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Yes, I think the general use of torture in games I've played in is on the rise.
I'm running an admittedly pirate/crime intensive game right now (Second Darkness + Freeport) and the PCs have started to get a reputation for grabbing people and dragging them to the animal cages under the Gold Goblin and then inflicting various levels of pain and murder on them.
How to handle this? Well, I've definitely shifted at least one character's alignment. But you don't get any benefit, per se, from being good so that's not really a punishment, just a clarification.
I've been trying to show the effects of this behavior through the actions of others. People they want to talk to just normally are terrified out of their minds - this can provide limited helpfulness, but there's a difference between immediate rolling over and the more long term active help people provide if they like you. And it escalates NPC actions - they caught this one assassin and the party halfling really worked her over with a hot dagger, but then she escaped. He's really scared now, as well he might be.
Now this could be a good way to keep it in check if you (if ur DM) are uncomfortable with torture. Have it come back to bite your players in the ass. Tortured NPC escapes and swears vengeance, families of NPCs PCs have tortured to death take out a bounty on their heads or come gunning for them.
All this of course assumes that the torturers are sloppy enough to allow their charges to escape or let word of their deeds spread (unless it is their intent to be known as torturers).
Khelben is
Was. He died forever. Which was a mercy. He didn't have to see his world and everything he cared about go down the hill into a bottomless pit of s~%#.
Now this could be a good way to keep it in check if you (if ur DM) are uncomfortable with torture. Have it come back to bite your players in the ass. Tortured NPC escapes and swears vengeance, families of NPCs PCs have tortured to death take out a bounty on their heads or come gunning for them.
All this of course assumes that the torturers are sloppy enough to allow their charges to escape or let word of their deeds spread (unless it is their intent to be known as torturers).
1. Well, I don't really think of it as something to do if you're "uncomfortable with torture." I think of it as "realistic depiction of the down sides of torture" (along with getting false info, etc.). I'll be honest, I'm not "uncomfortable" with evil characters, romance, playing crossgender, or any of the other things that people get all George McFly over for whatever reason.
2. It's pretty hard to cover up a torture habit. Even if you kill everyone you torture, most PCs treat bodies etc. as so much trash, but less sociopathic NPCs will look at the bodies and see they were tortured. Even if the PCs dispose of the bodies trying to "leave no trace" there's scrying and whatnot that one would do when one's colleagues start disappearing... Not that "those are the guys that disappear people all the time" is much better. (And it makes torture that much more less effective if you realize the guys that have you kill everyone anyway.)
If you ask me, it's Jack Bauer's fault.
Live by the sword....
If the players start getting a rep as a bunch of bad dudes using nasty methods to extract info, then after a while people will either:
a) Gang up on them in a moment of party weakness
b) Hire out other shady people to have them 'whacked'
c) Tip off a bunch of passing heroes/paladins to the party whereabouts.
Simply put, it's playing with fire and may well end in a lot of nasty outcomes for them. There's only so much the commoners will take!
"...dead bodies found floating by the docks..."
I have had GM's torture my characters. Once it was the drow version of rangers and the other time it was an assassin's guild. They all were evil, so I did not have a problem with it.
I had a couple of characters in cyberpunk that were sociopathic enough to torture someone, but neither one was good let alone particuliarly sane.
I do agree with most of you, that torture is not a good act, with the proviso that some cultures and socities in gaming universes and real life, allow torture and slavery as part of that culture.
Just to throw something out there. We used Louis Porter Jr - Tell Me Now in a game. The torture mechanic was great, but it realy can turn things dark. If that's what you want, it's great! It converted pretty seemlessly/easily to other systems. Just my 2 cents. :D