that in as far as they are concerned, this war, this conflict, whatever the impending situation is, is over. They've been busted, they've been caught, they have no more horse in this race. It's under these situations, when a prisoner comes to accept a new reality of personhood as a prisoner, when they develop new, personal relationships with their captors, and when their involvement with the Big Bad becomes a part of their past, that they become gold mines of information, becuase they simply no longer have the context to determine what is or is not relevant to the conflict. They'll just end up blabbing about important details as if they were sharing old stories with friends.

TL; DR: You may need to teach your players some real interrogation techniques.

Gamer Girl
2011-05-17, 11:30 PM
IMO Ordering someone else to do your dirty work for you is every bit as evil as doing it yourself, even if you pretend that you don't know anything about it. Otherwise the majority of BBEGs wouldn't be evil, as its their minions that do all the actual killing.

And yes, you can play really dumb, but honestly, if every time you leave Bob the CN rogue alone in a room with the monster and 10 minutes later you find that Bob has their secret plans and the monster is covered in burns and screaming for mercy something is obviously up.

If you want to have a Lawful Stupid Leader type character in charge of prisoners, there are still plenty of ways to get around the Good Problem.

If you must go to the extreme you could always take out the Lawful Stupid Leader, say by turning them into stone. Then torture the bad guy, get the information, heal them up and wipe their memory of the event. Then de-stone your Lawful Stupid leader and say 'oh look what I know...'.

And if you need to, the sneaky, shady person might have to mindwipe the Lawful Stupid Leader too. Some times you have to protect people from themselves.

Or even better, would be to make sure that the Lawful Stupid Leader was not in any way in charge or have anything to do with prisoners. So that he and the majority of the good folks would have no idea how the shady good guy got the information out of the prisoner.

Talakeal
2011-05-17, 11:36 PM
So following the Geneva convention is "Lawful Stupid" now? Most real world standards consider torture evil and illegal, and most D&D sources that deal with alignment consider it always evil. I would hardly consider someone who doesn't allow torture to be "lawful stupid", in fact, I would say it is quite the opposite. Normally when I hear lawful stupid it refers to someone who treats others as sub human because they deem them evil, which is usually the basis of torture.

Also, if you have such extreme differences of opinion that people are actually mind raping other PCs to get around alignment restrictions, the group needs to end. I can't imagine such a situation not ending in PvP violence, and I would not be surprised if real life violence ensued.

Unless I specified beforehand that it would be an evil campaign said "shady character" would be out the door in a heartbeat in any game I run, and I know that the RPGA follows those same rules.

Also, simple charm spells should be able to compel the prisoner to spill whatever beans they might have, and if you have all these high level spells to use on your own party it might be a whole lot simpler and less likely to have repercussions both in and out of character.

Kalirren
2011-05-17, 11:43 PM
Addendum: Also, if you're playing your average medieval magic setting, then you can always get a cleric of a respected church to use magical compulsions like Detect Lies, Zone of Truth, Detect Thoughts, Command ("Answer!"), then try them, put them to death, and cross-examine their dead body. There is a price for running afoul of the forces of Law. Under such a setting it would be doubly strange that your players are having any trouble at all rationalizing these decisions to themselves.

Janus
2011-05-17, 11:52 PM
I've had this come up in two games-

1) Fairly recently in a PbP campaign. We'd come across some bandits cleaning up after a raid on some merchants. We managed to knock them out and tie them up. I handled a majority of the interrogations, but being a paladin, I knew that I still had to maintain my alignment (please note that we're level 1 and far from civilization, so it's difficult to obtain better interrogation means).
I basically got through it with Sense Motive checks, found out that they were afraid of their leader, and used that against them. I also hit one with the flat side of my sword when he lied to me (Lawful Good, not Nice).
Did we find out much? We discovered enough, and we're currently beating the crap out of their buddies.

2) RL game, based on the EverQuest series. King told us to interrogate an Iksar (lizardfolk, basically) prisoner (long story on why he chose us). We wound up knocking the guy out, sent all the guards away, had the King's enchanters cast illusions on us to make us look like Iksar, and got him to talk to us that way.
Heck, we even got him to confess in Common ("We've been captured by rogue Iksar! Speak Common so they won't understand!" Yeah, DM asked for a Bluff check on that).

genmoose
2011-05-18, 12:19 AM
Short answer, watch Law and Order (or any other procedural cop show for that matter). It's on at least three times a day in various incarnations.

While cops can be a little more creative than the US Army field guide allows, they generally don't cross the boundary into torture. Like many have mentioned above, the best techniques seem to be to either trick or bargain with the prisoner. While some zealots may be determined to serve their BBEG until death, but I think most henchmen or thugs have flexible loyalty. You just have to know where to push.

Maybe you can offer the mook a reduced sentence or even release. Perhaps help for his tribe or just a pile of gold.

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 12:21 AM
Personally I would just execute them and take the information I need from their corpse with Speak with Dead.

cattoy
2011-05-18, 01:09 AM
Work with me for a minute and put yourself in the headspace of someone who lives in a quasi-medieval world where magic works and gods command real power. (hard, I know)

People of this time period/pseudo time period are predominantly religious. And superstitious.

Making people swear on a bible is a modern holdover from those times where people took this stuff seriously. Seriously in the sense that they actually expected that if they lied under oath, they would be stuck dead. Or worse.

Substitute a Religion roll for Indimidation. Work up a phony ritual. The typical minion isn't going to know the difference between a fake ritual and the real thing. If you get your teammates to help set the tone, it'll work better.

Make it theatric. Make it dramatic. Put some OOMPH into it and work up a good lather. Channel some serious sulphur and brimstone sermonizing, voodoo hoodoo, southern baptist holy cacaphony or whatever it is that works for your PC.

In short - put the fear of GOD into the punk.

He'll sing.

Agrippa
2011-05-18, 01:37 AM
I have a question. Has anyone posting ever watched Burn Notice? That show might give some ideas.

Killer Angel
2011-05-18, 04:44 AM
killing farmers for fun is wrong, but it's OK to kill the goblin bandits that attack you.

Correct (when the bandits are actively trying to kill you). It's called Self Defense.


It's the same with torture. It's wrong to grab someone and torture them for your fun, but it's not wrong to do it for a good cause.


Now, i sense something wrong in this kind of reasoning... :smallamused:

Ormur
2011-05-18, 06:30 AM
Yeah, I guess it's up to the DM to make sure that good and [good] interrogation techniques work. I'm no expert but I guess they take time and a few diplomacy and intimidate rolls (nothing physical though).

If they resort to torturing feeding them more false and misleading information should be the realistic approach, at least make it an equal trade off quick and brutal and patient and effective.

hamishspence
2011-05-18, 07:00 AM
So following the Geneva convention is "Lawful Stupid" now? Most real world standards consider torture evil and illegal, and most D&D sources that deal with alignment consider it always evil. I would hardly consider someone who doesn't allow torture to be "lawful stupid", in fact, I would say it is quite the opposite.

Agreed- as far back as the old D&D game (I think the 1977 version with 5 alignments- LG, CG, N, LE, CE) it was mentioned that it was inappropriate behaviour for Good-aligned characters.

Tengu_temp
2011-05-18, 07:44 AM
Three ways of good-aligned interrogation, depending on the classical DND skills:
1. Bluff - trick the bad guy into revealing information. Works well on dim and/or prideful villains.
2. Diplomacy - convince him that it's beneficial to him if he gives you the info or, if you're really good at it, show him the error of his ways.
3. Intimidate - you're not going to hurt the bad guy, but he doesn't need to know that. Fear is a powerful tool.

And yes, torturing bad guys is always, or almost always, evil - not necessarily evil enough to turn you into a bad guy on its own, but you're heading into anti-hero territory. Letting more shady party members use torture is no different.

mathemagician
2011-05-18, 07:56 AM
If you haven't seen the "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising" it has some very humorous scenes dealing with how ridiculous it is to make your Lawful Good characters "forget" that torture happened, etc.

Winds
2011-05-18, 08:22 AM
An easier option than all of this is to change how the minions act. It's easier to succeed on your bluff/intimidate/whatever if you assume that the BBEG or his seconds have a policy of telling them that the good guys resort to torture. It makes sense for the baddies, as it inclines them to fight without letting themselves be captured, and it helps solve your problem since the minion *thinks* that the players are willing/love to torture them.

Also remember: Lawful Good is not Lawful Nice, nor does something done in extreme conditions mean they've abandoned their alignment. Most Lawful Good characters know when it's necessary to do unpleasant things.

Archpaladin Zousha
2011-05-18, 09:32 AM
Unpleasant does not necessarily mean violent though. Torture may be expedient but it's not healthy for one's alignment. I have to echo the statements made by others here. The key to interrogating a prisoner without torture is to milk those social skills for everything they're worth. Try diplomacy, to convince him you've got a better offer than his boss. Try bluffing, to trick him into talking. Try intimidating him, making upsetting you sound more painful than upsetting his boss. Good guys may be "all talk" in this case, but barring some mystical ward that causes a minion to explode when he betrays his master, talk is generally all you need.

valadil
2011-05-18, 09:49 AM
And short of torturing them (which my players wouldn't do), I keep on running into the problem of not being able to make them give up any information. Has anyone else run into this problem/know a good solution?

I think tests of morality are a must for character growth. Justifying torture is a pretty big philosophical question. Forcing a PC to do it is going to give you a strongly defined PC, especially if the PC's conclusion is different than that of the person playing him. I like finding these decisions in games and forcing them on my players. Even in darker games, I love dropping the limbo stick of morality a few pegs and seeing how low the PCs will go before their actions disgust them.

Anyway, what I think you need to do is change the player's perceptions of what they're doing. They're being good people and sticking to their guns about it. That is an interesting character decision and quality roleplaying.

But if they really need the info, let something leak. Don't give them full information (after all, there should be something else left to tempt them into doing something unsavory) but drop a hint or a clue that leads them where they need to go. Instead of telling them where the BBEG's fort is, tell them it's in a forest three days from here on horseback. Then let them narrow that down further by investigating each of the options that clue gives them.

Talyn
2011-05-18, 10:02 AM
I am assuming that you don't have access to magical truth-inducement for the purposes of this thread, because otherwise you'd just use them.

Modern aggressive interrogation techniques can make life terribly, terribly unpleasant for a captive with information without going as far as torture. For example, the CIA uses things like sleep deprivation to put people into a talkative frame of mind.

The important thing that modern interrogation has that medieval torture didn't is the alternating uses of carrot and stick. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, Law and Order does a pretty good job of showcasing the good-cop/bad-cop dichotomy that makes for good interrogation. You've got one guy who is threatening to break fingers, but you've also got the guy who has got hot bread and a warm blanket if you DO cooperate.

The trick is, you need to be able to back up both of them for it to be credible - so don't threaten anything or promise anything you won't deliver, because then you lose all credibility. So if you've got a Paladin in the group who won't let you break fingers, don't threaten to break fingers - simply threaten to put him in a hole so dark people won't even remember the sun, and leave him there forever, or something else equally dramatic but not-tortuous.

mathemagician
2011-05-18, 10:10 AM
One other reference is the novel "Noble House" by James Clavell. It's really an interesting story in its own right, but there is a section where a "lawful good" character is forced to participate in the torture a close friend because of suspected treason, using modern methods like sleep deprivation. It's very interesting because of the torturer's perspective of it, and what is necessary, and how it could threaten to change his alignment.

It's somewhere in the middle of the book, which is like 1200 pages, so I can't give you a page number :)

valadil
2011-05-18, 10:15 AM
There's always one other option if you don't have access to magic or a polygraph machine.

Booze.

If you get your captive liquored up real good, he'll probably spill the beans. Even if it's not direct, he won't be on guard and he won't be able to keep from letting clues slip. Just so long as you don't interpret giving someone a beer as poison use and any and all forms of poison count as Evil, you should be good to go with this method.

Titanium Fox
2011-05-18, 10:19 AM
Your players don't need to torture the Orc Mook to gain the information they need.

Relationship-Building Interrogation.

Basically you act all nice with the captured dude, and convince him it's the right thing to do to give you the information that you need. It does work, as contrived as it sounds.

comicshorse
2011-05-18, 10:19 AM
Truth drugs ?

I freely admit have no idea how effective these things are outside of a James Bond movie

The Succubus
2011-05-18, 10:35 AM
TL; DR: You may need to teach your players some real interrogation techniques.

Sounds fun. I can lend him a red hot poker and some thumbscrews if he wants.

The Glyphstone
2011-05-18, 11:12 AM
Great Modthulhu: Please remember that discussion of real-world politics, including real life examples of political torture, is off-limits under Inappropriate Topics. To avoid having this thread locked, keep the discussion strictly limited to fantasy, fictional, and in-game depictions of the issue.

Dimers
2011-05-18, 11:22 AM
Substitute a Religion roll for Indimidation. Work up a phony ritual. The typical minion isn't going to know the difference between a fake ritual and the real thing.

