So I ran a session last night to wrap up the first act of my campaign.

It was supposed to be mostly fluff and tying up loose ends. Things didn't go quite as planned. They ended up being implicated in the murder of a Witch Hunter and associating with a known Necromancer.

When another Witch Hunter showed up at the Inn they were staying with a dozen soldiers, I expected them to flee and go into hiding.

of course they gave themselves up instead. This turned into them being imprisoned and questioned in the morning. They were mostly innocent, but they were telling contradictory stories from the outset. The party's Jade Wizard started getting lippy with the WH and pretty soon he was put on the rack in front of the other PCs.

So this was my challenge. I hadnt thought out the game mechanics of torture yet and I had to come with something interesting on the fly. So, I figured I would start out with something painful but not wounding. Maybe the rack was a poor choice, but oh well. Every round on the rack, I had him suffer one fatigue for pain. Then I had him make discipline rolls every round to avoid telling the WH everything. I added a misfortune die every round as he was being stretched. If he failed a roll, he could spend a stress to avoid talking. I think it worked out well. He passed out from the strain before talking and the party was rescued by a sympathetic Priest before the rest of them were tortured. There were also a few jokes about the Wizard beibg too tall for his robes now.

So, if youhad to run a torture session involving a PC, how would you do it?

Hmm, interesting question...

I think you did a pretty good job with coming up with something off the top of your head.

Off the top of my head, then main thing I would want to be sure to include is a way to make sure that torture is unreliable. Sure, you can get people to talk. But you're not guaranteed to get the truth, as opposed to what they think you want to hear.

Perhaps comets could allow the player to 'admit' something that wasn't true (but is believed by the torturer) - whether or not he failed the roll and told the actual truth. Or if you make some sort of interpretation roll for the torturer, banes or chaos stars could mean that the torturer either discounts what they're being told as lies, or simply thinks that there is more. And if there really isn't more, then further 'successes' will only result in more made up stories which will then be believed.

Hopefully you can use these rules if your players torture anyone too. And hopefully, if they can see that torture isn't a guaranteed method of arriving at the truth, they won't be too keen to use it all the time!

i would have made the other players make discipline checks and have failure be added as stress.

if the player on the rack rolled a chaos star i would have given them the choice of telling the hunter something or suffer a relevant critical wound or temporary insanity.

Using the Fatigue concept, I would have torture fatigue that exceeded To then also incur a wound with each fatigue point and roll a challenge die, on chaos star it's a critical. Someone thoroughly tortured should be limping the next day.

Rob

Angelic Despot said:

A minor misconception of torture. Torture works wonders IF the person knows what you want to know, and he knows you want to know it...

So if WH wants to know if you killed another WH, and you know he wants this information, and you did it, then you will tell him you did it.

Problem with torture arrises when:

- You don't the information the torturer wants to get, because then you start guessing...

- You misunderstand what he wants to know, because then you start giving him useless information...

- You're speaking the truth, but he doesn't believe you, because then you'll start confessing to everything.

- You THINK you're speaking the truth, and he doesn't believe you, back to the above

These things means the torture will continue so long, that your mind starts snapping, and then it doesn't matter if the torturer carefully explains what he wants to know, you're so far gone that you don't really listen.

Of course, some people will withstand amazing amounts of pain, and when they finally give in, there's a high risk that they'll confess to everything, even false stuff.

So IF you know, WHAT he wants to know, and you KNOW what he wants to KNOW, then 99% of people will tell the truth. So torture will work under the right circumstances.

Main problem with torture, is that you can grab anyone, torture them, and they'll confess to being Nurgle incarnated.

Spivo said:

On the other hand torture in a role playing game should not become too reliable in my oppinion. The players (if they are the tortured ones) should be able to resist it purely for the "fun" of the adventure, because I think the players will be more happy if they have a decent chance of resisting than if they're "forced" into telling the torturer what they want to keep hidden, regardless of how torture works in real life. That way it becomes a challenge to resist and I believe that it is better suited for an RPG.

And on a side note the players should allways doubt information they obtain via torture (if they are the torturers).

I think it was a smart way of solving the torture situation with discipline checks and fatuigue/stress. I think there's even a specialization for discipline called "resist torture".

Well, my conclusion was that torture is completely useless, unless you're 100% certain what information you want, and then it really has no point...

Regarding it up to the pc's to resist torture, I would see if the players could roleplay it themselves, if not (ignoring getting nails torn out etc...) I'd roll for it vs. disciplin.

Is an "interesting" discussion touching this subject on rpg, of course the board are down now, so can't link

Spivo said:

While that might be true irl, I think the nature of the Warhammer World means that it could be played more cinematically in WFRP if that is how the group likes it. A witch hunter torturing a witch to confess her sins in real life has a lot diiferent feel to it than a witch hunter torturing a witch to confess her sins in a world where real witches wield real magic.

Great discussion!

The way I was playing the Witch hunter is that he had already decided their guilt and torture was his tool to get the admission. I've been trying to portray them as overly cruel and callous to my party and I think they get it now. One or the things I like about the Mechanics of the game is the opportunity for conflict and consequences beyond overt combat and "how many hit points do I take?"

I didn't want to kill him, but I wanted to give him the opportunity to give the Witch Hunter what he wanted or risk pain or even his sanity in resisting. Fortunately, he stat dumped toughness and had a high willpower, so he fell unconscious pretty soon, while rolling enough boons to recover the stress he was losing.

I definitely missed the chance to test the willpower of his party-mates who witnessed the torture. That would have been interesting. I'm still not sure I did the right thing by not threatening wound points. I guess it would depend on the kind of torture.

All in all, the Witch Hunter had good reason to blame them as they were involved and party responsible, unwittingly. It didn't go the way I planned, but I'm glad.

I hope someone else runs into this situation. I'd love to hear how your party reacts.

Thrak

monkeylite said:

Not that different I think. It all boils down to being 100% certain, and thus torturing makes no sense, or 99% certain, and then risk innocent confessing.

Wether you're 100% certain due to having seen them use magic, or 100% certain due having seen them eat a black cat, you're still only doing the torture for your own satisfaction (to get a confession).

BUT that said I still think torture is a great tool to use to set the mood for a grim and dark world! And one has to remember that likely allmost all WH's will believe it's better to burn 99 guilty and 1 innocent witch, than no witches at all, and it is more appropriate to burn someone who has confessed then someone who still screams they're innocent, no matter how the confession was given...