This sounds familiar to my group composition and mindset on the subject. I have played evil characters too...one was way into epic level territory. Do the characters in game actions make me evil? That's pretty strong and says something about the person making the assumption.
I can play evil characters, though it's not my favorite thing, but it's a grandiose kind of evil. Characters with goals and few compunctions. Innocents may be killed, people may get tortured, but always in pursuit of the ends. Not as a end in itself. And I'd rather fade to black for the really nasty bits, because they don't interest me.
But the evil characters either see themselves as serving a greater good or I wind up distancing myself from them. I generally play for immersion. If I can't think like the character, I lose interest. And I really don't like thinking like a sociopath. I feel dirty afterwards.
Well I can totally understand this. But I wouldn't pass judgement on others that CAN distance themselves and simply like to really REVEL in the evil that is their character. I had a player in one game that was the most evil, crazy character I have ever seen... and out of game she baked cupcakes for us ever game... sweetest person I have ever met. I think I gained like 10 pounds during that game.
Well this is the web and short of writing a ten page campaign summary which I will not, nay sayers will have to be satisfied with a) my stomach is stronger doesn't make me a sociopath.
b) without all the facts on how I played my evil wizard you are making assumptions that could be damaging and if you are as sensitive as few of you claim then that too should make you feel dirty.
c) I in turn will have to assume that if many here assume someone carries desires with them between the game and real world and someone who plays evil characters is a dangerous psychopapath not to be trusted, then said assumpter
Is an incompetent delusional in need of therapy to differentiate between pf and reality and stop projecting their short comings on people whose express opinions differ from their own.
why are we worried about the repercussions of torture in a game where the protagonists are little more than glorified bandits?
look at what 90% of fantasy heroes have in common with bandits
- they will slaughter legions of intelligent creatures to make a few extra bucks from their corpses
- they always loot everything they can milk out of whatever they kill, from the scales of the dragon itself, to the eyes of the darn beholder
- they carry highly damaging weapons designed to not give foes a chance to scream or call for help, as if they were assassins
- they group up in squads from as few as 4 members to as many as 15. like a squad of bandits does
- no matter their personality, it falls to their greed
- they eat the cheapest things on the menu because they are stingy
- they abandoned their families to fulfill their greed and their bloodlust
- death by torture rack, hanging, or iron maiden, is really not much different than having your head cleaved off by a barbarian
- they care more about improving their capacity to kill, to kill bigger foes, get bigger hauls and improve some more in an endless cycle.
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why are we worried about the repercussions of torture in a game where the protagonists are little more than glorified bandits?
look at what 90% of fantasy heroes have in common with bandits
OK I will bite
they will slaughter legions of intelligent creatures to make a few extra bucks from their corpses
Because
A. They are trying to stop them from doing some evilB. Contracted Bounty Hunters
C. Attacked by said intelligent creatures
they always loot everything they can milk out of whatever they kill, from the scales of the dragon itself, to the eyes of the darn beholder
Those are beast and monsters. Its equivalent to having a Dear head on your wall. You don't usually see a party harvesting HUMANOID creatures which is in itself probably evil. The occasional barbarian who collects ears is the exception and usually looked down on by the rest of the party.
they carry highly damaging weapons designed to not give foes a chance to scream or call for help, as if they were assassins
They are adventures. Weapons are the tools of their trade. What are they supposed to carry? Girl Scout Cookies? Even the lowly farmer has a spear or bow for protection in a fantasy world.
they group up in squads from as few as 4 members to as many as 15. like a squad of bandits does
Well its a party game. I don't see your point. I don't go to the club or the movies by myself either... does that make me a thug?
no matter their personality, it falls to their greed
I don't find it greedy to want to be paid for work rendered.
they eat the cheapest things on the menu because they are stingy
Maybe at first level when your income is little better then an expert. But at higher levels I see a lot more splurging when it comes to food and drink.
they abandoned their families to fulfill their greed and their bloodlust
Wow. Thats a bleak look. Could it be they where orphans, or their tribe sent them away to fulfill a task, or they send gold back to the family, or they where raised by a cult, or a thousand other reasons why you would become an adventurer. Did every cleric/wizard/soldier NPC in your game abandon someone to go do what they do?
death by torture rack, hanging, or iron maiden, is really not much different than having your head cleaved off by a barbarian
Well one is use of tools and techniques to bring as much pain as possible while also delaying death till as much agony is achieved... while the other is a quick painless death. One is used after the target is helpless and the other is while he is usually actively trying to do the same to you. One is used to gain information or for personal perversion and the other can be in self defense or in honorable combat. Yeah totally the same thing.
they care more about improving their capacity to kill, to kill bigger foes, get bigger hauls and improve some more in an endless cycle.