For that matter, you might be able to get a truly magical ritual that doesn't rely on normal casting ability -- something that potentially even a fighter or paladin could invoke. In D&D 3.5, Unearthed Arcana gives some examples of this sort of ritual ("incantations", starting on page 174). They're built into 4th edition under the name "rituals". No reason you can't make up one that's based on a Sense Motive or Intimidate roll.

There are two reasons to go this route -- (1) if the party doesn't include characters with appropriate spells (your wizard banned Enchantment, you're not high enough level for Speak With Dead, you're an all-martial party) and (2) if the campaign requires some way to be absolutely sure of information received.

Gamer Girl
2011-05-18, 12:51 PM
So following the Geneva convention is "Lawful Stupid" now? Most real world standards consider torture evil and illegal, and most D&D sources that deal with alignment consider it always evil. I would hardly consider someone who doesn't allow torture to be "lawful stupid", in fact, I would say it is quite the opposite. Normally when I hear lawful stupid it refers to someone who treats others as sub human because they deem them evil, which is usually the basis of torture.

And no comment on that real world stuff....

Lawful Stupid in this case is someone who lets bad and evil things happen, even though they could stop it.



Also, if you have such extreme differences of opinion that people are actually mind raping other PCs to get around alignment restrictions, the group needs to end. I can't imagine such a situation not ending in PvP violence, and I would not be surprised if real life violence ensued.

Unless I specified beforehand that it would be an evil campaign said "shady character" would be out the door in a heartbeat in any game I run, and I know that the RPGA follows those same rules.

The shady character need not be a PC, NPC's work fine for this. It can work even better if the shady character is a evil prisoner.


It does come back to, that if your running a Good Campaign, then all the evil folks should freely give away any and all needed information so that torture is not even needed. A great example is to watch any cartoon. The bad guys always have a diabolical plan, but the good guys always figure it out in seconds. A cartoon plot is written so the good guys automatically can stop the bad guys. This is common enough on some TV shows too.

pendell
2011-05-18, 01:06 PM
I would suggest -- if you have the time -- psychology. Find out what makes this mook tick and hit him in the spot most likely to produce results.

Some possible techniques:

1) Play it straight -- just ask them, point blank for the information.
Always a good starting point. You don't know what you'll get until you try it?

2) Hatred of comrades.
Imagine you've captured an orc enslaved by hobgoblins. After a couple of minutes, it becomes obvious that he hates the hobgoblins almost as much as he hates you. So you play on this , feeding his hatred and at the right moment proposing that he tell you what he knows so you can kill those hobgoblins in dramatically huge numbers. He may leap at the opportunity to tell all!

3) Love of comrades.
Imagine you've captured a goblin who's just seen his family killed by Xykon, who is sending everyone he cares about off to die in a stupid and pointless war. Play on this, suggest that the goblins may live to see another day if he tells you what he knows, the better to kill Xykon and set the goblins free.

4) bribery.
Imagine you've captured Belkar. Offer him his freedom and booze in exchange for what he knows.

5) Redemption.
Related to the above. Imagine you've captured someone who's genuinely ashamed of working for the bad guys and wants to make things right. Offer him Atonement or whatever in exchange for telling what he knows.

6) Intimidation.
Imagine you've captured a goblin. Inform him that if he doesn't talk you'll have no choice but to turn him over to the lawful good Sapphire Guard. Prisoner transfer to a lawful good authority shouldn't impinge on your alignment, but it SHOULD give him a good reason to co-operate.

7) Vanity.
Imagine you've captured Vaarsuvius. Imply s/he's not as smart as s/he thinks s/he is. Set her off on an angry rant while she explains the OOTS plans in exacting detail. Make awed sounds at their intelligence every few minutes to keep them talking. Lots of people have a Bond Villain monologue in them, if you can just figure out how to let it out.

ETA:
This link (http://www.sageofspringfield.com/argument/deception4.html) has a good discussion of psychological interrogation.

When we're talking about non-magical, non-coercive interrogation, there's as many ways to break a subject as there are prisoners to interrogate. Finding out the "lever" -- what combination of threat, inducements, and rapport -- will open a closed mouth is an art in itself. But I suspect there are very few suspects so incredibly hard and strong-willed that they can completely resist a determined attempt forever. Some people will crack a little, some will crack a lot.

...

Given that this will take a lot of work on the DM's part to build up a backstory and personality for the mook you're interrogating, it might be easier just to homebrew Profession(Interrogate) which you can put ranks into, then roll a die to see whether he cracks, and if so by how much.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Tengu_temp
2011-05-18, 02:24 PM
It does come back to, that if your running a Good Campaign, then all the evil folks should freely give away any and all needed information so that torture is not even needed. A great example is to watch any cartoon. The bad guys always have a diabolical plan, but the good guys always figure it out in seconds. A cartoon plot is written so the good guys automatically can stop the bad guys. This is common enough on some TV shows too.

Are you saying that if I want to run a campaign for good characters, I should turn it into a simplistic, cartoonish story about the fight between unfallible 100% good guys and irredeemable, mostly incompetent 100% bad guys, and have the former effortlessly win all the time? Most players prefer something more complex, and a lot of DMs (including myself) can easily run something more complex without turning it into a nineties comic book where the torturing protagonists with an eye for an eye mentality are barely better than the bad guys they fight.

TheThan
2011-05-18, 02:40 PM
two pages and nobody has posted this? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0101.html)

for shame. really for shame

Aux-Ash
2011-05-18, 02:53 PM
... then all the evil folks should freely give away any and all needed information so that torture is not even needed.

The problem with this statement is that torture is often not needed. It is a horribly inefficient way of aquiring information. To make someone withholding information talk, we're talking days, weeks or even months of routine torture. You have to completely break them down. Ruin every little hope. Break their pride. The torture victim will never fully recover. And it still takes a very long time.

The alternative, that they "don't last long" carries with it the unfortunate implication that if they were going to let slip the information you needed so "easily", they you needn't have resorted to torture in the first place. Other methods would also have worked.

There's also that someone being tortured will say -anything- that you ask for, to get the pain to stop. Not the truth. They will lie if that leads to even the shortest of reprieves.
The only way for you to be sure they are telling the truth is to be able to verify it directly. And if you have the means to verify it directly then you did not need to torture him in the first place.
If you do follow up on his advice and come back empty-handed though.... then you give him hope again. He won over you. And the entire process have to start again. This time however... he has the advantage. So you'll have to spend the next few weeks breaking him down again.

In short. In terms of aquiring urgently needed information, torture is simply not a good method. Either the victim can be convinced to divulge it through other means or it'll take a long long time before they tell you anything.

What torture is "good" at, is to force victims to say whatever you want them to say. Most notably, confessions of guilt (false or not).

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-18, 03:15 PM
It should also be noted that severe pain causes deficiencies in memory, making the victim believe his own lies. A psychologically broken person is effectively insane, and you can't expect insane people to tell what's real.

Besides, torture is not often even required to break a person. Just the threat of torture is enough to break most people who'd talk (those who are really unwilling to talk won't talk until they're well past breaking). Beyond that, just repeating the same questions over and over again in form of cross-examination can put enough pressure on a person that they'll slip.

Ultimately, all interrogation techniques are pretty poor if they're your only way to gather clues or evidence. They work much better when you have, say, a search team eliminating and checking possibilities, allowing the interrogator to better narrow down his question as well.

pendell
2011-05-18, 03:22 PM
To make someone withholding information talk, we're talking days, weeks or even months of routine torture. You have to completely break them down. Ruin every little hope. Break their pride. The torture victim will never fully recover. And it still takes a very long time.


Quite. Another concern is that pain encourages the subject to say whatever he/she has to in order to make the pain stop. That may not be the same thing as useful information. Consider the "confessions" to witchcraft of the Salem Witch Trials. You can use pain to make a subject say whatever he has to to stop hurting. But "say whatever makes you happy" may have nothing whatsoever to do with the truth.

Then again, if you torture a subject, there's an excellent chance said subject won't be able to tell you a thing even if they want to.

There's an art to interrogation. "Hurt them till they talk" looks good in an action movie, but I suspect it's over-rated. Obviously torture has a place in the neutral and evil toolbox -- why else would it still be used after thousands of years? -- but there are other methods that work which don't require hurting someone. A good character could conduct a psychological interrogation and elicit information without torture. That is, unless your DM is absolutely determined to ram an ethical dilemma down your throat and make it impossible to interrogate without torture. Can't help you there.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Tengu_temp
2011-05-18, 03:32 PM
A good character could conduct a psychological interrogation and elicit information without torture. That is, unless your DM is absolutely determined to ram an ethical dilemma down your throat and make it impossible to interrogate without torture. Can't help you there.

I think such a dilemma might be a great opportunity for roleplaying and examining your character's personality. Are you going to stay by your beliefs, choose the more difficult path? Or are you going to do something that goes against your morality and then feel remorse because of that? Or maybe you show yourself and everyone that you're not such a good guy as you thought you are? Many possibilities, and the only really wrong one is treating the whole thing as if it was no big deal.

Unless the DM just pulls something like that to make the party DND paladin fall and/or to show that he thinks nineties anti-heroes are the coolest things since sliced bread and conventionally good characters are naive and stupid. That's just being a jerk.

The Glyphstone
2011-05-18, 03:35 PM
Unless the DM just pulls something like that to make the party DND paladin fall and/or to show that he thinks nineties anti-heroes are the coolest things since sliced bread and conventionally good characters are naive and stupid. That's just being a jerk.

Sadly, this is what it turns into more often than not.

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 03:39 PM
Your players clearly don't know how to conduct interrogations.

The most effective way of getting people to talk is to treat them like human beings. A defeated person's first reaction is to cling to their pride. Brute-force interrogation strategies (I wouldn't even call them techniques, because they just don't work well) like torture bring out exactly the wrong reaction because it attaches the prisoner's pride to their non-cooperation. This gets borne out consistently, especially in the face of cross-cultural interrogations. The closer a captive holds their identity as a soldier, as someone who continues to fight their captors, the less the captors get.

You have a prisoner who might know something? Make it clear to them that in as far as they are concerned, this war, this conflict, whatever the impending situation is, is over. They've been busted, they've been caught, they have no more horse in this race. It's under these situations, when a prisoner comes to accept a new reality of personhood as a prisoner, when they develop new, personal relationships with their captors, and when their involvement with the Big Bad becomes a part of their past, that they become gold mines of information, becuase they simply no longer have the context to determine what is or is not relevant to the conflict. They'll just end up blabbing about important details as if they were sharing old stories with friends.

TL; DR: You may need to teach your players some real interrogation techniques.

Sorry, I think that's a little naive. You're talking about patriotic, trained soldiers. Not everyone has that kind of resolve. What about your common bandit? Or goblin?

Anyways, I know I would **** my pants and blab everything if someone threatened to chop my nuts off.

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 03:45 PM
What alignment would Jack Bauer from 24 be? Lawful neutral?

hamishspence
2011-05-18, 03:47 PM
Lawful Stupid in this case is someone who lets bad and evil things happen, even though they could stop it.

That might be closer to certain variants of "Stupid Good"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidGood

Lawful Stupid generally refers to following "the rules" to an unreasonable level- and punishing excessively, those who break them.

A paladin who tries to kill beings for breaking minor laws, is a Lawful Stupid paladin- and very rapidly, a Fallen paladin.


What alignment would Jack Bauer from 24 be? Lawful neutral?

Depends how heavily you weight torture as a alignment changing act- if the character does it regularly enough, and if the DM considers it seriously evil- they might end up as Lawful Evil rather than Lawful Neutral.

The Cat Goddess
2011-05-18, 03:49 PM
As only one person has mentioned... go all Batman on them.

Between Intimidation and Bluff, you can convince someone that greater horrors await... usually their own imagination will provide even better things to be frightened of than you can.

If you have a "good" reputation, then point out that one of your travelling companions... doesn't.

hamishspence
2011-05-18, 03:54 PM
There's a grey area between the two though "intimidating torture".

Which is in Fiendish Codex 2 as a very minor Corrupt act- and is "torture that does no actual damage".

At the other end of the scale, the severest, is comparable to "murder for pleasure" on the corruption scale.

Intimidation that doesn't qualify as intimidating torture is not evil.

Unfortunately, the rules don't say where the line between "intimidation" and "intimidating torture" may be- so it's up to the DM.

Analytica
2011-05-18, 03:55 PM
For those of you with better insight into the psychology of interrogation than I, how well does the threat of a very long, painful life and/or disfigurement work on someone like a highly patriotic and trained soldier? Obviously, this is no longer anywhere near Good aligned territory, but... I am thinking things like slow, deliberate and permanent destruction of useful or pleasant body parts, genitals, mobility-providing limbs, facial features and so forth, threat of infection with non-lethal but crippling diseases, sloppy surgical alterations for fun, or promising disablement and then a long life similar to the sex slave sleeping in the coffert in the basement in Pulp Fiction.

