Help me DM an interrogation

[ThoughtBubble]

I stink at running interrogated prisoners. Every situation that I've run so far goes in one of
two manners. Half the time the prisoner cracks under the first question and spills everything. The other half of the time they hold out until the frustrated party beats them into unconsciousness and persues other leads. As I have two players who are really into this particular questioning, I'd like it to go well.

Here's the situation:
The party is working with the local thieves' guild/underground resistance to get some documents that would incriminate the most dominant family in the city. They were working with a crew of NPC safecrackers, forgery artists, and cleanup specialists. During their raid, they managed to foil an assassination attempt on one of the very important guests of said family (the child of the Duke of a neibouring region) and capture the member of the NPC crew who helped the assassin get into the building.

So now I need to find a way to make this questioning work.
The thieves’ guild has a growing faction that thinks the old style is too subtle. They believe it’s time for armed revolution.
The assassin was hired by the more violent faction. Had the attempt succeeded, the capture of the resistance crew was almost guaranteed.
The resistance crew was all loyalists to the old organization with the exception of the plant.
The plant was bribed with a large amount of cash.
The plan was that crew would get captured, tortured, and leak information on the old guard. This would lead to a sever hunt for them.
They figured that the old guard was going to fight, flee or hide. If they fled, then the newer people can take over. If they hide, then they’ll be hunted, and that will incite mobs to violence. If they fight, well, that’s the goal anyway. And, as a side plan, the old guard can always be offered up to gain faction with the Duke family.
The prisoner knows several of the co-conspirators, the ones who gave him the money and instructions. He has a rough idea of the members of the violent faction that are part of the situation.

Is there anything else to figure out about this situation? Are there any other leads that
should come out? And how the heck do I handle the actual questioning?

Thanks in advance!

 

[tf360]

First off, you have to determine the prisoner's motivation and his attitude. Is he willing to die for his cause, or did he perform his task strictly for money. If the former is the case, he's unlikely to cooperate with the PC's, although he may still attempt to answer questions giving half-truths and lies. If the latter is the case, then his loyalty may be won by the highest bidder. In this instance, freedom may be worth a lot more than any monetary reward.

Secondly, you need to determine how he responds to interrogation and what are his rights in accordance with the local laws and customs. In some cultures he may have the right to say nothing or be compelled to answer questions through brute force if necessary. Then, you need to decide how much he is willing to say to either deny his involvement in the plot or try to save his own skin.

One of the problems you're going to face is that players tend to be poor interrogators. Their questions are often vague, open-ended or worse yet, yes and no questions. They also tend to dance around the central issues and concentrate on periphery themes almost as if they're trying to wear down or bore the prisoner with their sheer volume of questions. Here's an example to illustrate my point.

Poor question:
Did you help the assassin get into the building?
Reason: This question is a yes/no question that probably leads nowhere. If the response is no, how do you follow up?

Good question:
Where were you when the assassin entered into the building?
Reason: The prisoner has been asked to provide information that may potentially incriminate him, (I was standing by the only open door), or if he lies, he may give the players an opportunity to catch him in a lie.

Of course if he refuses to answer any questions this is all moot. Fortunately for the PC's, most people love to hear themselves talk. Some criminals believe that they can talk their way out of anything, so they'll spin a fantastic tale that minimizes their role as much as possible up to the point of outright denial, while others are just waiting for the interrogator to give him a reason to cooperate. The PC's challenge is to get the prisoner to put himself in a situation where his lies start to work against him. Once he realizes that his story is starting to unravel, he may know that the game is up and it's time to come clean and hope for the best.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Back story the NPCs, give them details and traits but only let them be a part of the big picture and have the the players have to place everything together. Also think about the 'gangs' relationship to each other, some may be more loyal to other members or have a score to settle with another or be fearful of their boss.

Example: Hey, I was only the look out, I was to wait on the roof and warn the team if the watch was coming. I Worked with the guys before, Benny is a good man and takes care off us, never cared for Bruno, muscle only and did not trust him, he was up to something. No, no I don't know what but he was always meeting someone in shadows, I think it could of been the man and no I did not see his face, told Benny about it but Benny said not to worry.

 

[Felikeries]

There should be several intergrity rollers concerning player charisma versus a combo of
interogatee's charisma and constitution,each roll can follow a path that either answers questions or betas around the bush.

The timing of these rolls may be at a question the DM finds relevant or can muster a hope for
varying answers to such as:"what will the next step for our foes be"...multiple answers multiple rolls or "if we kill their most powerfull assasin,who takes over from the one we got,who will it be or where can we find them"....more ranging with answers such as winning the roll blatantly tells the towne,but only by 1 or 2 the general region etc.

By the time a series of questions have been made,the DM may use a ,llive timing equation to consider the attitude of the NPC,making it more difficult to make answers the party needs if the time is exceeded.

