My players are likely going to have an Imperial officer in their custody soon and I would like interrogation to potentially yield some information. Their prisoner is loyal and would not give up information easily.

How can good guys interrogate someone without resorting to torture? More importantly, how would you run this so that it was fun and interesting?

I have a feeling I'm just going to leave this as a problem for my players to solve, but I'd still like to see what others think.

Lock the Imp in a room with a bunch of Jawas for a week

Lock the Imp in a room with an inquisitive 4 year old for 2 days

Force him to set in on the Wookiee Women's Choir practice (and gossip) with an Ithorian guest singer

He'll be begging for good old traditional torture and will give you every code to the Death Star he knows

Depending on timeline; have him in a room with the Ewoks telling him how they dominated his precious Empire on Endor.

If you don't want the scenario to be futile or get ugly give the players a clue and an opening on how to get what they need out of him. He's loyal... but Just how much of a "Good Imperial" is he? Does he have a weakness?

• A beloved relative who is a dissident and in need of rescue from Imperials who will use torture, hard-labor, or execution?
• A vice that could cost him his career if it came out? Gambling? Spice? Alien call girls?
• A spice addiction to a variety that reduces inhibitions and could result in unintentionally running off at the mouth?
• Debts to an angry Hutt, the Black Sun, or Crimson Dawn? Talk or we hand you over! Or, pay my debt and I'll talk!
• Ambition? Would selling out an Imperial rival advance his own career?
• A limit to his loyalty? Would certain information, if revealed by the PCs, cause him to rethink that position?
• Reputation? Would the classic threat of "we'll give you a snitch jacket" work?
• Or, actually frame him as a collaborator and tell him "we can help you run if you tell us what we want to know."
• Stupidity? If he knows about a key facility or contact, would letting him think he escaped so that he can run straight to it work?
• Word games. Tricking him into spilling one key detail?
• Or, what if someone less loyal and idealistic is willing to trade things he would refuse to for his freedom?

1 hour ago, ddbrown30 said:

My players are likely going to have an Imperial officer in their custody soon and I would like interrogation to potentially yield some information. Their prisoner is loyal and would not give up information easily.

How can good guys interrogate someone without resorting to torture? More importantly, how would you run this so that it was fun and interesting?

I have a feeling I'm just going to leave this as a problem for my players to solve, but I'd still like to see what others think.

The captured Imperial is not a robot who is 100% loyal. He can be tricked. He can be persuaded he's on the wrong side. He can be made to lose his temper and blurt out stuff he shouldn't have. He can be bribed. There are going to be things in this person's life that are more, or at least just as dear to him as loyalty to the Empire.

The PCss need to investigate this officer, learn what makes him tick, why he does what he does, and use it against him.

And what Vondy said.

There was a SWRPG fanzine that discussed this from way back (was affiliated with the old SWRPGNetwork site), covering how Rebels, Imperials, and even criminal groups would handle interrogations.

Short version, the Rebels didn't employ torture, especially not of the physical variety (especially since it's been demonstrated that torture is a notoriously unreliable method of getting reliable information) but also avoiding severe psychological torture.

I suspect the Rebels would employ things along the lines of "good cop, bad cop" that we see in various police dramas and procedurals, though how far the "bad cop" might go varies upon the principles of that particular group of Rebels. It's possible the Rebels might use certain chemicals to make the person being interrogated less resistant to answering questions, but even that can be morally sketchy.

Vondy's probably on the right track in that the Rebels would try to understand what makes this person tick, and employ that knowledge to get the subject to be willing to provide truthful information. Of course, that also relies upon the Rebels having the time for that sort of thing; in the field you're probably looking at standard "good cop, bad cop" routines, or just the Batman approach of "scare them so bad they need a change of pants" if there's only one Rebel on the scene.