It always seems to me that these things ought to frighten much more than any beating or drowning or electric shocks could, but perhaps there is a threshold after which nothing gets to you, or you just go insane?

Kalirren
2011-05-18, 03:56 PM
Sorry, I think that's a little naive. You're talking about patriotic, trained soldiers. Not everyone has that kind of resolve. What about your common bandit? Or goblin?

I just sort of assumed that the worst case scenario was under discussion. The other cases are easier. Of course the common bandit or goblin can be intimidated or bribed, and I assume the OP and his group has tried those already. It's when those tactics don't work that they need to haul out more psychologically advanced interrogation techniques, which is what the OP was asking for. Not that I'm a professional interrogator, but a few people earlier in the thread were advocating the use of torture in that situation as a technique of choice, which is a clearly amateurish mark.

Jack Bauer is Lawful Evil, quite obviously.

Nerd-o-rama
2011-05-18, 04:02 PM
I once had my Chaotic Good Warblade hang a bound gnome from a rafter by his arms and push him around like a weighted pendulum a bit. Technically, this is torture, but it mostly just made the guy dizzy, and the GM was cool with it.

For less...unorthodox Good Guys, I'd suggest playing Good Cop. Good Cop/Bad Cop if there's a character willing to play Bad Cop in the party, but even the former alone works. Sit down with the mook, have a reasoned discussion, explain that you don't want to kill him and if he cooperates, you'll just send him back to his orc tribe or whatever. Back this up with Diplomacy checks, and that's a Lawful Good interrogation method. (If he doesn't talk, do whatever you were planning to do with a captured character anyway, presumably take him to some authorities or tie him up and leave him in a ditch until he can take 20 on an Escape Artist check.)

Intimidation also works, since it's merely a matter of threatening someone until they talk from fear - the more creative the threats, the better. You don't have to actually follow through on them if they don't talk or honestly don't know anything.


Some thoughts across the law/chaos spectrum:

Lawful Good Intimidation-based interrogation:
"Tell me what you know or you'll be handed over to the palace guards and executed."
"No."
*hands enemy over to palace guards; he's executed*

Chaotic Good Intimidation-based interrogation:
"Tell me what you know or I'll make sausage out of your liver and feed it to you, and you won't be able to digest it because you'll have no liver."
"No."
"Okay, you called my bluff. I'm just going to leave you in the woods here, you'll be fine as soon as you get out of the manacles."

Bobby Archer
2011-05-18, 04:13 PM
What alignment would Jack Bauer from 24 be? Lawful neutral?

Actually, I'd put Jack Bauer at Chaotic Good. He's out to protect the greater good and the safety of others at the expense of himself. He's also willing to cross just about any moral line to get there.

I tend to visualize the Lawful -> Chaotic axis as an answer to the question: Do the ends justify the means? For staunchly Lawful characters, they do not. The morality of the means by which the end is attained are just as important as the morality of the end.

For a Lawful Good character, torture is wrong. Period. And resorting to it makes the characters just as bad as the people they're against. A Chaotic Good, Neutral Good, or even Lawful Neutral (depending on the rules and mores held to) character may have an easier time justifying more extreme measures.

Aux-Ash
2011-05-18, 04:16 PM
For those of you with better insight into the psychology of interrogation than I, how well does the threat of a very long, painful life and/or disfigurement work on someone like a highly patriotic and trained soldier? Obviously, this is no longer anywhere near Good aligned territory, but... I am thinking things like slow, deliberate and permanent destruction of useful or pleasant body parts, genitals, mobility-providing limbs, facial features and so forth, threat of infection with non-lethal but crippling diseases, sloppy surgical alterations for fun, or promising disablement and then a long life similar to the sex slave sleeping in the coffert in the basement in Pulp Fiction.

It always seems to me that these things ought to frighten much more than any beating or drowning or electric shocks could, but perhaps there is a threshold after which nothing gets to you, or you just go insane?

It isn't about bodily harm at all. It's about breaking their faith in their homeland/leaders/friends. That's how you break patriots.
That's what torture is all about essentially. And that is what you make them fear.

Gamer Girl
2011-05-18, 04:17 PM
Are you saying that if I want to run a campaign for good characters, I should turn it into a simplistic, cartoonish story about the fight between unfallible 100% good guys and irredeemable, mostly incompetent 100% bad guys, and have the former effortlessly win all the time? Most players prefer something more complex, and a lot of DMs (including myself) can easily run something more complex without turning it into a nineties comic book where the torturing protagonists with an eye for an eye mentality are barely better than the bad guys they fight.

I never said that. Geee, everyone reads so much in to everything.

Cartoons are a great source for 'good' plots. The typical action-type cartoon has a big bad who is trying to take over the world, with only a brave group of heroes to stop them. And cartoons always have a good way around unpoliticaly correct things like torture, death and injury. Take the classic G.I. Joe effect of 'they always jump out of the plane/tank just before it explodes'....so no death or injury what so ever.

And in cartoons the heroes will often be clueless as to the Big Bad's Evil Plot...but they do catch a bad guy or two. Just watch how they 'amazing' get the needed plot information so that they can save the day(without torture even being hinted at). The other classic is to have the bad guys capture the good guys and take them exactly where they need to go to save the day and then, of course, lock them up unguarded in a tool shed.

The same way on TV shows/movies the captured bad guy always takes the deal of ''tell us what you know and we make you a deal/drop some charges/let you go''. They have to take the deal to make the plot move forward.

The game needs to do the same thing, simply have the bad guys automatically give up information to let the plot move forward. So just add in all the helpful stuff for the players. The dumb mook-''the bomb is under the red tower..opps, I'm not suss post to tell you that!''; The Starscream-"I'll tell you how to stop the plot'', the corny lines--when the bad guy has a bomb and will blow up something in London and says it will be a 'big time', you know he will blow up Big Ben; or just have the bad guy 'challenge' the good guys(aka-''the bomb is on bus 16 at the corner of 23rd and park..pop quiz hot shot'').

The idea is simple, advance the plot and story.

hamishspence
2011-05-18, 04:19 PM
Actually, I'd put Jack Bauer at Chaotic Good. He's out to protect the greater good and the safety of others at the expense of himself. He's also willing to cross just about any moral line to get there.

I tend to visualize the Lawful -> Chaotic axis as an answer to the question: Do the ends justify the means? For staunchly Lawful characters, they do not. The morality of the means by which the end is attained are just as important as the morality of the end.

I don't know- the whole point about crossing moral lines is that they're, well, moral lines- and by doing so, the character is further away from Good and closer to Neutral or even Evil.

I imagine a strongly Good, Chaotic character, as one who believes in Chaos as a good thing- yet who won't compromise, morally, to fulfill it. They won't do Evil things, just to further their goal- a more Chaotic world.

In Heroes of Horror, characters who would be good normally, but who do evil things toward a Good end, are "a flexible Neutral alignment".

And in Champions of Ruin, to routinely commit Evil acts, for whatever reason- is a potential sign of an Evil alignment.

Analytica
2011-05-18, 04:23 PM
It isn't about bodily harm at all. It's about breaking their faith in their homeland/leaders/friends. That's how you break patriots.
That's what torture is all about essentially. And that is what you make them fear.

So basically, you go through with the entire Tzimisce fleshcrafter, infect-with-HIV, get addicted to drugs routine, and it still just leaves you with a crippled, depressed, bored sex slave in a coffert in your basement who still won't talk, because protecting their friends and cause is the only thing they now have left to hope for in the world? I guess that does make sense. That makes things harder for evil torturers too, then...

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 04:25 PM
And no comment on that real world stuff....

Lawful Stupid in this case is someone who lets bad and evil things happen, even though they could stop it. .

I have never heard lawful stupid used in that way before.

Real world stuff aside, the D&D game explicitly states that torture for a good end is an extremely evil act. If your players resort to it frequently, even for the greater good, they will violate any code of conduct they may have, and if it happens frequently they will lose their good alignment.

Personally I object to D&D's rigid alignment code, but in this case torture is a very evil act for very little good. Without magic you have no way of verifying that the subject even has the information you want, in which case you are just torturing them for the hell of it.





The shady character need not be a PC, NPC's work fine for this. It can work even better if the shady character is a evil prisoner..

If I had NPCs turning my players into stone and mind wiping them because "they know what is best" I would have a player riot and be sitting alone at the table so fast my DM screen would be spinning. I know my group is especially hostile to "uppity NPCs", but I can't imagine any group would take this well, I know I wouldn't.


There is very little reason to torture someone in a realistic setting. You have no way of knowing if they are lying, or even have the information you need, and there are very few cases where a specific piece of information is that vital to peoples safety. You can Google the "ticking time bomb" scenario commonly used in TV to find plenty of reasons why it just doesn't work.

In a typical high magic world though, torture is only the domain of the sadistic. Most people flat out won't have any useful information, and those who do will likely have a will save high enough to stand up to torture. Simple divination or charm spells can also be used to get the information directly with little or no mess or alignment violation.

Also, playing "good cop" is far more effective than torture at getting information. Just make sure if you are a paladin you legitimately do want to help them or you are violating the honorable part of your code.


What alignment would Jack Bauer from 24 be? Lawful neutral?

Its funny how the two responses you got were LE and CG, complete opposite ends of the spectrum. I am not sure if that illustrates how poorly written the alignment rules are, or that it implies if you go too far in either direction you start to come around.

Personally I would say LN is right. Although I haven't actually seen the show, I understand it is about a guy who will do anything to fight the bad guys. In which case I would say lawful, because he is supporting his government and fighting to preserve order, and neutral, because while he is willing to perform evil acts he isn't doing it for pleasure or to serve his own ends, but out of duty.

Kalirren
2011-05-18, 04:32 PM
For those of you with better insight into the psychology of interrogation than I, how well does the threat of a very long, painful life and/or disfigurement work on someone like a highly patriotic and trained soldier? Obviously, this is no longer anywhere near Good aligned territory, but... I am thinking things like slow, deliberate and permanent destruction of useful or pleasant body parts, genitals, mobility-providing limbs, facial features and so forth, threat of infection with non-lethal but crippling diseases, sloppy surgical alterations for fun, or promising disablement and then a long life similar to the sex slave sleeping in the coffert in the basement in Pulp Fiction.

It always seems to me that these things ought to frighten much more than any beating or drowning or electric shocks could, but perhaps there is a threshold after which nothing gets to you, or you just go insane?

From the prisoner's perspective, yes, obviously, I imagine such a threat would be downright frightening. I would imagine that in general, the threat of mutilation is probably more useful than the mutilation itself would be. From the interrogator's perspective, though, okay sure, you make the threat. It might work, in which case you might get a piece of information, though not long-term cooperation. If it doesn't work, though, what then? Do you go through with it? If you don't go through with it, then you've shown weakness, given the prisoner a victory they'd never possibly have had even the opportunity to achieve, which is a disaster for you. And if you do go through with it, congratulations, you've violated the dignity of the prisoner's body, you probably still don't have your information, and you can't even make the same threat again because if it didn't work the first time when the prisoner still -had- bodily dignity and integrity, it probably wouldn't work any better any subsequent time, given you've already taken that integrity from them. I'm a coward, but even I know that once I've lost one finger, I'll be much more content to lose a second. Add to that the obvious, extra resentment you've engendered, and you've made it that much harder to make progress.

So I imagine that it would be much more productive in the end to shoot for long-term cooperation than to bet the bank on the effectiveness of a threat of mutiliation or torture or the like. You have a prisoner's body, but you don't have their mind, which is what you -really- want. The only way to get to their mind is to get them to stop defending it. For most people a diversionary threat to the body works. Against a trained, loyal soldier? Probably not.

Edit:


Actually, I'd put Jack Bauer at Chaotic Good. He's out to protect the greater good and the safety of others at the expense of himself. He's also willing to cross just about any moral line to get there.

Doesn't that make him Lawful Evil? Chaos-Law is about ethics, especially the belief in the righteousness of institutions, not self-interest or self-sacrifice. Good-Evil is about morality. If he's willing to cross any moral line and put himself to expense to protect what he thinks of as the greater good (which is quite obviously the greater good in the case of 24,) that's Lawful Evil.

RPGuru1331
2011-05-18, 04:33 PM
Actually, I'd put Jack Bauer at Chaotic Good. He's out to protect the greater good and the safety of others at the expense of himself. He's also willing to cross just about any moral line to get there.
This is how you identify successful propaganda from failed propaganda, really.

Lawful Evil. Possibly Lawful Neutral with extremely evil leanings.

Evil people can love. If an evil person loves their country, they can be just as patriotic as a good person. Protecting what you love through torture and murder (Ethically if not legally) is evil. Period. This isn't some victimless crime like Necromancy is in DnD, after all.

Tengu_temp
2011-05-18, 04:34 PM
Jack Bauer is LE. He certainly is not CG: CG doesn't mean being willing to break your moral rules and reach the end no matter the costs, it means being a good person who values freedom and individualism - or something similar, the law/chaos axis is really badly defined.


