Reminds me of why torture as a means of information gathering is ridiculous.
I will absolutely tell you what I think you want to hear when you start stabbing me, whether its the truth or I ever knew it at all.
But I also hate you for torturing me, so If I do happen to know the thing then I also know enough about the thing to alter the answer to something false but plausible for a moment of relief while you act on it, because we all know if you’re torturing me, you have no intention of letting me out alive.
This is why the lets be pals/wine and dine approach is more effective.
This is why I liked the how Torture skill in Burning Wheel does just this: you decide what the victim says. It’s not true, it’s just what they admit to.
Well, real pros say:
“Thanks for finally providing some info. We are going to go corroborate it. If you lied, or if we can’t find convincing evidence your info was right, we will take this conversation up with your wife/kid/family”
Joel did that in last of us
Joel pretended to do that in the last of us, only to turn around saying “I believe your friend” and killing the second guy immediately.
Well they really shouldn’t have stabbed him to begin with!
Which is why you get the deets, stab anyways, check for accuracy. If incorrect, revive, repeat.
The CIA hates this one weird trick!
I doubt their soul would be willing to be revived just to be tortured and killed again.
That what the brits did to get Germans to talk in WW2
Torture is wrong
You can either tell me what I want to know, or your corpse can. slaps Speak with Dead Scroll against palm
Speak with dead doesn’t mean the corpse is going to give the informations if the living person hated you.
Reasons why I like systems that have rules for this sort of thing.
“Sure, you can torture the captive. That’s a rank 8 check against Violence, so go ahead and roll. Oh, you don’t want to risk any mechanical consequences for your horrible actions? Ok then”
I feel like there’s a lot of overlap between powergaming min/maxers and war crime doers. It really keeps players in check without having to resort to hand wave-y deus ex machina like “it turns out the bartender is a level 20 barbarian lol”
rank 8 check against Violence? huh
That’s from Unknown Armies (2e). A great game with a great rulebook. It really made me think about some assumptions I’d been making about how games work.
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jester and nott basically