If it were me running it, I'd go the following approach ...

a) write a short handful of "win points" style Achilles heels that the rebel players might land on (2-3 just to cover bases, or more if you NEED the imp to crack in order to progress the story). If you can figure some applicable checks ahead of time: better.

b) give the rebels some meta game info. something like "word of how this interrogation goes down will get out. You'll need to approach your tactic wisely" and think of a couple potential negative impacts if the rebels skip the rails. (even during clone wars series, a stressed out Anakin force choked a diplomat to get some info. So do provide the rebels the option to screw this up: the imp will break if actually brutalized, but the rebels will deal with consequences down the line.)

c) ... cry havoc, let slip the hounds of war, leave this up to the rebel players. Also drink a lot of caffeine so you can think/improv on your feet.

If you're familiar with tactics your rebels employ in social situations, you may be able to tailor the Achilles heels in a way that will feel natural to the rebels.

Negotiation checks for Quid Pro Quo.

8 hours ago, ddbrown30 said:

How can good guys interrogate someone without resorting to torture?

Same way most of our police work is done today. Look up FBI interrogation techniques. The premise of this question is a bit odd, if I may say so. It implies that a) interrogation doesn't work without torture; and/or b) torture actually works (it doesn't).

8 hours ago, ddbrown30 said:

More importantly, how would you run this so that it was fun and interesting?

It's not really different from any other negotiation, and there is good guidance for handling this in the Genesys core book. The NPC has motives and desires, it's up to the PCs to figure out what they are. Some might be tangential to the specific case, but can be used as pressure, eg: "Why cover for the big boss? He's never treated you right. If you don't help us, we'll throw the book at you and ... you don't want your kids to grow up without a daddy, do you?" You play on their fears and relationships.

I just ran a murder mystery with two PCs, one playing good cop, the other bad cop. They never resorted to physical threats, but the tag team of dialogue was effective and often hilarious. Eg: they discover the butler (who didn't do it...) starts showing signs of physical strain. A successful Streetwise suggests he's an addict, missing his daily fix.

Good cop: "You look stressed, what's up?"

Bad cop: "He's wondering whether there's still the death penalty for murder."

Butler: "I didn't do it!"

BC: "Sure, and I'm a nerf. I can smell nervous sweat a click away." (sniffs) "...and you smell 'guilty' to me!"

GC: "You look like you need something, maybe we can help..."

After a bit more back and forth, a roll for Charm and Coercion reveals that the murdered victim used to keep the butler "supplied", which reveals more clues. Anyway, no torture required...

They talked about this in the D6 books a little bit.

There's lots of thing you can do to get information out of someone that isn't torture... well depending on your definition of course. But that's kinda the big thing, military interrogation sis about the collecting of actionable intelligence, so you want to convince the person to give up information on their own as much as possible, rather then just give you SOMETHING to make whatever you're doing stop.

Also, what information you're trying to get is going to vary wildly. The intel you can get from a grunt will be quite different than what you'd get out of a senior officer, though both could provide valuable information in their own way.

WARNING: I'm gonna get a little dark here. As I said, while it's easy to agree what is torture, it's harder to agree what isn't. Not condoning any specific behavior, just brainstorming. What you want to do and how far you want to go is between you and your group, and you should discuss it with them prior to going there.

So... Some ideas:

Time Acceleration - Military intelligence is often time-sensitive. After a certain number of days (Three days is a good average) the information a POW has will become worthless, or at least no longer as valuable. When the opposition knows you've got their guy, they'll assume he sung like a canary and start changing everything they know he knows. Likewise he knows they'll do that, and only need to hold out as long as he thinks his information will be actionable. After that, who cares if you spill it. As an interrogator you can play this up. Best if you have a controlled facility where you can really manipulate things, but windowless starships compartment will do in a pinch. You can then pull tricks to make them think more time is passing than it is. Interrupt sleep so they can't keep track. Feed them only light snacks so they're always kinda hungry. Clean yourself up between sessions, change into a fresh uniform, shave, wash up, chug a little Jolt with an espresso chaser so you go in looking and smelling like it's the start of a new day. Installing colorshift sun lamps outside the holding cell is nice too as you can make it look like sunrise, mid-day, and sunset. Once they feel sufficient time has passed they'll be more likely to talk, assuming that their information is out of date.