The idea is simple, advance the plot and story.

You can do those things without solving everything for the party. The important thing about being good is that it's not the easy way. Good characters often meet situations where it'd be much simpler, more convenient, to abandon their morals and solve the situation in a not-so-good way, like torturing a prisoner. But they don't do that, and that gives them higher moral ground. If you make good the easy way, you take the satisfaction from being good away.
Also, the players are bound to feel disappointed if their characters have good persuasion skills, but never get to use them because bad guys already blab everything on their own.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-18, 04:46 PM
Sorry, I think that's a little naive. You're talking about patriotic, trained soldiers. Not everyone has that kind of resolve. What about your common bandit? Or goblin?
Such a good thing, then, that the softer techniques will also obviously work much better on weaker-willed targets.

Anyways, I know I would **** my pants and blab everything if someone threatened to chop my nuts off.

Yeah, and because you're weak-willed, the threat is enough. No need to get to the actual torture part. Even a good person can momentarily act like he's about to unleash mindless violence on you, without ever really meaning to follow through - and that momentary scariness is enough to get someone who's not willing to suffer to spit it out.

But you can achieve the same thing with bribery, friendliness and myriad other ways.

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 04:48 PM
Yeah, but a person torturing a proven terrorist to save a million+ people doesn't seem evil to me. It's actually kind of heroic, since he's sacrificing his own morals and personal honor to do what no one else has the balls to do. It might seem evil to some, but to others it would be considered good. That's why I think Bauer would be LN. He's law abiding otherwise, is loyal and patriotic, but is willing to do evil for the greater good, even if it would tarnish his own reputation.

I think if he was LE, he would relish in the torture. It would be his first resort instead of his last.

Lord Raziere
2011-05-18, 04:50 PM
Lie that you are evil and will do anything to extract the info from them, make your deception as convincing as possible, like deliberately cutting your own thumb with a knife to convince them that if that is what he is willing to do to himself, then then what is he going to do to you?

Tengu_temp
2011-05-18, 04:51 PM
There is nothing heroic about sacrificing your own morals.

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 04:51 PM
Such a good thing, then, that the softer techniques will also obviously work much better on weaker-willed targets.


Yeah, and because you're weak-willed, the threat is enough. No need to get to the actual torture part. Even a good person can momentarily act like he's about to unleash mindless violence on you, without ever really meaning to follow through - and that momentary scariness is enough to get someone who's not willing to suffer to spit it out.

But you can achieve the same thing with bribery, friendliness and myriad other ways.

Just the threat of violence is illegal in some places. Just ask my last GF. Would a Paladin lose his status if he broke those types of laws? How is the threat of violence not mental torture?

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 04:54 PM
Yeah, but a person torturing a proven terrorist to save a million+ people doesn't seem evil to me. It's actually kind of heroic, since he's sacrificing his own morals and personal honor to do what no one else has the balls to do. It might seem evil to some, but to others it would be considered good. That's why I think Bauer would be LN. He's law abiding otherwise, is loyal and patriotic, but is willing to do evil for the greater good, even if it would tarnish his own reputation.

I think if he was LE, he would relish in the torture. It would be his first resort instead of his last.

If you are talking about D&D then the BoED say's you are flat out wrong, the sacrifice of one's own purity is always a victory for evil because it gives tremendous supernatural powers to the forces of hell who go on to use those powers to do even greater evil. But I think that's hogwash anyway...

In my campaign setting commoners are forbidden from performing evil acts for the greater good, however the Knight class is responsible for performing executions and other such acts, the sacrifice of their innocence to protect the purity of their charges being one of the many sacrifices their code demands. There are those who want to go one step further and replace all torturers and executioners with the undead, who are already damned.

Although there are very very few situations where torture is necessary, and it is my understanding that 24 goes out of their way to set up such situations that would never happen in real life.

Da'Shain
2011-05-18, 04:55 PM
Yeah, but a person torturing a proven terrorist to save a million+ people doesn't seem evil to me. It's actually kind of heroic, since he's sacrificing his own morals and personal honor to do what no one else has the balls to do. It might seem evil to some, but to others it would be considered good. That's why I think Bauer would be LN. He's law abiding otherwise, is loyal and patriotic, but is willing to do evil for the greater good, even if it would tarnish his own reputation.

I think if he was LE, he would relish in the torture. It would be his first resort instead of his last.I could see LN, but the argument that he's sacrificing his own personal morals pretty much definitively means that he's sacrificing his own morals, and is far more likely to be evil.

Plus, as others have pointed out: it's not that other people don't have the balls to do it. It's that torture is a highly unreliable means of extracting truthful information that generally does not work fast or accurately in the real world, despite what television or stories might lead one to believe. Even if we're not arguing about it from a moral standpoint, it's almost always the wrong choice practically.

Of course, we are arguing about it from a moral standpoint. And the whole "inflict extreme, damaging on one person to save millions" argument doesn't hold much weight in determining whether an action is Good or not, unless there is literally no other way to get the information.

Marnath
2011-05-18, 04:57 PM
This whole debate is much simpler if you have some spells available. Like charm person, or detect thoughts( you might be surprised how easy it is to get someone to think about a thing just by asking them about it.)

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 05:02 PM
The problem is D&D is completely black and white, and only has a single scale for Good and Evil.

Being willing to do something you don't want to do because it has to be done is a more complex thing than just being good or evil, especially if you are doing it to protect someone else's innocence.

RPGuru1331
2011-05-18, 05:05 PM
Yeah, but a person torturing a proven terrorist to save a million+ people doesn't seem evil to me.
Let us momentarily suspend reality and pretend torture is an effective means to an end that involves serious information gathering. We're discussing fantasy, so this is fair.

Any claim that a terrorist has somehow forfeited their right to not be tortured can and will be used against you in any context imaginable. A more vengeful human would, in fact, say it should be, but I am not so. It is an extremely rare individual who sets out to accomplish evil, and in fantasy this is only downgraded to "uncommon in adult fiction". A motive is generally had for /why/ they do the things they do. It may not be sympathetic, as such, but the villain thinks it is. Do you not think, if torture is permissible 'for the greater good', you would somehow not count? You realize you're at best a flunky for an evil organization, in these people's minds. Further, you're admitting that if you yourself stand in the way of the greater good, for any reason whatsoever, that it is perfectly permissible to torture *you*, if it would advance that greater good. What if the greater good requires a patsy, and you're well placed as such. Well, hope you like being tortured to produce the confessions needed to sell the story! Because according to you, it's not just acceptable, but morally praiseworthy to torture you.

Everyone deserves not to be tortured. They only deserve to have the utmost minimum pain inflicted on them; It's possible, and understandable, to overshoot this. We, or at least I, may hope that, for instance, the terrorist isn't killed, can be captured and with time recover, but it's understandable that, when they're shooting at you, you kill them in self defense. It's not 'optimal', but you're a fallible human, so it's not like you can make the optimal happen. However, if after shooting the 'terrorist' shooting at you, you find the corpse isn't, and they're still breathing, you don't get to shoot them again to make sure they die. It's murder. The minimum that needed to be done was done, and they are no longer shooting at you; exceeding that bound is wrong.



It's actually kind of heroic, since he's sacrificing his own morals and personal honor to do what no one else has the balls to do.
Your honor will buy you a latte if you bring 10 bucks with it. There is a reason he's the only one willing to do it; it's because nobody SHOULD do it.


It might seem evil to some, but to others it would be considered good.
I had to think for an extra second on how to respond to this, because the first second was wasted with a dozen RL counterpoints.
You do realize that Magneto tends to justify all his civilian kills with "This is for Mutants", thinking that their freedom is a good sufficient to outweigh the deaths he just caused, right? Or at least it was for a while, comics change frequently, and he might be on some penitence arc until he next snaps.


even if it would tarnish his own reputation.
Doesn't he get repeatedly promoted?

Gamer Girl
2011-05-18, 05:14 PM
There is very little reason to torture someone in a realistic setting. You have no way of knowing if they are lying, or even have the information you need, and there are very few cases where a specific piece of information is that vital to peoples safety. You can Google the "ticking time bomb" scenario commonly used in TV to find plenty of reasons why it just doesn't work.

I always wondered about this. Odd that torture 'automatically never' works, but oddly the other stuff 'automatically always' works. It's a bit more like someone is attempting to convince people then state a fact. Let say you bribe the orc bad guy, or give him a free vacation to a tropical island or any of the other soft and gentile ways to get information. Well, how do you know the orc does not lie then?

The truth is you really can't believe anything a bad guy says. A bad guy does not automatically tell you the truth if your nice to them.

So if your the type that does not like torture, your best to just eliminate it from your game absolutely. As I said, craft the game so it just never comes up and the players 'just get' all the plot information they need.


A thought:

Does anyone think that casting a charm or compulsion on unwilling and helpless person is torture? Is a violation of a persons 'rights' to do so? Or is this ok as they are only 'hurt' in their mind and they can 'get over it'.

Along the same line, is reading someones mind, without their consent and permission torture or an evil act? Is it ok to 'steal' thoughts and information?

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 05:17 PM
Let us momentarily suspend reality and pretend torture is an effective means to an end that involves serious information gathering. We're discussing fantasy, so this is fair.

Any claim that a terrorist has somehow forfeited their right to not be tortured can and will be used against you in any context imaginable. A more vengeful human would, in fact, say it should be, but I am not so. It is an extremely rare individual who sets out to accomplish evil, and in fantasy this is only downgraded to "uncommon in adult fiction". A motive is generally had for /why/ they do the things they do. It may not be sympathetic, as such, but the villain thinks it is. Do you not think, if torture is permissible 'for the greater good', you would somehow not count? You realize you're at best a flunky for an evil organization, in these people's minds. Further, you're admitting that if you yourself stand in the way of the greater good, for any reason whatsoever, that it is perfectly permissible to torture *you*, if it would advance that greater good. What if the greater good requires a patsy, and you're well placed as such. Well, hope you like being tortured to produce the confessions needed to sell the story! Because according to you, it's not just acceptable, but morally praiseworthy to torture you.

Everyone deserves not to be tortured. They only deserve to have the utmost minimum pain inflicted on them; It's possible, and understandable, to overshoot this. We, or at least I, may hope that, for instance, the terrorist isn't killed, can be captured and with time recover, but it's understandable that, when they're shooting at you, you kill them in self defense. It's not 'optimal', but you're a fallible human, so it's not like you can make the optimal happen. However, if after shooting the 'terrorist' shooting at you, you find the corpse isn't, and they're still breathing, you don't get to shoot them again to make sure they die. It's murder. The minimum that needed to be done was done, and they are no longer shooting at you; exceeding that bound is wrong.



Your honor will buy you a latte if you bring 10 bucks with it. There is a reason he's the only one willing to do it; it's because nobody SHOULD do it.


I had to think for an extra second on how to respond to this, because the first second was wasted with a dozen RL counterpoints.
You do realize that Magneto tends to justify all his civilian kills with "This is for Mutants", thinking that their freedom is a good sufficient to outweigh the deaths he just caused, right? Or at least it was for a while, comics change frequently, and he might be on some penitence arc until he next snaps.


Doesn't he get repeatedly promoted?

What I'm talkin' about and what usually happens in 24 is that a prolific terrorist organization is on the brink of attacking again, but this time it's gonna be bigger and deadlier, and Jack has like 10 minutes to learn the location of the weapon before it goes off and kills an entire city full of people. He's not about to get medieval on some random dude, but a guy who's already killed innocents before, has been proven to be linked to the current attack and has considerable knowledge about it and possibly how to stop it.

I don't see how that's the same thing as the Magneto example. Magneto is killing innocent humans based off his own twisted mindset. Jack Bauer isn't. He's targeting a known threat to prevent the slaughter of innocent lives. Big diff IMO.

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 05:19 PM
Not to mention in some societies cruel and unusual punishment is legal. So the criminal probably had it coming anyway based off past crimes...

Da'Shain
2011-05-18, 05:22 PM
I always wondered about this. Odd that torture 'automatically never' works, but oddly the other stuff 'automatically always' works. It's a bit more like someone is attempting to convince people then state a fact. Let say you bribe the orc bad guy, or give him a free vacation to a tropical island or any of the other soft and gentile ways to get information. Well, how do you know the orc does not lie then?

The truth is you really can't believe anything a bad guy says. A bad guy does not automatically tell you the truth if your nice to them.

So if your the type that does not like torture, your best to just eliminate it from your game absolutely. As I said, craft the game so it just never comes up and the players 'just get' all the plot information they need.


A thought:

Does anyone think that casting a charm or compulsion on unwilling and helpless person is torture? Is a violation of a persons 'rights' to do so? Or is this ok as they are only 'hurt' in their mind and they can 'get over it'.

