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<blockquote data-quote="Joe Liker" data-source="post: 6457123" data-attributes="member: 6777505">The best way to discourage prisoner-taking is to stop rewarding the players for doing it. But keep in mind, you have to be consistent, or it will backfire in a big way. In this case, negative punishment (denying them a positive stimulus) can change to random positive reinforcement of the undesired behavior in a heartbeat -- and random positive reinforcement is just about the most powerful tool in operant conditioning.In my campaigns, a prisoner who is being tortured or threatened with torture will always lie. I don't even care if the players believe the lies. They can pass all the insight and intimidate checks in the world, but the prisoner will never tell the truth. It will make up falsehoods that it believes the torturers want to hear, nothing more, ever.So unless the players have other methods of extracting information, they soon catch on that there's no point in capturing anyone alive, unless they want to hold them for ransom or something. Note that these other methods (charm, mind-reading, diplomacy etc.) can generally be done without combat -- certainly without knocking someone out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Joe Liker, post: 6457123, member: 6777505"] The best way to discourage prisoner-taking is to stop rewarding the players for doing it. But keep in mind,[B] you have to be consistent,[/B] or it will backfire in a big way. In this case, negative punishment (denying them a positive stimulus) can change to random positive reinforcement of the undesired behavior in a heartbeat -- and random positive reinforcement is just about the most powerful tool in operant conditioning. In my campaigns, a prisoner who is being tortured or threatened with torture will always lie. I don't even care if the players believe the lies. They can pass all the insight and intimidate checks in the world, but the prisoner will never tell the truth. It will make up falsehoods that it believes the torturers want to hear, nothing more, ever. So unless the players have other methods of extracting information, they soon catch on that there's no point in capturing anyone alive, unless they want to hold them for ransom or something. Note that these other methods (charm, mind-reading, diplomacy etc.) can generally be done without combat -- certainly without knocking someone out. [/QUOTE]

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