I don't know about you, but I usually try to get better tools to make my job easier. I am in the military. Give me better guns and better body armor... not cause I want to kill better. But because at the end of the day It might save my life. So yeah. Bring on the loot/gear cycle.
In conclusion Heroes =/= Bandits
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Toture is ineffective in a world with limits and the rule of law. In terms of seeking out information as part of an investigation its a crap shoot at best, because if the person DOESNT know the information, they will blurt out whatever they think will stop the pain. However if someone DOES know what the people torturing them are asking, it is fairly effective. The unreliability of torture comes from the fact that A the person has a reason to expect eventual release, and B the torturers are not sure if the person has the information they want.
Torture is ineffective in a world of human biology. The only time torture is reliable is if you are in a book/movie where the author can move the plot forward when the correct answer is given, or if your goal is to extract a political "confession" where you don't care about the facts, just the outcome.
1. If you don't already know the answer to the questions you're asking, then you're not going to know what the true answer is, even if the person blurts it out. Which means the torture will carry on even after they've told the truth (assuming they ever do) and the truth can easily be buried, since the victim will then start looking for other answers to satisfy the person torturing them.
2. Since the victim is under stress and pain, you aren't going to reliably get the visual/body language cues you'd normally get when someone lies (you'd get them all the time, even during true statements). So you end up looking for cues, and that opens you up to all sorts of observer error fallacies.
3. Inflicting pain on someone generally makes them angry and less willing to cooperate, so even if they don't know anything they may appear to from your perspective since they are aggressively fighting back. It's also possible that pain can make the person less aggressive and cause them to shut down. Different people react to stress and pain differently and there's no correlation between how they respond and what they know. Since you can't read a person's thoughts, you don't know the motivation for their reaction.
4. It's incredibly, incredibly easy to mess with a person's memories. Especially if you put them in the state of mind that torture does. People routinely confess to things they didn't do and honestly believe they did them after a bout of torture.
5. You don't even have to inflict pain on a person to get faulty information. People routinely confess to crimes they didn't commit during non-violent police confessions. Stress, by itself, is sufficient to mess with people's minds and make them say/do stuff they normally wouldn't. Often times those confessions contain detail "the suspect couldn't know unless they were the murderer" ... because the cops working the interrogation dropped cues that the suspect picked up on.
6. Yes, it may be hard to deliberately think up a complicated lie while in pain off the top of your head. It's also hard to deliberately think up facts you know while in pain or under stress. Think of how easy it is to win at Jeopardy when you're sitting on your couch at home. Now try sitting in the studio under the lights. All those easy questions suddenly become a LOT harder to answer.
7. As I mentioned in #5, it's very easy for the person performing the torture to give away the answer they want by asking leading questions or reacting to certain answers. The person being tortured will be hyper-aware of the torturer's body language/tone of voice, sort of like how an abuse victim becomes hyper-aware of the movements of their abuser. That means the torturer will subconsciously lead the interrogation to a desired outcome.
Science!
http://www.livescience.com/4651-torture-long-history-working.html
http://www.livescience.com/337-innocent-suspects-confess-pressure.html
...and recent, unfortunate, history.
http://www.salon.com/2009/04/24/jpra_memo/
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Simple: “Hey guys, this is not mature behavior. Stop it or I end the game.”
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Here's a thought experiment for you.
Imagine a group of thugs, perhaps from a three letter agency bust down your door and demand the password to one of your encrypted computer systems. They're prepared to use 'rubber hose cryptanalysis' in order to get it. Assuming you've not set up anything like a duress key that opens a mildly embarrassing partition on your drive, which I doubt any of you have, what do you think the probability is that you'll cough up the key after the thumbscrews are applied? Remember that the statements you make under torture can often be easily verified by the torturing party and lies can be severely punished. I know it's a common trope that 'torture only gets you what the tortured thinks you want to hear, but it's a lot more messy and complicated than that. There's a reason it has been used historically an awful lot, and that reason isn't 'because it doesn't work'.