Along the same line, is reading someones mind, without their consent and permission torture or an evil act? Is it ok to 'steal' thoughts and information?I don't think that anyone's claiming torture never works, just that other methods are far more likely to yield truthful results. But you're right, you can't really trust any information you get from an interrogation until you verify it yourself. Of course, in that case, torture would be pretty much Always Evil no matter what, as inflicting pain as opposed to convincing someone when the results will be the same, or better with the non-torture way, is textbook sadism (and not the consensual kind).

On various magical ways of obtaining the truth from a person: I would place all of those as neutral acts with a slight tendency towards evil if overused, so long as no damage is caused to the subject (from the act, not from what the villain may or may not do when they find out they're betrayed). In which case, it becomes Evil again.

What I'm talkin' about and what usually happens in 24 is that a prolific terrorist organization is on the brink of attacking again, but this time it's gonna be bigger and deadlier, and Jack has like 10 minutes to learn the location of the weapon before it goes off and kills an entire city full of people. He's not about to get medieval on some random dude, but a guy who's already killed innocents before, has been proven to be linked to the current attack and has considerable knowledge about it and possibly how to stop it.Again, despite what TV may tell you, torture most often does not work that fast or produce truthful results, especially when the subject knows they'll either be imprisoned for the rest of their life or executed anyway.

Not to mention in some societies cruel and unusual punishment is legal. So the criminal probably had it coming anyway based off past crimes...Slavery and the casual murder of underlings have been legal in a few societies as well. Societies are just as capable of being Evil as people.

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 05:27 PM
Okay, I got another question. I hope it's not throwing the conversation too far off, but....

If the players have all these spells in the first place to deter torture, why even fight in the first place? If they're so "humane", why don't they just carry around sleep wands, or charm wands to avoid any physical confrontation or death altogether? Isn't that why police carry tazers, so they can avoid using their guns???

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 05:28 PM
Along the same line, is reading someones mind, without their consent and permission torture or an evil act? Is it ok to 'steal' thoughts and information?

You can use Mind Control for torture, for example dominating someone and forcing them to kill their own loved ones. Simply commanding them to perform a normal action is about, in my mind, on the same ethical level as standard combat.
Likewise I would say emotion influencing spells are like bribing someone or getting them drunk, and mind reading spells are about the same as an invasive pat down or searching their residence.
I would consider giving someone total amnesia the equivalent of murder, and I would consider altering or rebuilding someone's personality or memories the equivalent of rape.

Da'Shain
2011-05-18, 05:30 PM
Okay, I got another question. I hope it's not throwing the conversation too far off, but....

If the players have all these spells in the first place to deter torture, why even fight in the first place? If they're so "humane", why don't they just carry around sleep wands, or charm wands to avoid any physical confrontation or death altogether? Isn't that why police carry tazers, so they can avoid using their guns???Ideally they would be able to, but such mind-affecting spells do not work on everyone. If such devices could be made foolproof, then there really would be no reason to fight, yes.

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 05:33 PM
Okay, I got another question. I hope it's not throwing the conversation too far off, but....

If the players have all these spells in the first place to deter torture, why even fight in the first place? If they're so "humane", why don't they just carry around sleep wands, or charm wands to avoid any physical confrontation or death altogether? Isn't that why police carry tazers, so they can avoid using their guns???

Most characters do not have unlimited access to wands unless you are playing a very high wealth high magic game. Further most characters cannot use said wand as they do not have the spell on their list of UMD as a class skill.
Second, most dangerous beings are immune to sleep and charm.
Third, the effects are only temporary, and you still need to deal with them permanently.

Remember, the authors of D&D feel that torture is always evil, while using violence or even execution against evil beings is usually a good act.

conaniscool
2011-05-18, 05:36 PM
Remember, the authors of D&D feel that torture is always evil, while using violence or even execution against evil beings is usually a good act.

Hehehe, that's funny.

RPGuru1331
2011-05-18, 05:42 PM
I don't think that anyone's claiming torture never works, just that other methods are far more likely to yield truthful results.
The specific claim is "If torture could possibly work on a short time frame, it's unnecessary, because you could have easily gotten it another way"


What I'm talkin' about and what usually happens in 24 is that a prolific terrorist organization is on the brink of attacking again, but this time it's gonna be bigger and deadlier, and Jack has like 10 minutes to learn the location of the weapon before it goes off and kills an entire city full of people. He's not about to get medieval on some random dude, but a guy who's already killed innocents before, has been proven to be linked to the current attack and has considerable knowledge about it and possibly how to stop it.
You can't effectively torture someone in 10 minutes. It probably takes about that long to strap them into your torture device. Given this premise, you have already failed, the axe has just not fallen yet.

None of it matters one bit to establishing a code of ethics by which people are to be judged. If torture is permitted in the name of the greater good, if you stand in the way of the greater good for any reason whatsoever, and torture would effectively forward the greater good, you can be tortured, by your own moral code, and it would still be ethical. If your logic is indeed the forwarding of the greater good, your motives can only count inasmuch as they effect whether you bring about the greater good or not.



If the players have all these spells in the first place to deter torture, why even fight in the first place? If they're so "humane", why don't they just carry around sleep wands, or charm wands to avoid any physical confrontation or death altogether? Isn't that why police carry tazers, so they can avoid using their guns???
It's the same reason soldiers ever use bullets instead of tranquilizer guns. Lethal force is substantially more reliable than nonlethal force in combat, and that's important when you are actually being fired upon. You should probably have Save or Lose spells prepared, not Save or Die, since they're more or less exactly as reliable as each other, but other than that there's still reason to prepare non-OHKO's.

Maryring
2011-05-18, 05:43 PM
On various magical ways of obtaining the truth from a person: I would place all of those as neutral acts with a slight tendency towards evil if overused, so long as no damage is caused to the subject (from the act, not from what the villain may or may not do when they find out they're betrayed). In which case, it becomes Evil again.
Again, despite what TV may tell you, torture most often does not work that fast or produce truthful results, especially when the subject knows they'll either be imprisoned for the rest of their life or executed anyway.
Slavery and the casual murder of underlings have been legal in a few societies as well. Societies are just as capable of being Evil as people.
Justification please? I understand that using them as a crutch could quickly be inefficient, but evil? That I'm not seeing.

And in DnD there are a lot of spells that can be used to make them want to tell you the truth so they can experience said bliss again. Spells such as Good Hope or Heroism from the SRD, or Visions of Heaven or a small dose of distilled joy from BoEDs can all make said evil minion think that "huh, these guys aren't half bad. Perhaps there's more to life than beat or be beaten". Just cause it makes for poor TV doesn't it mean that positive reinforcement is worthless in acquiring information.

erikun
2011-05-18, 05:52 PM
Does anyone think that casting a charm or compulsion on unwilling and helpless person is torture?
Just a quick response, but interrogation is not automatically equal to torture. Unless the charm/compulsion causes them pain or harm, I wouldn't call it torture. It could certainly be illegal and/or against their rights though, given the situation.


I'm going to agree with what some earlier posters said, that Diplomancy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive are the best way to handle "good-aligned" interrogations. If you are the DM and want to simplify things (perhaps because your PCs have no clue what to do with captured prisoners), then I'd recommend a simple "offer them something and roll Diplomancy," "threaten them and roll Intimidate," and "roll Sense Motive to see if you can get the truth out of them." It's quite simplified, but if the players don't want to roleplay the situation and just want to move on, it can probably work.

Bluff can work, depending on the nature of the bluff. Threatening to chop off their fingers is likely a bad idea, especially if they call the bluff. Someone mentioned using Religion/Arcana to fake casting a spell, perhaps making them think you summoned a being of divine judgement to determine their guilt (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0267.html). You could also use it to convince the fanatical cultist that you aren't interested in destroying their cult, but are only here for personal revenge against the head leader, and won't care what he does once you people are gone. Of course, the last example may not take it well when he realized you've destroyed the temple afterwards.

Magic can work in various ways, but I figure the point of the thread is to find ways that don't rely on magic.

Finally, one last suggestion that hasn't been mentioned yet is that agents of the law frequently get a lot of leeway in how they handle "arrests", especially in psudo-medieval times. There weren't a lot of prisons back, and the few that do exist were generally only for people too important (royalty) to execute. Pretty much everyone who went to trial ended up getting their sentence immediately, which was exile/death/enslavement in the worst case. It certainly wouldn't be unusual for enforcers to be capable of carrying out executions if necessary. A character with the credentials could simply present them and offer two basic options: talk and live (perhaps even leave) or stay silent and die. Executing someone for endangering a large number of people would certainly be lawful in this case, and at least not evil (assuming it is true).

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 05:57 PM
I don't know about that last point. If they are guilty of capitol crimes or are a menace to the public it is your duty to execute them. If you can let them go because they talk, then something tells me their death isn't neccesary in the first place, and thus if you kill them because they don't talk it is no longer a justified killing.

JonestheSpy
2011-05-18, 05:59 PM
Really, it's probably best to just rely on Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Bluff. Real interrogations take hours, days, or longer. Sure, the player can say the direction they want to go and maybe do some dialogue with the npc, but really it comes down to their skills. Oh, and Sense Motive is crucial, for obvious reasons.

Speaking of Sense Motive, I'd say that's one of the main reasons why torture doesn't work for getting at the truth: the prisoner's motivation becomes "Say whatever it takes to make the pain stop". That's why the Inquisition was able to get so many people to confess to being witches and whatnot. If player actually did attempt to use torture in an interrogation, I'd say the DM should immediately start applying penalties towards that character's Sense Motive if they're trying to figure out whether they're getting the truth or not.

erikun
2011-05-18, 06:03 PM
I don't know about that last point. If they are guilty of capitol crimes or are a menace to the public it is your duty to execute them. If you can let them go because they talk, then something tells me their death isn't neccesary in the first place, and thus if you kill them because they don't talk it is no longer a justified killing.
I'm thinking more along the lines of a cultist kidnapping people or a hobgoblin as part of a tribe raiding villages. If they're willing to give up information about their group, then they aren't likely to start kidnapping or raiding on their own.

Then again, that could be an interesting moral quandry as well. Do you allow the serial killer to escape in order to prevent the gateway to Hell from opening? Or to you refuse to let the killer go, knowing you don't really have any other way to get the information? (Although Speak with Dead kind of means you can find out either way.)


If player actually did attempt to use torture in an interrogation, I'd say the DM should immediately start applying penalties towards that character's Sense Motive if they're trying to figure out whether they're getting the truth or not.
More likely, and Sense Motive check would just reveal "the NPC is just saying this to make you stop" without the ability to tell if it is correct or not.

Gamer Girl
2011-05-18, 06:09 PM
Okay, I got another question. I hope it's not throwing the conversation too far off, but....

If the players have all these spells in the first place to deter torture, why even fight in the first place? If they're so "humane", why don't they just carry around sleep wands, or charm wands to avoid any physical confrontation or death altogether? Isn't that why police carry tazers, so they can avoid using their guns???

This is the thing everyone dances around. A 'pure good' person would never, ever kill. They would always find 'that other way'. They would only kill once in a great long while and then only if forced to.

But this does not work so great for a fantasy adventure game. ''We are heading out to capture the goblins alive and bring them back to stand trial'' does not make for a fun game. Having the characters armed with lassos, nets and handcuffs is dull and boring.

Agrippa
2011-05-18, 06:13 PM
Jack Bauer is LE. He certainly is not CG: CG doesn't mean being willing to break your moral rules and reach the end no matter the costs, it means being a good person who values freedom and individualism - or something similar, the law/chaos axis is really badly defined.

I'd have to say that you have it right on all counts Tengu. While still technically a hero much of what Jack Bauer does on his missions would render him Evil in alignment and his devotion to the governement over the individual would make him Lawful. So yes, you understand the alignment system pretty well. Certainly 1st-2nd edition alignment.


You can do those things without solving everything for the party. The important thing about being good is that it's not the easy way. Good characters often meet situations where it'd be much simpler, more convenient, to abandon their morals and solve the situation in a not-so-good way, like torturing a prisoner. But they don't do that, and that gives them higher moral ground. If you make good the easy way, you take the satisfaction from being good away.
Also, the players are bound to feel disappointed if their characters have good persuasion skills, but never get to use them because bad guys already blab everything on their own.

I think this is why I suggested watching Burn Notice.

Kalirren
2011-05-18, 06:49 PM
Okay, I got another question. I hope it's not throwing the conversation too far off, but....

If the players have all these spells in the first place to deter torture, why even fight in the first place? If they're so "humane", why don't they just carry around sleep wands, or charm wands to avoid any physical confrontation or death altogether? Isn't that why police carry tazers, so they can avoid using their guns???

In my past experience, those groups which -do- carry nonlethal methods are infinitely more dangerous to my nefarious DM plans than the ones who -don't-, because they're more likely to create situations where minions get captured instead of killed.