Also certain tricks of the trade,may be accounted for by the DM as they party takes someone into custody for questioning.If this is a major group,they will have cionide,suicide,or resistance training for 5 of 8 NPC's that are questioned.This may be a pure luck situation for the party and if they get the wrong one,they may ask questions for 15 minutes real time but be left in the dark or astray,and not fully realize it.
{note:this may be appearant and another attempted questioning of a differnet NPC will take place,the pne questioned should be the first variable roller,rather than the session itself]

 

[MonkeyDragon]

If you're looking for some rules on how to run an interrogation, there are rules for torture in the BoVD that involves intimidation checks. Might help put some structure to it.

 

[Whimsical]

Also, Unearthed Arcana has rules for how to set up an scenario so that the player needs to make multiple successes with a skill check before you get what you want.

There's a skill system in Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns intended for competitions, such as armwresling, where you add and subtract the differences of multiple opposed skill checks before you get a result. For example, if the players decide to use Intimidate for their interrogation, then you can decide how much positive difference in opposed checks they need to make before he cracks. First you set your "marker" at zero and determine that the marker has to meet or beat a 10 before he breaks. So the players roll a 20 for their Intimidate, and the NPC rolls 15 on his defense (d20 + level + wis + fear resistance). The players have moved the marker from 0 to 5. Next round, they try again the rolls are 14 and 21, so they lose seven points, so the marker is set at -2, and so on. They may crack him in one round, several rounds, or just give up. They could also try to use Diplomacy, or perhaps Bluff or Gather Information, or maybe a mix of skills. Don't forget to throw in any circumstance bonuses and penalties for each side that you can think of. A visual representation of the marker can help draw the players into the excitement of the interaction.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Detect thoughts, and then say "Don't think about your involvement in X."

Spells are great. zone of truth, charm, even speak with dead!

And, you can always leave them polymorphed into an iguana for a while and see how they like that.

These all make it much less of a "hassle." Unless your PCs really like interogations...

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Going back to the motivation thing, and assuming that the prisoner is willing to talk, one of his main goals will be bargaining. The prisoner wants something out of the transaction, same as the PCs.

From his point of view, he know's the game is pretty much up- he'll probably get a lot of jail time or the gallows, since he's been caught. Even if he does talk, he's still likely to be knocked off by his former comrades, and possibly in such a way that makes the gallows look like a pleasant alternative. So, the prisoner is going to have to have incentive to give over the information- assurances of release and safety, possibly some money, etc.

A lot of people thing of interrogation scenes like in old cop movies, with people firing questions at the prisoner and hoping to catch them in a lie. That's probably what you're players are thinking, too. But this doesn't really work all that well, and certainly not in an RPG. The prisoner's already caught, and they already know he's pretty much guilty, so there's no point in rehashing his crime over and over again. The trick lies not in knowing which questions to ask, but in knowing how to secure the prisoner's cooperation. Once he's willing to talk, everything's gravy.

Of course, having magic and people with high Bluff and Intimidation ranks is also very helpful.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Thaks for the responses, it’s really gotten me thinking.

As a prisoner in an attemped assassination, Thompson has no rights by law. Of course, as
a member of the lower class, he has practically no rights by law anyway. And
Byrons_Ghost has the situation correctly in mind. If he’s turned in, he’s dead. If the PC’s
let him go, the theves guild will torture him, then kill him and use his corpse as a warning
to anyone else who is thinking of betraying the resistsance. So it seeems very likely that
he’s going to want a deal for safe passage in exchange for his information. About his only
other hope is that the remaning members of the ‘violence now’ faction will break him out.
And much better to get out of the lion’s den first.

So, he’s trying to play it cool, but he’s a bit jumpy. He’ll let some of the basics of the
situation slip (hired to leave the window open and the rope out for the assassin. Decided
to help take a potshot at the Duke’s son as an act of rebellion) pretty quickly, even under
indirect or super open questions like “So murder, that’s pretty fuh huh?”

Thompson had a family in the town and worked as a guard before being pulled into some
soldiering for a year. He comes back, his family is gone. He blames the upper class for
that. So if they seem at all sympathetic, he’ll try towing that line to see what he gets.

If they’re willing to resort to violence, after a couple of broken fingers, he’ll be willing to
spill everything. I doubt they’ll do anything that focused though.

Other info he’s willing to drop:
Where he left the money for the assassin,
Who gave him the money for the assassin,
The goals he was told would come from this “Revenge and the beginning of a bloody
uprizing”.
Where his stash is hidden
Who else in the orginization he thinks is involved with orginizing the assassination

The party doesn't have access to many spells that aren't of the 'wide swath of destruction' type. The investigative PC does have a ridiculous sense motive and a custom ability that's like a limited detect thoughts. So that might be enough.

I'm still tempted to just write this down on 3-4 sheets of paper, ask for an intimidate roll and hand over one or more based off of how well they roll.

Thanks for the help!