Coercion: Simple threats will do for most. You don't have to threaten torture, just identify things that are important to the prisoner and explain how they'll never have that again. "Hmmm... nice family you have here... so anyway, where was I ? Oh right... we haven't reported your capture to the Empire... And us Rebels? well you know we don't have the resources to keep prisoners ourselves. We've just got some uninhabited worlds we know of. We'll drop you on one with some tools and seed. If you work hard you'll probably survive the winter. Of course the Empire doesn't know where those worlds are... so if we lose this war... you'll just... keep being there. Your family will never know what happened. You'll just be gone... you'll never see your daughter again... never see your wife... they'll be alone, without you, struggling to survive while you rot away growing goonta-beans on some rim planet no one has ever heard of. Look... I just need to know where the research base is. Tell me that, and I can make arrangements for you. Notify your family. Let them know you're ok. I'll even have the penal team put a tracker on you so when the war's over we can pick you up and take you home. Or... keep being a tough guy. You like goonta-beans right? I'll have the mess boil you some up for lunch and you can think about it."

Simply asking: Lower level guys don't think they have information, so sometimes just being nice will get you what you need. The Moff won't just cave of course, but some trooper might. "Look Corporal, this is just a simple debrief. We're not gonna beat you, or electrocute you, or demand to know the Empire's grand plan, or anything silly like that. I just want to go over some things so we can properly confirm your identity and notify the Empire of your capture, and then you'll be off to a nice boring detainment facility. So... you're with the 12th Regiment outta Alteron right? Were you on the Star Destroyer or did you come on the troop ship? Ok ok… We nabbed you at the base outside of the Gruntur forest... pretty typical for an Imperial base these days amiright? I noticed you don't have any chemical protective gear, budget cuts or supply shortage? Man I hate those supply shortages too. Where'd they have you before? Me... Mon Cala… or is it Dac? I can never keep it right. So you were where? Oh yeah, nice place, great weather there. Wow, you ate that sandwich fast, you want me to have them bring you another? Oh some blue milk to wash it down?... well I can certainly ask.. So who was you commanding officer again? Major..."

Us or them/Carrot and Stick: Some groups treat prisoners better than others. The threat of extradition can be a motivator. "Look, I don't care. You've never done anything to me, so you can tell me the defense plan for the Hunkou system or not. But … you really should. See, those Aqualish over there? They're from the colony on Klunga IV, joined up with us last week. They're still kinda mad about that orbital bombardment you guys did and really want a prisoner to take back home as an example. Now... they don't know you were assigned to the Avenger... yet... Tell me the defense plan, and as far as they'll know you're a cook from a troop transport. But hey... you want to keep being a tough guy that's cool... You ever been to Klunga IV?

A good slap: So physical torture is morally wrong and rarely effective. Beating a prisoner... not worth the hassle. But... sometimes you'll get a smug little wiener that knows that, usually some wealthy Imperial official's spoiled brat. They'll hold out based on the belief that you can't actually do anything to them, after all, no one else has. In these cases a good slap, or kicking the chair out from under them, or simply not being so gentle when moving them can send a clear message that this is really happening. Gotta be careful with this one, you only want to send a message that, yes, you can hurt them if you want to, and no daddy can't do anything to help you now. If this doesn't work in one try, best to move on to other methods.

Chemical motivation: The Empire uses powerful hallucinogens in it's interrogations, they leave the prisoner so open to suggestion that if you say they're on fire, they'll feel the burn. The Rebellion may not go that way, but getting someone good and doped up can make them more willing to talk. Inject some of those good head-fogging painkillers, dim the lights, and go in and introduce yourself as his commander... tell him what a good job he's doing, making sure the rebels don't know where the data center is. It's nice and safe on...….. yes... Elrood. The Rebels will never find out it's on Elrood...

I think that's enough for now, you've been very helpful.

But you can see why not every group would be comfortable with this sort of thing. Torture is a rather broadly defined thing, and what one person considered to be just getting the job done, a someone else could be violently opposed to. But if you've got an interrogation in your game, I'd hope you've already established your group will be operating in less pleasant parts of the war...

So, in game....

