D&D 5E Advice Sought: Running an NPC prisoner interrogation

[bedir than]

The PCs captured a 2nd tier dwarven mage at the end of the last session. They have every reason to believe he is hostile. In our next session they will be interrogating him.

What mechanics should I be aware of? What tricks can they use? What tricks should the dwarf use?

 

[Bawylie]

None. These scenes are rarely as fulfilling as we might want them to be. I tend to use them as hooks or to setup the next leg of the adventure. Something like "After several hours of questioning, you learn X Y & Z, now what do you do?" At the very least it moves on to the next part of the adventure.

 

[Hussar]

To expand on what [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] said, my advice is to simply gloss over it and give the PC's more information than they actually ask for. The dwarf sings like a canary.

Think about it this way. One of the biggest challenges for a DM is to get information into the hands of the players. Either setting information or plot information, doesn't really matter. How do you get the information from your head into their hands? Well, they just handed you a gift wrapped golden opportunity. All those cool ideas that your have for your setting? Well, hand them over now.

I suggest that you take a few minutes and type up (or write up) a page of information in bullet form. Twenty things you learn from the dwarf or something like that. Depending on where you want to nudge your players, tailor the information in such a way that it allows them to make informed choices. If they are interrogating the dwarf about some stronghold or camp or something like that, give the players lots of information about that - total numbers of people living there, what are they armed with, maybe a tidbit or two about different NPC's (Toegrap likes sweets, offer him some candy and he'll be your friend) things like that.

Now, for a twist, add in maybe two or three items that are deliberately misleading or outright lies. Maybe Toegrap hates sweets in fact. Maybe there are more (or less) defenders in the stronghold - the number the players get is off by 10-20%. Don't do this with every piece of information. Make most of it true, which makes the false stuff stand out nicely. Note, if the players go the magic route (Zone of Truth or something like that) then don't negate that - they know that X is a lie and maybe they can get the truth out of the dwarf.

DO NOT STONEWALL. This is the biggest mistake I see DM's make in these situations. They don't want to give out too much information for fear of making things "too easy". It's never "too easy". Having information lets the players make informed choices which makes them actually think (and get more immersed) in the scenario. Coming to a T intersection in the dungeon is not a real choice - it's a coin flip. Coming to a T intersection where you know left leads you to the the armoury and right leads you to the Captain's chambers is an interesting choice.

This is not a challenge, it's an opportunity. You can expostulate to your heart's content. Do so. Your players are telling you that they want more information. Give it to them.

 

[Bawylie]

To expand on what [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] said, my advice is to simply gloss over it and give the PC's more information than they actually ask for. The dwarf sings like a canary.

Think about it this way. One of the biggest challenges for a DM is to get information into the hands of the players. Either setting information or plot information, doesn't really matter. How do you get the information from your head into their hands? Well, they just handed you a gift wrapped golden opportunity. All those cool ideas that your have for your setting? Well, hand them over now.

I suggest that you take a few minutes and type up (or write up) a page of information in bullet form. Twenty things you learn from the dwarf or something like that. Depending on where you want to nudge your players, tailor the information in such a way that it allows them to make informed choices. If they are interrogating the dwarf about some stronghold or camp or something like that, give the players lots of information about that - total numbers of people living there, what are they armed with, maybe a tidbit or two about different NPC's (Toegrap likes sweets, offer him some candy and he'll be your friend) things like that.

Now, for a twist, add in maybe two or three items that are deliberately misleading or outright lies. Maybe Toegrap hates sweets in fact. Maybe there are more (or less) defenders in the stronghold - the number the players get is off by 10-20%. Don't do this with every piece of information. Make most of it true, which makes the false stuff stand out nicely. Note, if the players go the magic route (Zone of Truth or something like that) then don't negate that - they know that X is a lie and maybe they can get the truth out of the dwarf.

DO NOT STONEWALL. This is the biggest mistake I see DM's make in these situations. They don't want to give out too much information for fear of making things "too easy". It's never "too easy". Having information lets the players make informed choices which makes them actually think (and get more immersed) in the scenario. Coming to a T intersection in the dungeon is not a real choice - it's a coin flip. Coming to a T intersection where you know left leads you to the the armoury and right leads you to the Captain's chambers is an interesting choice.

This is not a challenge, it's an opportunity. You can expostulate to your heart's content. Do so. Your players are telling you that they want more information. Give it to them.

Definitely do not stonewall. It just drags out a scene that's already not a lot of fun.

If you really must run an interrogation, first decide what 3-5 facts the NPC knows. Write these down. Now figure out why he doesn't want to give that info up. Maybe 2 good objections. Your players will have to either overcome those objections or provide sufficient enticements In order to get the NPC to cough up the facts.

But. I personally hate these scenes. Often, particularly with pick up groups, these scenes turn darker than I like. So I tend to use them differently, as transitions.

 

[Coredump]

My comments have already been presented. Skip the interrogation, streamline the discovery part.

 

[iserith]

Consider also the following article: Interrogation...

 

[bedir than]

This is great. We definitely won't be playing torture, despite all but 1 PC saying they are Neutral. I like the idea of 3-5 clues to give with a a few objections.

 

[MechaPilot]

I have to agree with a fair amount of what has been said. Pretty much every time I have ever decided not to gloss over an interrogation as a DM, or seen another DM not gloss over it, it turns into torture porn. Ever since I noticed that happening, I've gone with the following (which is going to be slightly repetitious):

1) Decide what the NPC knows. Don't make it a massive amount of stuff or it will feel like an exposition dump.

2) Decide how loyal the NPC is. Will the promise of rewards or the threat of violence get it to talk? How significant do those rewards/threats need to be? Is actual violence required to get it to talk? If so, how much violence is needed? Will it talk the moment it's punched or cut? Or will the PCs have to full-on torture it? And, it's always possible that it might be so loyal that it will die before giving the info. This, along with full-on torture, is probably best saved as being very rare levels of loyalty.

3) Don't shoot yourself in the foot. Getting info out of prisoners can do two very useful things. It can teach players the value of taking prisoners (which is handy if you're trying to train them not to just slaughter everything in sight), and it can keep the story moving by providing crucial information. It also has the potential to create recurring villains if the prisoner escapes or is turned over to someone else.

 

[Unwise]

I'm sure you don't need another person to tell you to skip the scene, but I'll expand on some practical ideas here.

- Firstly, everybody talks. Everybody. Given time and the will, you can make anybody talk, barring some magical effects.
- So give the PCs the basic info, it moves the plot forward.
- Make an intimidation roll, that dictates how much extra information they gain, little stuff that might be helpful to know.
- Now after that roll, give them a +1 to +10 to the roll, based on how evil they are willing to be. Keep it obscure, but give PCs a chance to choose the dark side. So if they just want to threaten to slap the guy around, they get +1, if they make the other PCs puke and their gods abandon them, and the party paladin attack them, then +10. Do NOT encourage them to give details, just pick a number from 1 to 10.

 

[iserith]

Quoting some practical advice from the article I linked upthread in case anyone got a case of the tl;dr's while checking it out:

1. The assailants declare their business from the beginning. (“The Crimson Sword sends his regards! Now die!”)

2. The assailants spill the beans right after defeat (“Ok, ok, I’m not getting paid enough for this job!”)

3. The heroes can deduce information using their own knowledge (“That’s the Lu family sword style!”)

4. The scene simply skips ahead (“Using the info we got from those thugs, it should be on this dock here…”)