We are talking about the culinary institute of america right
Torture is not really effective.
Eventually, they just admit to anything, whether it is true or not.
The victim may even try to commit suicide after awhile.
Basically, mechanically, it's just a bonus to intimidate.
Yeah, pretty much this. Torture doesn't work.
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I think one of mine got swept up in that somehow. No biggie. To recap:
If the OP is still paying attention to the thread, you should just point out to your players that torturing NPCs for information is totally unnecessary. If they succeed on an Intimidate check then they can get all the accurate information they need. They won't make any friends that way (if they want to, they should try Diplomacy), but information gathering is specifically listed as one of the things that happens when you intimidate someone into being friendly toward you.
Nothing about the intimidate skill implies pain or torture (it is based on Charisma and doesn't require you to touch anyone). The DCs aren't that high as a general rule (unless the person is noticeably higher level than you, in which case you should probably try intimidating the minions and not the boss). Plus, unless you fail the check by 5 or more then you're guaranteed accurate or no information.
If you start giving bonuses to intimidate for torture you'll just encourage your PCs to do that to every enemy they meet, which doesn't seem to be what you want at your table. If you start trying to work out rules for torture then there are about a hundred different ways you can do it, none particularly better or worse than any other, since it isn't something easily covered by the rules (you're getting into a mixture of skill checks and damage and morale checks and a bunch of other stuff). In the end, rules for torture end up being an overly complicated Intimidate skill check.
And, of course, you could always just talk to your players and tell them to chill out on the torture stuff. In the end, if it leads to an argument, then this isn't so much a rules issues as it is a table politeness issue.
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Torture is effective when the information can be verified. Because in that case saying something false won't stop the torture.Torture is not really effective.
Eventually, they just admit to anything, whether it is true or not.
The victim may even try to commit suicide after awhile.
Basically, mechanically, it's just a bonus to intimidate.
I would note this act as a mark, and after a few marks, I would begin an alignment shift, one step, towards evil.
But at some point the torturer must ask the victim something that he doesn't already know the answer to, if he is torturing somebody for information. If the torturer aleady knows the answers to all of the questions he asks, then he is just being a sadistic jerk. Otherwise, his only clue as to the torture victim's reliability in answering the key question is how many lies he has already caught him in.
One possibility to consider, if the torture is brutal enough, is that the torturer might actually manage to kill the victim before he says anything useful. The torturer and his associates can take a severe hit to their reputations if that happens often enough.
I would encourage more mental than physical means of intimidation if possible. One of my favorites is to have a summoner's eidolon mention that it has not eaten in several days, with the implication that it is thinking of eating the prisoner being questioned (when the real reason is that the eidolon is an outsider with no physical need for food).
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Easily verified as in "What is the combination to the safe?"
Works pretty well.
Maybe.
First you have to be certain that the person knows the combination. If you torture someone who doesn't know they'll probably say they don't know. Since you have no way of knowing if they're telling the truth, you'll continue to torture them. At that point they may continue saying they don't know, or they'll make up numbers. If they keep saying they don't know then you'll either have to continue torturing them, or believe them (without knowing for sure you should) and stop. If they make up numbers then those numbers probably won't work, which will probably lead you to believe they are lying (since they apparently lied earlier about not knowing) which leads to another cycle of torture, possible made up numbers, etc. All this assumes the person doesn't go into shock, die, or otherwise pass out before you get an answer.
If they DO know the answer they'll probably still lead with "I don't know". They could also give false combinations, which drags out the torture and increases the likelihood that they'll pass out/die before they can tell you. And even if they do know and do want to tell you, by inflicting pain and stress on them you make it less likely they'll accurately be able to remember the combination. Stress and pain stimulate parts of the brain that are more concerned with survival than memory, and our memories are not perfect video footage that we can recall with perfect unaltered clarity. Our brains get screwed up pretty easily. So every time they give you a mistaken combination, the stress and pain amp up and it makes it less likely they'll remember the next time around.
Honestly, if you want something in a safe and you find someone who cares more about their own life than what is in that safe, you are better off bribing that person than torturing them. Profit and rapport are much, MUCH more powerful motivators. Better information, more accuracy, less time, less noise, less cleanup, and fewer people chasing you after.
Besides, a reputation as a bad person in a fantasy world normally ends with adventurers breaking into your home over and over and over....
Either way, good luck to you cmastah. I hope it all works out.