Mechanic for much of this can follow something akin to Crafting, where for each Deception, Negotiation, Coercion, the results can be applied to getting closer to what you want. Using various methods or tool scan also provide modifiers and so on.

For physical torture I'd actually make the difficulty start with opposed Brawn/Brawling/Melee vs Willpower/Cool/Discipline. However, unlike less violent means, with each attempt the difficulty will increase/upgrade. This provides a balanced approached where a little roughing up might work with some people, but beating the tar out of your prisoner is really going to be counter-productive.

But yeah... everything I just wrote is pretty gruesome, and probably shouldn't be in a game of Star Wars, or at the very least not taken lightly as this is the kind of thing that can get out of control if you let it... Certainly not something I'd put I a Con game or something.

35 minutes ago, whafrog said:

or b) torture actually works (it doesn't).

I prefer to avoid blanket generalizations. The truth is often more nuanced, and messier, than Internet conversations allow for. Torture sometimes works. It is, however, fraught with a host of moral and practical pitfalls that make just about every other interrogation technique out there a superior choice in just about every conceivable scenario. Not everyone breaks, it can take significant time break those who do, and if you do effectively torture someone into talking you may not be able to verify what they tell you. When you consider that the quintessential case people make for torture is the "ticking bomb" scenario you end up asking yourself "why the **** would someone choose this option?" It also raises the ugly question of whether you are sacrificing your own soul to save it, and whether the decision to torture does more societal and cultural harm than the perceived evil you are seeking to root out.

BOR GULLET WILL KNOW THE TRUTH

No, seriously, there's room for a macguffin that forces the NPC being "interrogated" to survive some Resilience rolls. Acquiring the Bor Gullet (or equivalent) could make an interesting side-adventure.

3 minutes ago, BrickSteelhead said:

BOR GULLET WILL KNOW THE TRUTH

No, seriously, there's room for a macguffin that forces the NPC being "interrogated" to survive some Resilience rolls. Acquiring the Bor Gullet (or equivalent) could make an interesting side-adventure.

Bor Gullet is incredibly not how good guys interrogate someone.

I can't remember what movie it was in, but I remember an interesting scene where some good guys needed to interrogate a captured bad guy. They basically tied him up to a chair and then started making these strange mechanical sounds behind him as though they were setting up some kind of machine; but he couldn't turn around to see what it was and he got more and more nervous. Finally one of the good guys said "get his fingers" and the bad guy completely snapped and spilled his guts.

On 11/19/2019 at 3:29 PM, ddbrown30 said:

My players are likely going to have an Imperial officer in their custody soon and I would like interrogation to potentially yield some information. Their prisoner is loyal and would not give up information easily.

How can good guys interrogate someone without resorting to torture? More importantly, how would you run this so that it was fun and interesting?

I have a feeling I'm just going to leave this as a problem for my players to solve, but I'd still like to see what others think.

Same way the Empire does if they want actually reliable information, through patience and wearing the target down with repeated questions. It doesn't have to be all that stressful. This video of a lecture has some handy tips and tricks around it. Since your guy doesn't have the option of lawyering up they're probably going to get through to him sooner or later. Torture or similar methods are very unreliable and almost never produce information that's actually useful. Which is why, opposite to what many have heard, the Spanish Inquisition rarely used torture and saw the method and deeply unreliable and only to be used in the most dire circumstances. They also had quite strict rules on what sort of torture they were allowed to use, anything that drew blood was prohibited.

It's a lot more cinematic to have the villains be mustache twirling sadists though.

On 11/19/2019 at 10:02 AM, Varlie said:

Lock the Imp in a room with a bunch of Jawas for a week

Lock the Imp in a room with an inquisitive 4 year old for 2 days

Force him to set in on the Wookiee Women's Choir practice (and gossip) with an Ithorian guest singer

He'll be begging for good old traditional torture and will give you every code to the Death Star he knows

Depending on timeline; have him in a room with the Ewoks telling him how they dominated his precious Empire on Endor.

I said no torture.

