Comments on: Torturing Player Characters

By: Ron Shearer

Ron Shearer — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:21:53 +0000

I would not hesitate to use torture on one of the PCs (or NPCs) in my world, as any heinous violation upon a carefully honed character (or companion to such) often builds up an almost palpable level of righteous anger upon which they often attack a quest with a higher level of intensity.

But as for my PCs employing such tactics themselves, I don’t see that as likely. Because I do allow evil PCs (my son and his friends see enough wickedness via TV, movies and video games), the very act of news acquisition through physical extraction would endanger too many characters. Because we have several rangers, priests of Peoni, priests of Larani or one the latter goddesses’ paladins, the cost of such a method would be much too high, and I am sure they would see that before they succumbed to the temptation.

No player running a ranger or paladin would like seeing their defender of good suddenly reduced to a CN fighter. Nor would any priest enjoy suddenly finding themselves cut off from their god because of their actions. And I don’t see them trying to pull off the old “Look, Sir Orsic! An evil doer!” trick (from “Gamers II: Dorkness Rising”, as much a must-see viewing for D&Ders as “Office Space” is for cubicle-dwelling grunts)

By: Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2010-06-04

Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2010-06-04 — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:51:02 +0000

[...] Torturing Player Characters What happens when the good guys want (or think they need) to stoop to the lower levels of morality and torture someone? Well…. lots it turns out, even if they’re not a paladin or someone with a code of honor to uphold. [...]

By: Tiorn

Tiorn — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:40:58 +0000

The only time I recall that our party was ever in such a situation… we had captured a Drow Priestess of Lolth and were trying to get information from her. I can’t say that torture was or was not used at all. But, since I was playing an exiled Dark Elf who had turned to the ways of Law and Good, I tried to avoid it. One of the goals I had set for my character was that he intended to create a safe haven for others of his kind to find refuge in when they escaped from their Drow communities. Using torture against ‘one of our kind’, no matter how ‘misguided’ they were, would certainly have ruined my character goals. But we really needed that information. So, as a spell caster, my Dark Elf pulled a copper piece from his pocket and cast a spell (2nd edition… ESP — material component: 1 copper piece). We got the information that we were seeking. What happened to that Drow Priestess after my character left the room is beyond me. But I’m sure it wasn’t good. :)

By: Charisma

Charisma — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:00:13 +0000

Sometimes it’s hard to be a player getting tortured. It takes some maturity to pull it off right, I think.

By: wickedmurph

wickedmurph — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:33:51 +0000

I’ve never hesitated to torture players. And my players, to their credit, have played along admirably. The best one I ever did was in a urban Waterdeep campaign. One of the players, a halfling thief, had totally failed to break into the house of a suspected spy in the city. He’d passed out from taking a poison needle to the face, and awoke in a strange bed with a horribly swollen, tender face and 2 grim-looking bounty hunters looming over him.

They inquired as to the name of the person that sent him to the house. He refused to tell them, so the bigger one poked the halfling’s swollen face, lightly, with one finger. “IT WAS DORDON!” was the players immediate response.

Great role-playing, but it did require the player’s cooperation and understanding the character. Some players might have tried to tough that out… and I would have killed their character for stupidity.