That said, capturing and holding even a single prisoner requires logistics. Most players aren't interested in it, and even those who do often find that such resources aren't available to them. Capturing and holding prisoners by -default- basically requires them to be working -for- someone with those resources, and even fewer players I know play that sort of game with regularity. Fighting and killing is just an easier and better solution for the 95% of NPC mooks that don't know anything worth 5 minutes of OOC session time.

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 07:02 PM
This is the thing everyone dances around. A 'pure good' person would never, ever kill. They would always find 'that other way'. They would only kill once in a great long while and then only if forced to.


Perhaps. However, you have to take into account the whole system. If you do nothing to evil people, they will continue being evil. Capturing them and then caring for them takes a tremendous amount of resources away from the society, the very people who they once preyed on are now supporting them during their incarceration. Is is really more good to force a starving commoner to pay taxes which go toward's guarding and feeding a convicted criminal than to simply execute the criminal?

The Glyphstone
2011-05-18, 07:12 PM
What if the convicted criminal is a commoner who stole bread because he was starving after all his income went to pay the taxes?

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 07:15 PM
I thought this was a discussion of major criminals such as raiders or murderers. imo petty crimes shouldn't be handled by execution or imprisonment, rather some sort of minor restitution toward the wronged.

The Glyphstone
2011-05-18, 07:16 PM
It very well might be, I was just struck by the potential irony. Though in a society that openly condones torture, harsh punishment for such minor crimes might be the norm.

Gamer Girl
2011-05-18, 07:21 PM
Perhaps. However, you have to take into account the whole system. If you do nothing to evil people, they will continue being evil. Capturing them and then caring for them takes a tremendous amount of resources away from the society, the very people who they once preyed on are now supporting them during their incarceration. Is is really more good to force a starving commoner to pay taxes which go toward's guarding and feeding a convicted criminal than to simply execute the criminal?

A 'pure good' person would say Yes. It is good to have commoners pay for criminals. The all important point is: no one dies or is killed.

And the 'pure good' folks also think everyone can be saved, rehabilitated and 'made good'. The whole goal would be to get 'new', formally bad commoners to help pay taxes for the bad guys not yet turned.

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 07:27 PM
You seem to be making the assumption that the world has unlimited resources so that no one need to starve or die of exposure or lack of medical care, and that crushing the free will of those who do not want to be good is both possible and not in itself an evil act.

druid91
2011-05-18, 07:35 PM
Interrogation? That's easy as pie.

Coup de Gras

Speak with dead

Disintegrate.


Problem solved.

navar100
2011-05-18, 07:46 PM
In several campaigns, I find my good-aligned characters to run into problems, right after they catch a 'bad guy' or a minion and try to gain information from him, is that they more often then not, will simply refuse to talk. And short of torturing them (which my players wouldn't do), I keep on running into the problem of not being able to make them give up any information. Has anyone else run into this problem/know a good solution?

They won't talk because of DM fiat. This is where use of Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate should come into play. If the DM absolutely refuses to let those skills work, then he's being a donkey cavity. If prisoners won't talk, the DM has only himself to blame if the players just decide to kill everybody.

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 07:53 PM
Interrogation? That's easy as pie.

Coup de Gras

Speak with dead

Disintegrate.


Problem solved.

Agreed. Except for the last part. Why bother disintigrating? All that does is make future speaking with dead harder. No one is going to bother ressurecting some random goon without a damn good reason.

Besides, once they are dead ordinary cremation should be sufficient.

Marnath
2011-05-18, 08:18 PM
It very well might be, I was just struck by the potential irony. Though in a society that openly condones torture, harsh punishment for such minor crimes might be the norm.

I kinda doubt the good people the OP is talking about wouldn't be trying to interrogate that poor commoner. Liberate him, maybe...

Hawriel
2011-05-18, 08:37 PM
{Scrubbed}

That is good police work. You build trust and restpect, and you confront on falshoods. Some times you can do the suspect favores. Maybe the person you want to question has family. The suspect will not talk untill he knows you can help his family. Respect will also dispel any fears that the suspect may have about you.

Honestly threads like this and the responces of some peaple make me question the morality of my fellow man.

pendell
2011-05-18, 08:56 PM
While we're discussing LG interrogation I should point out the example of Faramir in Tolkien's "Two Towers".

Faramir is textbook LG interrogation. He captures Frodo, and starts off with an intimidation check: Tell me what I want to know or I'll kill you. This elicits some information, but Faramir can tell Frodo is holding back. Killing him won't produce the information.

So Faramir changes tacks. Next he tries asking Frodo questions to which he already knows the answer, such as about the death of Boromir, in the hopes of finding a hole in Frodo's story and catching him out. That doesn't work, because Frodo really is telling the truth -- or as much of it as he can at any rate.

So he changes tactics again. He takes Frodo along on his journey and feeds him. He builds camraderie and tries to ask Frodo to tell his friend what is up. Frodo still won't talk. So he pretends to give up, speaking very fair to Frodo. Then Food and drink and tiredness and seeming friendship work their magic on Sam and he blurts out the whole truth, so that at last Faramir knows exactly what Frodo is trying to conceal.

And never once does Faramir have to use anything tougher than harsh language on Frodo.

So to my mind Faramir's interrogation of Gollum and Frodo are a textbook example of how a good character would interrogate a prisoner, mixing threats, promises, and mind games to draw out the required information. Frodo, meanwhile, is a textbook LG prisoner resisting interrogation "telling no lies and of the truth all he could." Telling his interrogator enough to hopefully pacify him without actually giving the entire game away.

I'm told that's actually a more effective method of deception than outright fabrication, which falls apart when people start poking holes in the story.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Talakeal
2011-05-18, 09:01 PM
I don't know, there seemed to be an awful lot of beating on Smeagol for LG, atleast in the movie version.

Knaight
2011-05-18, 09:14 PM
I don't know, there seemed to be an awful lot of beating on Smeagol for LG, atleast in the movie version.

Well, that was the movie version. Boromir's entire family was heavily changed in the movie version, and it did not improve any of their characters from a moral stand point. I'd argue it also hurt the story, but that is very subjective.

RPGuru1331
2011-05-18, 11:40 PM
Perhaps. However, you have to take into account the whole system. If you do nothing to evil people, they will continue being evil. Capturing them and then caring for them takes a tremendous amount of resources away from the society, the very people who they once preyed on are now supporting them during their incarceration. Is is really more good to force a starving commoner to pay taxes which go toward's guarding and feeding a convicted criminal than to simply execute the criminal?
Set sane tax rates. I would propose starting with seizing roughly half the GP value of the loot they were carrying as a tax on the adventuring party, favoring them and offering a reasonable discount if they wish to purchase the other half outright.

But if you're putting the burden of the tax rate on the peasants, you're doing it wrong. Not just ethically, but from an effectiveness standpoint.

Honestly half the villains would be ludicrously easy to keep in prison so long as you're already prepared for military incursions (DnD worlds being what they are, you are); non-casters can't generally do that much once they've lost their loot and are seperated from their power base. The rest can be done with specialized magic items which I would think are even cheaper than their loot; once anti-magic restraints are paid for, the only thing left is already paid for, and it's the mundane prison infrastructure.

Talakeal
2011-05-19, 12:00 AM
I wasn't talking about "super villains", I was talking about ordinary run of the mill criminals. Unless you make them perform slave labor to pay for their own expenses, it is expensive to keep criminals alive, as you must provide for all of their own living expenses in addition to the cost of actually keeping them captive.

There are very few civilizations in reality or fiction where 100% of the populations basic needs are met, there are always poor people who live in sub standard conditions. Most governments spend about 5% of their resources on their prisoners, and I can't believe that if that 5% was instead spent on charitable causes it wouldn't prevent atleast some death's amongst the lower class.

Of course, once you get into "super heroic" levels, you could say that almost anything you do is going to cost some innocent lives. A high level PC can probably do a lot of good. If you spend six months trying to redeem a villain instead of killing him, that is six months you are not spending trying to bring other villains to justice. Even Super Man laments that he is not able to be in two places at once, and often has to choose between two people to save.

My point is that you cannot say "Being good means doing X". Life is never that simple, and no matter what moral system you believe in you have to make choices, and often there is no single right or wrong answer.

RPGuru1331
2011-05-19, 12:14 AM
The cost to keep villains alive is trivial, the cost for the security not crippling. The true cost of prisons lie in constructing the behemoth facilities and paying the financing thereof which is limited by the supply of evil yahoos and henchmen (If it's very high, you have much bigger problems). The goon squads of higher level villains should pay for their own incarceration several times over (See: Seizing loot), additionally, though that will obviously not be that many of the goon squads.

Whether or not more good would be done is besides the point. The greater good is a tricky thing to gauge if you're not omniscient, which I must assume you are not. Is a proper, rehabilitative prison going to do more good than Alms? Perhaps not. But a stable, good code of laws demands nothing less, and the promotion of the sanctity of sapient life may do more good besides. It does not have to be optimally, maximally good to be worth doing.

Knaight
2011-05-19, 12:18 AM
Unless you make them perform slave labor to pay for their own expenses, it is expensive to keep criminals alive, as you must provide for all of their own living expenses in addition to the cost of actually keeping them captive.

For most of history having many captives perform labor was typical. Nobility usually worked their way around this, but large amounts of prisoners of war or political prisoners could well be set to mine or even farm.

Talakeal
2011-05-19, 12:30 AM
For most of history having many captives perform labor was typical. Nobility usually worked their way around this, but large amounts of prisoners of war or political prisoners could well be set to mine or even farm.

This works dependant on two factors.

1: That you are ok with slavery. Default D&D assumes slavery is evil, and many schools of thought consider it a fate worse than death.

2: You have a labor shortage. In many periods of history there has been a labor surplus, and it is harmful to the common man who has to compete for a job with the slave labor.

You also have to consider how you motivate said prisoners to work. What if they just sit down and refuse? You aren't paying them anything, and killing them, starving them, or torturing them are evil and therefore out.
Also, it is a lot harder to keep watch of a bunch of guys working in the field than locked in a cell.


Basically, I was responding to the claim that a purely good character would never want to cause suffering or death, therefore would show mercy to everyone. I was simply saying that only works in a perfect world, in the real world every action has negative consequences, and no matter what you choose someone will be suffering or dying as a result of your actions (or lack thereof).
Think of Batman and the Joker for example. How many innocents have died because Batman refuses to use lethal force against the Joker only to allow him to escape again.

Furthermore, in my mind there are three main goals of "punishment":

1: To prevent the criminal from committing future crimes.
2: To deter would be criminals with the threat of punishment should they get caught.
3: To enact vengeance or justice upon the wrongdoer. D&D alignment demands this of LG characters, as do many real world philosophies, but I consider it the weakest excuse, and if not for the other two reasons I would say it is not a sufficient justification to enact punishment.

hamishspence
2011-05-19, 02:59 AM
A 'pure good' person would say Yes. It is good to have commoners pay for criminals. The all important point is: no one dies or is killed.

And the 'pure good' folks also think everyone can be saved, rehabilitated and 'made good'. The whole goal would be to get 'new', formally bad commoners to help pay taxes for the bad guys not yet turned.

This overstates things slightly. While redeeming villains is ideal- BoED does point out that "execution for serious crimes does not qualify as evil".

A strongly Good character will take all reasonable steps to rehabilitate villains- but that doesn't mean they'll be able to rehabilitate every villain they come across. Sometimes, they will end up having to hand some over to law enforcement for trial and execution. Though they might hate having to do so.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-19, 05:55 AM
There are several forms of killing that are at least neutral in D&D: having to kill in self-defense or defense of another, hunting animals for food, killing Undead, Evil Outsiders and other physical manifestations of ruinous energies, execution of a known and convicted criminal, and possibly several others. A vanilla Paladin at least can do all of these without falling, and sometimes his code and duties would require him to.

mint
2011-05-19, 06:30 AM
The OP might have his group watch some episodes of The Closer. It's a cop show about getting people to talk, essentially.
Without pulling out their toenails.

MickJay
2011-05-19, 06:38 AM
This works dependant on two factors.

1: That you are ok with slavery. Default D&D assumes slavery is evil, and many schools of thought consider it a fate worse than death.

2: You have a labor shortage. In many periods of history there has been a labor surplus, and it is harmful to the common man who has to compete for a job with the slave labor.

1. Forced labour does not always equal slavery. More often than not, it's a fixed term sentence, after which the prisoner is released, having "worked off" his debt to the society. And the deal is simple, they have to work to earn their food and shelter - you're giving them an opportunity for that, it's up to the prisoners to use it.

2. There is always something to do - if something needs to be done, but the state does not have means to pay free men to do it, prisoners might do the job for a fraction of cost. Other jobs might be too unpleasant or dangerous, and there would be too few people to do them. Besides, in almost any pre-modern society, it was usually shortage of labour that was the problem, not the opposite.

They won't easily escape if you chain them together, a method that was used to good effect for centuries. Arguably, letting people out of their cells and allowing them to engage in physical work is much better in the long run than keeping them locked up all the time.

Ideally, the prisoners would gain enough work experience and would be treated well enough that they would be able to return to the society as its productive members.