13 hours ago, Vorzakk said:

I can't remember what movie it was in, but I remember an interesting scene where some good guys needed to interrogate a captured bad guy. They basically tied him up to a chair and then started making these strange mechanical sounds behind him as though they were setting up some kind of machine; but he couldn't turn around to see what it was and he got more and more nervous. Finally one of the good guys said "get his fingers" and the bad guy completely snapped and spilled his guts.

That brings to mind a similar scene from the (fairly decent) Punisher flick staring Thomas Jane, where through creative use of a steak, a blow torch, and a popsicle he was able to get a low-ranking lackey to spill what he knew about the film's crime boss antagonist (played to hammy hilt by John Travolta) day-to-day doings, none of which involved the illegal stuff (lackey was too far down the organization's totem pole to know any of the really juicy stuff).

Granted, that scene falls within the realm of psychological torture, but then the Punisher isn't someone that we're meant to look up to. But, it would be an example of using Coercion to scare the target into talking, doing at most strain damage until the guy broke and spilled what he knew.

How many lights do you see?

Sorry, wrong franchise.

1. Build a Relationship of Trust with the Prisoner.
2. Have some quiet positive conversations.
3. Be patient.
4. Let the prisoner know that their defeat is inevitable and by providing useful information, they'll actually help reduce casualties (Works better for the US Army than the Rebellion because its true. The Imperials are the BBEG with the Rebellion being underdogs).
5. Offer incentives to the prisoner for cooperating. "Check this out. Honeycombs with honey poured over it. Doesn't that taste delicious? I can make sure you get this for breakfast every morning if you can help me fill in some blanks."

20 hours ago, BrickSteelhead said:

BOR GULLET WILL KNOW THE TRUTH

No, seriously, there's room for a macguffin that forces the NPC being "interrogated" to survive some Resilience rolls. Acquiring the Bor Gullet (or equivalent) could make an interesting side-adventure.

BOR GULLET!!!

I strongly urge GMs to just drop this option on the counter (among others) and see if the players bite. XD

Seriously, though, end of the day this is a game. Don't over think it.

Also, if you're not sure about how to deal with the situation? don't. There's always the option that he folds like a dollar bill, so that your party can just move on to the next thrilling adventure.

As much as I was hoping to bring back some fun stories, my players weren't interested in doing the interrogation themselves and so just handed the prisoner off to rebel command to do the interrogation for them.

Actually, the campaign opening in Battlefront 2 showed this exact thing ... granted Iden had intended to get captured as part of a plan, but it's a canon visual representation of Alliance interrogation practices.

1 hour ago, Kyla said:

Actually, the campaign opening in Battlefront 2 showed this exact thing ... granted Iden had intended to get captured as part of a plan, but it's a canon visual representation of Alliance interrogation practices.

Got a time-code to go with that? Those of use that haven't played that game have 3 hours of footage to sift through...

2 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Got a time-code to go with that? Those of use that haven't played that game have 3 hours of footage to sift through...

lol, was thinking the same thing, but it's the first scene, not very long (and not very effective)...

Remember he is now captured by a shadowy group of what he believes to be terrorists. Imperial progerganda has told him they are a bunch of ruthless, murdering zealots who murder for funzies. Now he is at their mercy and probably in a location few people know about. There is little to no hope of rescue due to very few people knowing where imp prisoners go, they practically dissappear from the galaxy. Basically, if you were him, you would think your in the clutches of Daesh or Al Qaeda.

Let your players feed into that fear.

On 11/19/2019 at 8:29 AM, ddbrown30 said:

How can good guys interrogate someone without resorting to torture? More importantly, how would you run this so that it was fun and interesting?

You may have a different definition of interrogate then me. There is no impetus to torture in order to interrogate. I guess I would call torturing a technique, not one you have to use. If the PCs try to torture, perhaps add a couple bonus dice, but also give some automatic threat since the subject may start blabbing lies to get you to stop?

Interrogation doesn't need to have torture. Using the cliché's of old movies, the person is shut in a room, tied to a chair, bright light in his face, and he's yelled at, asked questions, kept awake for hours, etc. Using real world definitions, it can be simply just a "harsh" interview.