Talk to your players

by

Fictional Torture and Real Life Frustration at the Table

Has it ever happened to you ? You write an RP encounter with an NPC you think will be cool. Like he knows important informations or has something the party wants and they’re gonna have to convince/bribe/persuade/lie to him to get it. But then all of a sudden you realise the PCs will just torture him or kill him because it’s way easier to do.
This happened a lot. I’m all for player’s agency but this shit gets repetitive and exhausting after a while. They’re supposed to be the good guys.

REPLY:
Talk to your players and ask why they do that.
They might be coming from tables where that is the ONLY way to get information out of people.
I’ve definitely had conversations with my friends about gaming and how torture does not reveal reliable intel in reality and that I don’t want to see it at the gaming table. In my experience, characters torturing NPC’s is a sign of frustration.

From this thread…

Lich Queen Subject Divider

I’ve seen friendly hobbit parties cut off goblin’s fingers and local heroes done good threaten worse than that. In my experience, it is a sign of frustration at withheld information. Step out of game and talk it over, my friends.

I talked about this in Episode 22 of Daydreaming about Dragons…

The Fireball design and more in the Tabletop Role-Playing Games collection…

https://shopofjudd.threadless.com/designs/fireball