That said, it's very easy to turn forced labour into slavery in everything but name, but that depends on the system and the people it employs.

hamishspence
2011-05-19, 07:27 AM
There are several forms of killing that are at least neutral in D&D: having to kill in self-defense or defense of another, hunting animals for food, killing Undead, Evil Outsiders and other physical manifestations of ruinous energies, execution of a known and convicted criminal, and possibly several others. A vanilla Paladin at least can do all of these without falling, and sometimes his code and duties would require him to.

That said, sometimes circumstances might move some of these back toward evil:

execution of a known and convicted criminal- in a state where jaywalking gets a death sentence and their crime is of this order,

killing undead which happen to be well behaved, nonevil, and an accepted part of this particular society (maybe Sigil),

killing Evil Outsiders whom you know have had a major change of heart and are trying to redeem themselves- like the famous succubus paladin,

and so on.

But in general, it is true that these particular killings are Neutral most of the time.

Ormur
2011-05-19, 08:40 PM
In a game that largely revolves around killing people (or at least defeating them) and where most of the rules support that we'll probably have to simply accept that killing in certain circumstances is a good or at least a neutral thing to do even if that doesn't fit real life ethics very well. There is also the certainty of an afterlife and potential resurrection that makes it not as big a deal.

There is however no reason for torture to be a routine and convenient thing in the same way. In many ways it's probably worse to get tortured than killed and it's always going to be a premeditated act. The rules for interrogation are not very clear and the sourcebooks themselves proclaim it evil. It should be more straightforward for DM's to portray torture realistically (as a corrupting, ineffective and evil) than killing.

pendell
2011-05-20, 09:40 AM
In a game that largely revolves around killing people (or at least defeating them) and where most of the rules support that we'll probably have to simply accept that killing in certain circumstances is a good or at least a neutral thing to do even if that doesn't fit real life ethics very well. There is also the certainty of an afterlife and potential resurrection that makes it not as big a deal.

There is however no reason for torture to be a routine and convenient thing in the same way. In many ways it's probably worse to get tortured than killed and it's always going to be a premeditated act. The rules for interrogation are not very clear and the sourcebooks themselves proclaim it evil. It should be more straightforward for DM's to portray torture realistically (as a corrupting, ineffective and evil) than killing.

By the same token, "torture" may not have the same impact in a D&D world than it does here. Just as resurrection and true res cheapen death in D&D, so does regeneration, cure light wounds, cure disease et al cheapen torture.

Part of the reason torture is so horrible in the real world is because gouged out eyes don't ever come back, and even if there are no physical marks the mental and emotional damage will never go away.

However, in the D&D world it is quite possible to literally erase all the consequences. Pull a person apart and break all their limbs on a rack? Regenerate and heal will see them right in a few hours. I forget the exact name of the spell, but there should be some kind of mindwipe so you could erase the past few hours of memory from their lives completely. It never happened.

The only difference between the subject now and the subject 24 hours ago is that you now know the information , and you didn't before. The subject is physically, psychologically and emotionally whole, as if the torture never happened.

In such a world -- if it were logical, which Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness aren't always -- "torture" would not necessarily have the same connotations of evil and horror as it does here. Because unlike the real world, there is literally nothing you can do to a person that is so bad it can't be fixed.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Tengu_temp
2011-05-20, 09:46 AM
I'd say torture is so horrific less because of the permanent damage and more because you're inflicting terrible pain on the subject. Even if you heal up all the damage, mental and physical, you still inflicted that suffering, and that's just not how good guys roll. Neither is mindraping the bad memories away without the subject's permission.

Just_Ice
2011-05-20, 11:07 AM
Comedic torture is generally good friendly. Forcing them to listen to horrible music/acting, tickle torture... that stuff is all okay.

Bad cop good cop can be okay if the good cop keeps narrowly stopping the bad cop from inflicting vicious but non-fatal wounds.

Depends on the DM, though.

Archpaladin Zousha
2011-05-20, 11:10 AM
Comedic torture is generally good friendly. Forcing them to listen to horrible music/acting, tickle torture... that stuff is all okay.

Bad cop good cop can be okay if the good cop keeps narrowly stopping the bad cop from inflicting vicious but non-fatal wounds.

Depends on the DM, though.

Comedic torture generally seems to be appropriate only to comedic games. I know if I was running a situation where the PCs need to interrogate someone or BAD THINGS would happen, if the PCs broke out feathers or hired some sucky minstrels, I'd have the prisoner look at them with a completely straight face and say, "Seriously? THAT'S the scariest thing you can think of? You guys are utter losers!"

pendell
2011-05-20, 02:21 PM
Comedic torture generally seems to be appropriate only to comedic games. I know if I was running a situation where the PCs need to interrogate someone or BAD THINGS would happen, if the PCs broke out feathers or hired some sucky minstrels, I'd have the prisoner look at them with a completely straight face and say, "Seriously? THAT'S the scariest thing you can think of? You guys are utter losers!"

GET THE COMFY CHAIR! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnS49c9KZw8)

... gonna have to purchase that. Anyone know where I can get it cheaply?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Archpaladin Zousha
2011-05-20, 02:23 PM
GET THE COMFY CHAIR! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnS49c9KZw8)

... gonna have to purchase that. Anyone know where I can get it cheaply?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Dammit, I should've remembered to make that joke! :smalltongue:

Not sure where you'd find it cheaply other than a Half-Price Books or something.

conaniscool
2011-05-20, 02:55 PM
I got a quick question:

If a PC is being tortured, should it be purely RP'd, or involve saving throws, and if they fail the throw they blurt out the info?

LibraryOgre
2011-05-20, 02:59 PM
In several campaigns, I find my good-aligned characters to run into problems, right after they catch a 'bad guy' or a minion and try to gain information from him, is that they more often then not, will simply refuse to talk. And short of torturing them (which my players wouldn't do), I keep on running into the problem of not being able to make them give up any information. Has anyone else run into this problem/know a good solution?

Perhaps the easiest way, for those not under magical compulsion is to sway them with comforts. Their detention is uncomfortable, but not going to endanger them. Want a better blanket? Tell us what you know. Want better food? Tell us what you know. We might be able to arrange for a woman of negotiable virtue... if you tell us what you know.

This is a much longer-term persuasive option. You don't get answers in a week with this. But it is one that keeps with a good moral alignment, without dipping into mind control.

pendell
2011-05-20, 03:08 PM
I got a quick question:

If a PC is being tortured, should it be purely RP'd, or involve saving throws, and if they fail the throw they blurt out the info?

How much time do you have?

I always emphasize role play over "roll" play, but the important question is -- just how much of the session do you want to take up with this? Do you really want to take 30 minutes of walking through this, while the other players are on the couch abusing your Wii?

I suggest that if players are captured alive, it's time to put them on the Plot Train and not have any die rolls or roleplaying et al until it's time for them to escape. That is, unless the torture really is a significant plot point in the adventure.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

conaniscool
2011-05-20, 04:10 PM
How much time do you have?

I always emphasize role play over "roll" play, but the important question is -- just how much of the session do you want to take up with this? Do you really want to take 30 minutes of walking through this, while the other players are on the couch abusing your Wii?

I suggest that if players are captured alive, it's time to put them on the Plot Train and not have any die rolls or roleplaying et al until it's time for them to escape. That is, unless the torture really is a significant plot point in the adventure.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Okay, thanks for the nonanswer.

pendell
2011-05-20, 04:19 PM
Okay, thanks for the nonanswer.

Sorry. I did try but the answer really is "that depends". All other things being equal, I'd say role play it. But that's not the best answer in all situations, because it can consume an ungodly amount of session time over something that's not important.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Sucrose
2011-05-20, 04:24 PM
Thing is, you're using Movie Torture, rather than real-life torture, as your bar of effectiveness. I'd say that each day of torture would require a Will save, say DC 15 or so for standard Inquisitorial stuff, with +1 to the DC for each day that it is kept up (modify the initial DC for the harshness of the torture). If you fail the save, then you are broken.

If you are broken and they ask a question of you, roll d100

1-50: No useful information, just insane sobbing and babbling
51-99: Confirm whatever the captor claims, regardless of its truth or falsehood
100: You state what you know, just as in the movies. Hooray for violence upon the unjust!

If the second result happens, and you find out that they were fooled by it, roll Will save against DC 15. If you succeed, then you are no longer considered broken.

Nerd-o-rama
2011-05-20, 04:33 PM
This works dependant on two factors.

1: That you are ok with slavery. Default D&D assumes slavery is evil, and many schools of thought consider it a fate worse than death.
On the other hand, fixed-term slavery (five years' hard labor, not life) is still a better deal than serfdom, which given D&D's assumptions about economics and labor is probably perfectly acceptable.


2: You have a labor shortage. In many periods of history there has been a labor surplus, and it is harmful to the common man who has to compete for a job with the slave labor.

This, and labor surpluses in general (but especially this since the government can compel people to work specific jobs and have to spend less money), are often easily solved by simple application of Keynesian economics.

"We have a bunch of idle prisoners? Okay, let's pave all the royal highways, shore up the irrigation systems and aqueducts, carve huge statues of our kings into a mountain, invent hydroelectricity and make them build dams..."

Not to mention, labor surpluses in a largely agrarian quasi-medieval society seems significantly less likely than in the post-Industrial Revolution world. Then again, that would explain all the shiftless layabouts going from town to town slaughtering wildlife, robbing graves, and taking mercenary work against various state enemies to earn a profit...


You also have to consider how you motivate said prisoners to work. What if they just sit down and refuse? You aren't paying them anything, and killing them, starving them, or torturing them are evil and therefore out.
Also, it is a lot harder to keep watch of a bunch of guys working in the field than locked in a cell.Well, I could research nearly every western criminal justice system in probably the 18th-mid-20th centuries, at least, but I think armed and, preferably, mounted guards out in the field can manage pretty well. If they refuse to work, then they can atrophy in a cell I guess, but most criminals aren't going to bother with a strike when most of the actual guards are probably Neutral rather than Good.



Basically, I was responding to the claim that a purely good character would never want to cause suffering or death, therefore would show mercy to everyone. I was simply saying that only works in a perfect world, in the real world every action has negative consequences, and no matter what you choose someone will be suffering or dying as a result of your actions (or lack thereof).
Think of Batman and the Joker for example. How many innocents have died because Batman refuses to use lethal force against the Joker only to allow him to escape again.

Furthermore, in my mind there are three main goals of "punishment":

1: To prevent the criminal from committing future crimes.
2: To deter would be criminals with the threat of punishment should they get caught.
3: To enact vengeance or justice upon the wrongdoer. D&D alignment demands this of LG characters, as do many real world philosophies, but I consider it the weakest excuse, and if not for the other two reasons I would say it is not a sufficient justification to enact punishment.

First, Batman is not a Good guy, in the D&D sense. I'm not going to pin an alignment on him, but it's generally clear throughout interpretation that his personal code of Never Kill Anyone Ever is more important to him than common social ethics or accepted moral standards. He doesn't answer to anyone except that highly specific code.

Second, you're missing the very, very important idea of rehabilitation. That's honestly the only goal of a prison system that can't be accomplished as least as well by summary executions, aside from "don't spark a rebellion by being capricious murdering bastards".

Talakeal
2011-05-20, 05:25 PM
Second, you're missing the very, very important idea of rehabilitation. That's honestly the only goal of a prison system that can't be accomplished as least as well by summary executions, aside from "don't spark a rebellion by being capricious murdering bastards".

How does being locked in a dungeon or made to perform forced labor rehabilitate anyone though? While rehabilitation is a lofty goal, I don't see that happening, and even most modern prisons only serve to harden criminals.
I am told the original idea of prison was that the condemned would have so much free times that they would have nothing to do but ponder their crimes and work with their guild, and would eventually come to the logical conclusion that crime doesn't pay. This doesn't seem to work out in reality.
Now, if the prison was staffed by psychologists, social workers, priests, and teachers of useful trades who were actively trying to reform the criminals that would be one thing, but I have never heard of a prison in real life or any kind of non utopian fiction that was anywhere close to this, especially a prison that also expected to turn a profit on forced labor.

My point was simply that from a utilitarian viewpoint execution of serious criminals is the most efficient answer and that people need to be realistic in their expectations of what a good character can accomplish with realistic resources.

Also, without getting into real life examples, I must ask if it is so easy to turn a profit from a prison system, why doesn't this happen in real life, and why does the penal system impose such a financial burden on real world state governments?

Marnath
2011-05-20, 05:47 PM
How does being locked in a dungeon or made to perform forced labor rehabilitate anyone though? While rehabilitation is a lofty goal, I don't see that happening, and even most modern prisons only serve to harden criminals.
I am told the original idea of prison was that the condemned would have so much free times that they would have nothing to do but ponder their crimes and work with their guild, and would eventually come to the logical conclusion that crime doesn't pay. This doesn't seem to work out in reality.
Now, if the prison was staffed by psychologists, social workers, priests, and teachers of useful trades who were actively trying to reform the criminals that would be one thing, but I have never heard of a prison in real life or any kind of non utopian fiction that was anywhere close to this, especially a prison that also expected to turn a profit on forced labor.


