Speaking of torture

[Sigfried Le Danois]

Speaking of torture ate we using the rules were torture over months can permanently strip away willpower?I can't remember what book that was in, maybe someone can help me.

[Guest]

I thought it was just temporary Willpower.

[Giric]

If I remember those rules you have to strip through all the temporary willpower first, and then the permanent ones. But I haven't read them myself, so no clue really.

Good question, what are the rules for torture as it is kinda a thing in this time period.

[Sigfried Le Danois]

Luke had it. You remove temps first, and one that's done you move into permanent ones.
Was it dark epics? I'll admit it was during owbn when I last looked at them so it's possible it was an owbn thing.

[Count Morcant]

Are there rules factoring into that? For instance, does Fortitude or other powers mitigate that effect?

The only mention of Torture I can find in Dark Epics is as an example of a secondary skill the Storyteller might allow.

[Domnal Boruma]

Blue/red book hunter

[Player One]

At the risk of coming off as contrary...does it matter?

Being able to Torture someone at that level requires a prolonged period of time at the mercy of the torturer. Months, if we're talking about vampire PCs.

At that point, you're functionally GNCed. The difference between torturing someone into breaking(without falling into Wassail), ashing them or sacrificing them on a South American temple is fluff.

[Simon Molendinarius]

Its directly pertinent to plot at the moment, and not everyone in this world is a PC.  We need to know what the general mechanics are for applying on NPCs as well as PCs.

Though it does not have to be public knowledge.  I personally have no points in torture, so I am fine remaining ignorant so long as there is a system.

[Simon Molendinarius]

Also, sometimes info isnt the reason for torture.  We live in a world of vampires.  Sometimes torture just is.

[Giric]

To agree, there is an entire path on the road of sin devoted to causing people pain.  Worth knowing the rules for it.

[Player One]

Well, right, that's kind of my point. It simply is. Much like the dozens or gastrointestinal disease, we don't really need game rules for how they work.

But, much like you, I don't have traits of Torture. I have little skin in this game beyond not wanting more additions to HR without there really, seriously, 300% needing it.

[Simon Molendinarius]

If there aren't rules then the STs have more homework. You have to arbitrarily decide on if it works or not, and you loose some player trust any time it is inconsistent between STs.

Besides, what if we want to use it on a PC to convert them to a different path? What if we want to have two PCs compete over who is better at torture? What if we want to use it to give someone a derangement or just as a sort of punishment that isn't intended to GNC them? There should be rules to accommodate these types of purposes.

Since there are mechanics already listed in the books it's not like you need to do anything extra. Any time I've been in a game where the rules are being made up on the spot it is always pretty obvious to the players, and any time I have had to make a ruling on the spot I always hem and haw because I like my rules to have internal consistency.

That being said, if you want to just arbitrarily consider any use of torture to be successful then I guess that's fine too.

[Sigfried Le Danois]

Its an ability and there are already rules written for it. I dont know why you are so aggressively against it. As Aidan points out there are a plethora of reasons for having rules for it. There isnt even any homework for the st's as a player has already pointed out the rules reference.

By your own argument, why bother having rules for Dominate 4? If you have access to the character long enough to do dominate 4 then "The difference between torturing conditioning someone into breaking(without falling into Wassail), ashing them or sacrificing them on a South American temple is fluff."

[Sigfried Le Danois]

If I want to torture someone then I obviously dont want to kill them, so the difference is not fluff. If I want that gangrel to teach me Protean, I may spend months tearing away at his will power until he gives in and teaches me.

its actually one of the few ways to permanently remove stuff from someones character sheet, and can actually be used when trying to convince a player (or an NPC, but they tend to be less concerned about their sheets) to tell you something you want to know. Something you couldn't get, by definition, if they are dead.

[Brother Dominic]

The TT rules for torture from Libellus Sanguinus: Masters of State (page 61). They'd need conversion and don't speak to removal of permanent willpower.

[Brother Dominic]

example specialties: psychological, digits, hot irons, confessions

[Brother Dominic]

Torture rules for LARP from Hunter: Laws of the Reckoning

[Sigfried Le Danois]

Nifty. Nifty. I must have mis remembered the permanent will power part. But obviously this is not something that takes "Months" and is effectively a GNC. In fact, this seems rather useful for all sorts of reasons now.

[Player One]

I lost my response. Sweet jeebus, I do not want to retype that.

tl;drt - In all of the games I've been in, I've seen players willing to run with that kind of coercion exactly once. More frequently, it's either monkeypawed, downplayed to the point of being ignored or a functional GNC(by way of quitting the PC). That's why I said the rules wouldn't overmuch matter as far as PCs are concerned.

(Green Book) Conditioning has the same problem. It's great, thematically, and can be used on NPCs, but expecting players to run with aggressive changes to their character is...perhaps too naive when compared to the last 15 years of play observation.

Amusingly, the yellowbook writeup pasted above wouldn't fulfill the example of forcing someone to teach a discipline. While not months of effort(I recall reading an iteration that required a downtime per attempt, but that might've been someone elses' HR or something), it still requires your opponent to:

* be functionally helpless(no one is just hanging around while you go in on them) and
* not have an ameliorating effect. Amusingly, there are derangements that would make someone immune to torture, and arguably Fortitude one might have something to say about it.

Even if they didn't, and they didn't have a better solution, the target could use either torpor or frenzy(no blood = no self control = testless frenzy) to make the listed Torture effects moot.

[Guest]

its also in the sabot guide

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