The difference here I guess is that for most people, farming/breaking rocks/cutting lumber/etc. for your captors really is teaching you a useful trade that you can be productive with later in life, since all those things have to be done by hand in your standard campaign. Those are all good honorable trades to make a living wage at. It's not like today where making them build roads or whatever does nothing to help them get a job in accounting or something.

MickJay
2011-05-20, 06:50 PM
My point was simply that from a utilitarian viewpoint execution of serious criminals is the most efficient answer and that people need to be realistic in their expectations of what a good character can accomplish with realistic resources.

Also, without getting into real life examples, I must ask if it is so easy to turn a profit from a prison system, why doesn't this happen in real life, and why does the penal system impose such a financial burden on real world state governments?

One problem with executing serious criminals is that there's often a chance that the sentenced "criminal" might be actually innocent. Sure, in a fantasy setting, where access to magic will decrease the chances of people being sentenced for crimes they didn't commit, this might be less of a problem, but by its nature, death penalty is irreversible, and as such, can make any flaws of the judicial system tragic in consequences.

As for cost/profit from prisons, private prisons do currently exist and do bring in hefty profits to their owners - partially thanks to government contracts, partially due to prisoner labor. Majority of government-run prisons incur considerable expenses because: 1) the government is obliged to ensure a certain standard of living for the prisoners, and the standards of what is considered "humane" treatment tend to, in developed countries at least, increase over time
2) majority of public works done by the prisoners doesn't bring any income, at best, they simply improve the country's infrastructure, at a fraction of the cost it would normally take
3) state-run prisons are rarely designed with the thought of profit - they're supposed to isolate, reeducate and/or punish the criminals.

Changing 1 and 3 threatens to make the prison into forced labor camps aimed at exploiting, rather than reeducating, the prisoners; changing 2 would require the prisoners to have useful work skills, and hinges on low unemployment in general; highly unlikely in most situations.

JonestheSpy
2011-05-20, 07:29 PM
I got a quick question:

If a PC is being tortured, should it be purely RP'd, or involve saving throws, and if they fail the throw they blurt out the info?

I think it would be incredibly difficult to role-play well. How many players are going to say "Okay, now my character has experienced enough pain that they give in"?

If you want to roleplay torture, have the villains torture someone else in front of the characters (good and neutral characters, anyway). Sure, you might have an iron will and steadfastly resist the pain no matter what, but could you watch your best buddy being tortured unless you talk? Or a random kid captured from the nearest village? Your descriptions might have to get far more graphic than one is comfortable with though, depending on the group.

Eric Tolle
2011-05-20, 09:26 PM
Don't forget that for some evil creatures, especially some outsiders, the threat-promise dichotomy may be reversed. "OK, here's the deal; cooperate with us and we'll torture you to the best of our ability. The more questions you answer, the more we'll be inclined to give you your torture."

So what are the ethics of torturing a creature that likes pain? "Oh. You've done this before!"

Aux-Ash
2011-05-21, 02:43 AM
I got a quick question:

If a PC is being tortured, should it be purely RP'd, or involve saving throws, and if they fail the throw they blurt out the info?

To be honest, if you want to simulate torture-interrogation on your player's characters using mechanics and want it to be verisimilar... I'd suggets you simulate it by having something resembling will being stripped away. One point at a time. A wisdom score or a will save perhaps? Or a separate combination of the two.
Once it hits zero they "talk" (or well.... babble).

As the days go by, less and less of the victim remains. Leaving only a broken, crying husk in the end. Torture is after all more or less intentionally and systematically driving someone insane.


But I'd argue that pulling verismilar torture on your player's characters might not be the best move unless your players are interested in that sort of campaign.

Tetsubo 57
2011-05-21, 06:40 AM
In several campaigns, I find my good-aligned characters to run into problems, right after they catch a 'bad guy' or a minion and try to gain information from him, is that they more often then not, will simply refuse to talk. And short of torturing them (which my players wouldn't do), I keep on running into the problem of not being able to make them give up any information. Has anyone else run into this problem/know a good solution?

You engage them in conversation. You talk to them as a fellow human being. You treat them humanely. One of the most effective methods for getting info out of the Nazis during and after the war was simple conversation. They played chess with them. Funnily enough, if you treat people like people you can get some excellent results.

Want to know how we got some good intelligence out of a terrorist suspect? He was diabetic. The interrogator brought him sugar free cookies. He treated the guy like a fellow human being.

Sucrose
2011-05-21, 09:59 AM
Don't forget that for some evil creatures, especially some outsiders, the threat-promise dichotomy may be reversed. "OK, here's the deal; cooperate with us and we'll torture you to the best of our ability. The more questions you answer, the more we'll be inclined to give you your torture."

So what are the ethics of torturing a creature that likes pain? "Oh. You've done this before!"

Assuming that you are aware that the creature enjoys experiences usually considered torturous, and feels tormented if treated nicely? It works out the same way, with it being fully ethical and likely effective to give them opportunities to get what they enjoy by cooperating, and decidedly less ethical to torment them, and likely less effective.

Of course, if you can get them to feel enjoyment of more normal things without mindrape, then that would probably be better ethically than both, since they would no longer need to damage their bodies to feel good, and might fully convert them to the side of good, but it's likely almost impossible to fix a mind that broken without just re-writing it.

Jubal_Barca
2011-05-21, 10:16 AM
What about the old ginger beer trick? :smallsmile:

Ormur
2011-05-21, 11:22 AM
By the same token, "torture" may not have the same impact in a D&D world than it does here. Just as resurrection and true res cheapen death in D&D, so does regeneration, cure light wounds, cure disease et al cheapen torture.

Part of the reason torture is so horrible in the real world is because gouged out eyes don't ever come back, and even if there are no physical marks the mental and emotional damage will never go away.

However, in the D&D world it is quite possible to literally erase all the consequences. Pull a person apart and break all their limbs on a rack? Regenerate and heal will see them right in a few hours. I forget the exact name of the spell, but there should be some kind of mindwipe so you could erase the past few hours of memory from their lives completely. It never happened.

The only difference between the subject now and the subject 24 hours ago is that you now know the information , and you didn't before. The subject is physically, psychologically and emotionally whole, as if the torture never happened.

In such a world -- if it were logical, which Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness aren't always -- "torture" would not necessarily have the same connotations of evil and horror as it does here. Because unlike the real world, there is literally nothing you can do to a person that is so bad it can't be fixed.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The worst thing about torture isn't the physical harm, this has been attested by many victims. It's the mental scars which I'm not so sure are easy to fix in D&D. There are also some very gruesome methods of torture that don't necessarily result in permanent physical damage. There are spells for repairing all physical harm but the most appropriate one, regenerate, is very high level. I don't think healing spells explicitly cure PTSD and I'm not even sure things like programmed amnesia would suffice, mindrape is also evil by itself and again of a very high level.

There is also thing about torture being a prolonged process. You might have to erase quite a long period and that might itself not be very pleasant for the victim.

Even if you fix the damage done later or if it's possible to do so I don't think it makes doing something horrific non-evil.

This is just in addition to what has been said about the ineffectiveness of torture. You might be going to all that trouble for nothing. If you have access to heavy caliber magic like heal, regenerate and programmed amnesia you should be able to get the information you need in a more reliable and less evil way.

lerg2
2011-05-21, 11:48 AM
What I've found normally works is just letting them imagine their own torture. A chaotic good PC can ask someone for 3 rats, Salt, a basket of grapes and a rope without doing anything bad, but the NPC they're questioning, well, their twisted imagination can come up with things infinitely more horrible than you can. Really, it's quite effective, although the time I cast charm monster on a dragon and won was funny.

Marnath
2011-05-21, 01:44 PM
What I've found normally works is just letting them imagine their own torture. A chaotic good PC can ask someone for 3 rats, Salt, a basket of grapes and a rope without doing anything bad, but the NPC they're questioning, well, their twisted imagination can come up with things infinitely more horrible than you can.

Hah, that one scene is all I remember out of that whole book. :smallamused:
I always wondered what the guy envisioned that made him so eager to spill the beans.

Talakeal
2011-05-21, 03:45 PM
I am not sure if the "I will fix it later" card absolved someone of moral responsiblity. Just because you mind wipe and regenerate someone after torture doesn't mean you didn't put them through a prolonged period of suffering to begin with. If something is no longer wrong because the victim doesn't remember it afterwards, why not simply kill your victim? After all, death is the ultimate forgetting, and even if you don't have the stones for murder, well, they will die on their own sooner or later and absolve you.

Tetsubo 57
2011-05-21, 04:02 PM
I am not sure if the "I will fix it later" card absolved someone of moral responsiblity. Just because you mind wipe and regenerate someone after torture doesn't mean you didn't put them through a prolonged period of suffering to begin with. If something is no longer wrong because the victim doesn't remember it afterwards, why not simply kill your victim? After all, death is the ultimate forgetting, and even if you don't have the stones for murder, well, they will die on their own sooner or later and absolve you.

I agree. An immoral act is an immoral act even if no one else knows you committed it.

MickJay
2011-05-21, 08:03 PM
I agree. An immoral act is an immoral act even if no one else knows you committed it.

One of the effects of torture in D&D is that the torturer gets corrupted by what he (or she) is doing, and no amount of mind wiping or regenerating is going to fix that. Of course, if the torturer is already evil, it's an extra incentive - all that pain, suffering and corruption directly boost the supernatural embodiments of Evil.

Gamer Girl
2011-05-21, 08:38 PM
I got a quick question:

If a PC is being tortured, should it be purely RP'd, or involve saving throws, and if they fail the throw they blurt out the info?

You don't do it at all. Even if your playing with an extremely mature and extremely open minded group.

It's far better to just use the old 'mind meld rape'(See the great scene in Star Trek 6) to get information from a PC. The evil guy just reads your mind by whatever means and the PC's can save and resist normally.

Or even better for the evil folks to just figure everything out 'Ye Old Sherlock Holms/Columbo/Macguyver/House Stlye'. ''Ah..Ha..I see the mud on your boots is slightly brown in the middle and only one part of the world has slightly brown mud like that, so you must have been there with in the last couple hours.

myancey
2011-05-21, 08:43 PM
You don't do it at all. Even if your playing with an extremely mature and extremely open minded group.

It's far better to just use the old 'mind meld rape'(See the great scene in Star Trek 6) to get information from a PC. The evil guy just reads your mind by whatever means and the PC's can save and resist normally.

Or even better for the evil folks to just figure everything out 'Ye Old Sherlock Holms/Columbo/Macguyver/House Stlye'. ''Ah..Ha..I see the mud on your boots is slightly brown in the middle and only one part of the world has slightly brown mud like that, so you must have been there with in the last couple hours.

I totally agree with that. If you do it right, and you've a group that doesn't mind that aspect of the game, then its not a big deal. But always DM within the comfort zone of your players. I've got a player who can't handle 'burning' situations. So while fireball still exists, the description of what occurs doesn't go beyond "they die."

Now, if I had an interrogator character, I'd totally want him to be that strongman punching type.

NNescio
2011-05-21, 09:35 PM
...Or even better for the evil folks to just figure everything out 'Ye Old Sherlock Holms/Columbo/Macguyver/House Stlye'. ''Ah..Ha..I see the mud on your boots is slightly brown in the middle and only one part of the world has slightly brown mud like that, so you must have been there with in the last couple hours.

Bonus points if the BBEG has access to Hypercognition. Which literally does that.

Ravens_cry
2011-05-21, 10:26 PM
I got a quick question:

If a PC is being tortured, should it be purely RP'd, or involve saving throws, and if they fail the throw they blurt out the info?
What are the players and the DM's comfort levels with this kind of thing? If situations like this would generally involve a "fade to black", then a saving throw of some kind makes sense, with possible circumstance modifiers. If you don't mind role playing some of the worst aspects of humanity and are able to leave it at the table when its over, then sure, bring it on.
Personally, I would go for the former mostly.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-23, 11:31 AM
I got a quick question:

If a PC is being tortured, should it be purely RP'd, or involve saving throws, and if they fail the throw they blurt out the info?

If the game system being used has applicable rules (intimidate or interrogation skill, Morale rolls etc.), then there's all reason to use them. However, some extent of roleplaying should be involved, or it becomes dull.

For example, in D&D, the interrogators could first ask a question, and the player could anser, with the DM then rolling Sense Motive against the PC's Bluff. (If appropriate.) Result of these actions could then lead to more description and roleplay, leading to new set of rolls.

Level of detail that goes into this is another thing entirely. It's not really proper to describe brutal torture to faint-of-heart. If your players (and you) are all for horror stories and gorn, then feel free to cut loose, though. :smallbiggrin: