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Last weekend my party and I captured an enemy cyborg. We needed info so we decided to interrogate him. However, borgs don't exactly feel pain, so a lot of threats were just laughed off. Is there something we can do? At least in the future. I thought about just disassembling them, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

Any thoughts or suggestions for the future?

Hire a Mind Melter.

For torture it would have to be psychological torture. such as hacking into his controls and lock his ears on and put him in a room with its a small world after all playing on a loop until he talks.

Have a mage cast words of truth (he can not lie but he can refuse to reply if he saves.) saves you from needing torure.

Use of psy.

Have a cyber doc introduce chemicals in his bio system that makes him more truth full.

I would point out a skilled interrogator can often get information without torture, any intelligence gained from torture is not reliable because they will tell you what they think you want to here to make it stop weather or not it is true. Torture may make people talk but it does not make them tell the truth.

Mack wrote:Hire a Mind Melter.

Would be useful, but not always practical when in the moment of things.

Blue_Lion wrote:For torture it would have to be psychological torture. such as hacking into his controls and lock his ears on and put him in a room with its a small world after all playing on a loop until he talks.

Have a mage cast words of truth (he can not lie but he can refuse to reply if he saves.) saves you from needing torure.

Use of psy.

Have a cyber doc introduce chemicals in his bio system that makes him more truth full.

I would point out a skilled interrogator can often get information without torture, any intelligence gained from torture is not reliable because they will tell you what they think you want to here to make it stop weather or not it is true. Torture may make people talk but it does not make them tell the truth.

Psychological would be the best route. I imagine there are other ways to play with the senses.

I think we have access to Words of Truth. The save makes it a bit dodgy but it's better than nothing.

As for your last point, you are right. However, for us it seemed that anything less than some form of torture doesn't get a peep out of people. I mean, I'm not a pro at interrogating in real life. And I think a google query for that might seem questionable. lol.

Maybe you should try conversating with him instead of threatening him.

Start taking pieces off. In the correct manner, with the right tools, I mean. Then start shutting down other parts. Sensory deprivation is one of the worst psych tortures you can inflict on someone.

Cyborgs can still feel pain, they just have to be properly motivated. An electrode shoved directly into the pain center of the brain is proper motivation.

If anything, with the nerve connections more clearly delineated, it should be EASIER to inflict pain on a cyborg, once you get inside.
But if blowtorches and tampering with blood chemistry is too draconian for you, yeah, psychology's a good approach; good-cop-bad-cop-crazy-cop-wannabe-with-the-chainsaw.

Ambrosius wrote:Last weekend my party and I captured an enemy cyborg. We needed info so we decided to interrogate him. However, borgs don't exactly feel pain, so a lot of threats were just laughed off. Is there something we can do? At least in the future. I thought about just disassembling them, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

Any thoughts or suggestions for the future?

Good idea. I would disassemble them, to an extent, with the threat of burial/spacing. Just follow through on it, for a day or three. Reduce them to nothing but life-support, see if they talk. See if the reality of what they face sinks in before their usefulness runs out.



Cr'Imson

ultimately, if it comes down to it, a cyborg in the hands of someone who isn't big on the whole morality thing is not in any better shape than anyone else in the same situation. you've already heard some of the ways a cyborg *could* be tortured, so really, they shouldn't be feeling that invincible, provided you've somehow got them captured.

though again, actually doing these things, not exactly something a good person would do.

Disassembling and burying him should make him feel pretty powerless, which for a 'borg should be even more effective.

They sort of touched on something like this in the 'Ship who Sang'. Shut off fall of his external feeds so he suffers from sensory deprivation. You also have access to his pleasure and pain centers.

Blue_Lion wrote:For torture it would have to be psychological torture. such as hacking into his controls and lock his ears on and put him in a room with its a small world after all playing on a loop until he talks.

Have a mage cast words of truth (he can not lie but he can refuse to reply if he saves.) saves you from needing torure.

Use of psy.

Have a cyber doc introduce chemicals in his bio system that makes him more truth full.

I would point out a skilled interrogator can often get information without torture, any intelligence gained from torture is not reliable because they will tell you what they think you want to here to make it stop weather or not it is true. Torture may make people talk but it does not make them tell the truth.

+1

Something else to consider though:
-Cybernetic/Bionics can be hacked (Rifts Japan, Bionics SB), you need specific implant(s) but it is possible
-might want to consider the alignments of characters in question (torture might be out of the question)
-bribery (either money or goods)
-you might not be able to go at the Cyborg directly to get him/her to help, but there might be an indirect method (put the heat on someone else to get them to talk)
-give them a choice: tell us what we want to know and we let you go OR we turn you over to an undesirable party (like Slave Borg dealer, or authorities if they have a bounty or guilty of another crime OR a Cyber-Snatcher gang)
-depending on what you want to know, you could just let the borg go (and use various surveillance techniques like bug/tailing which might result in you learning what you want)
-take incriminating photo/videos of him/her, you'll destroy them so they don't fall in the wrong hands in exchange for information. Or put simply: Blackmail

Ambrosius wrote:Last weekend my party and I captured an enemy cyborg. We needed info so we decided to interrogate him. However, borgs don't exactly feel pain, so a lot of threats were just laughed off. Is there something we can do? At least in the future. I thought about just disassembling them, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

Any thoughts or suggestions for the future?

Start taking off parts.

Start listing the scrap value of his parts. Start working towards the conclusion that he actually is worth more as the sum of his parts, rather than as an assembled whole, unless he throws you a bone or two as a valuable source of information. Note that you WILL verify that information, and lying will result in him being put up on concrete blocks or into the recycling bin in the foreseeable future.

I am going to side with the "why are you needing to torture people" crowd.
Unlike TV torture is not a fast way to get reliable information.
Even today most torture methods are long duration processes designed to break the prisoner on a psychological level (water boarding for example) and take weeks if not months of performance.

The better bet is to simply perform an interrogation.
Ask rapid fire questions
ask trick questions
let the cyborg talk about anything it likes... but interject your questions
Ask the same question different ways
ask control questions (things you know the answer to already)
stuff like that
Words of Truth is an amazing spell for this sort of thing
Telepathy minor psi power is also amazing... just ask leading questions that cause the subject to think about the topic you want... and then read the information out of their brain.

And being a cyborg you have a host of advantages if you have no qualms or concerns about the subjects rights or ethical concerns (which if your first go to is torture I am guessing is probably the case here)
You can get a cyber-doc in to install a tap so you can monitor the cyborgs neurological responses directly (when it is surprised, or scared, or worried... there will be neurological responses even if it visibly shows nothing)

If you absolutely must use torture...
Then the simplest solution is to use sensory depravation. It is one of the more effective, if rather horrifying and destructive on a psychological level (subjects tend to never be the same... assume they will gain one or more insanities)
Fear spell is a good way to make someone afraid. They fail their save and they need to roll a HF check. That's sort of terrifying right there. And you can do it over and over and over and...
Get your ethically challenged cyberdoc in again and have him rig up an over ride for the cyborgs neural controls. Now instead of the various sensors in the body giving it feed back what ever you desire is giving it what ever sensations you desire.
Find out who its loved ones are, capture some of them, bring them in and start torturing them in front of the cyborg. Make sure that the cyborg understands that you will continue doing this until your satisfied with what you get from the cyborg.
It shouldn't be to hard... just look at the various things the villains do in movies and books to torture the 'untorturable hero'... and do that.

I would be part of the 'why are you using torture in the first place' crowd, except that question was already answered--the party only ever gets intel from a captive if they use, or at least threaten to use, torture and other extreme interrogation methods.

This is a problem with the GM, not a lack of creativity on the part of the players. So here's what you do:

Next time the players have a captive, and he refuses reasonable interrogation methods, just execute him (if appropriate), or deliver him to the authorities for prosecution, etc. Take no actions that cross a moral line for your group.

The GM now has a couple choices:

1: Let the game come to a grinding halt because the intel the party needs to move forward is now lost forever because they had moral standards.
2: Figure out a way to let the party acquire the desired intel without using methods that cross the moral event horizon.

Freemage wrote:I would be part of the 'why are you using torture in the first place' crowd, except that question was already answered--the party only ever gets intel from a captive if they use, or at least threaten to use, torture and other extreme interrogation methods.

This is a problem with the GM, not a lack of creativity on the part of the players. So here's what you do:

Next time the players have a captive, and he refuses reasonable interrogation methods, just execute him (if appropriate), or deliver him to the authorities for prosecution, etc. Take no actions that cross a moral line for your group.

The GM now has a couple choices:

1: Let the game come to a grinding halt because the intel the party needs to move forward is now lost forever because they had moral standards.
2: Figure out a way to let the party acquire the desired intel without using methods that cross the moral event horizon.

I missed that, my bad there.
For which I must apologize.
I like your suggestion. I like it a LOT in fact.
*hires a Hekatonkheires to give it 100 thumbs up* (yeah, yeah I know they don't have 100 arms. I hired one of the original trio )

If he hasn't hosed you too badly previously, and if the 'borg's a merc, you could try appealing to his greedself-interest, with bribery..."How much are you being paid, and is it enough to buy your total loyalty?".
'Course, this can backfire hard, if he actually does name a price you have to beat, and it's more than you can reasonably afford.

eliakon wrote:I am going to side with the "why are you needing to torture people" crowd.
Unlike TV torture is not a fast way to get reliable information.
Even today most torture methods are long duration processes designed to break the prisoner on a psychological level (water boarding for example) and take weeks if not months of performance.

The better bet is to simply perform an interrogation.
Ask rapid fire questions
ask trick questions
let the cyborg talk about anything it likes... but interject your questions
Ask the same question different ways
ask control questions (things you know the answer to already)
stuff like that
Words of Truth is an amazing spell for this sort of thing
Telepathy minor psi power is also amazing... just ask leading questions that cause the subject to think about the topic you want... and then read the information out of their brain.

And being a cyborg you have a host of advantages if you have no qualms or concerns about the subjects rights or ethical concerns (which if your first go to is torture I am guessing is probably the case here)
You can get a cyber-doc in to install a tap so you can monitor the cyborgs neurological responses directly (when it is surprised, or scared, or worried... there will be neurological responses even if it visibly shows nothing)

If you absolutely must use torture...
Then the simplest solution is to use sensory depravation. It is one of the more effective, if rather horrifying and destructive on a psychological level (subjects tend to never be the same... assume they will gain one or more insanities)
Fear spell is a good way to make someone afraid. They fail their save and they need to roll a HF check. That's sort of terrifying right there. And you can do it over and over and over and...
Get your ethically challenged cyberdoc in again and have him rig up an over ride for the cyborgs neural controls. Now instead of the various sensors in the body giving it feed back what ever you desire is giving it what ever sensations you desire.
Find out who its loved ones are, capture some of them, bring them in and start torturing them in front of the cyborg. Make sure that the cyborg understands that you will continue doing this until your satisfied with what you get from the cyborg.
It shouldn't be to hard... just look at the various things the villains do in movies and books to torture the 'untorturable hero'... and do that.

I honestly don't disagree. It's just in the past, it doesn't seem like anything but veiled threats really have worked.

I'm not playing a nice character, but I'm also not wanting to turn into a walking Guantanamo Bay.

I do like your suggestions. Especially about doing interrogations. I suppose I need to watch more cop/spy dramas.

Freemage wrote:I would be part of the 'why are you using torture in the first place' crowd, except that question was already answered--the party only ever gets intel from a captive if they use, or at least threaten to use, torture and other extreme interrogation methods.

This is a problem with the GM, not a lack of creativity on the part of the players. So here's what you do:

Next time the players have a captive, and he refuses reasonable interrogation methods, just execute him (if appropriate), or deliver him to the authorities for prosecution, etc. Take no actions that cross a moral line for your group.

The GM now has a couple choices:

1: Let the game come to a grinding halt because the intel the party needs to move forward is now lost forever because they had moral standards.
2: Figure out a way to let the party acquire the desired intel without using methods that cross the moral event horizon.

I like the suggestions.

I've done the execution method before and that basically just put my PC in hot water with everyone and halted the whole mission completely. Was a completely valid response on their part, I'll have to say.

Mercs aren't usually the nicest people, so I'd imagine authorities might pick up something about them. I will think of the second idea the next time it happens if nothing seems to be working.


I'd like to point out to everyone that I'm not trying to be Mengele or make it like my PC is doing it for fun. I just think a firm hand is needed at times and it seems everyone we interrogate is a borg. Our latest attempts of just talking to the dudes have gotten us nothing, so I'd rather have something as a plan B.

Get a psychic. Doesn't have to be a Mind Melter. Even just Telepathy may be enough to get what you need. At the least it will inform what questions to ask.

Watch Burn Notice for interrogation ideas.

Also, threatening the people the 'Borg cares about could also work.

Freemage wrote:I would be part of the 'why are you using torture in the first place' crowd, except that question was already answered--the party only ever gets intel from a captive if they use, or at least threaten to use, torture and other extreme interrogation methods.

This is a problem with the GM, not a lack of creativity on the part of the players. So here's what you do:

Next time the players have a captive, and he refuses reasonable interrogation methods, just execute him (if appropriate), or deliver him to the authorities for prosecution, etc. Take no actions that cross a moral line for your group.

The GM now has a couple choices:

1: Let the game come to a grinding halt because the intel the party needs to move forward is now lost forever because they had moral standards.
2: Figure out a way to let the party acquire the desired intel without using methods that cross the moral event horizon.

I'm not seeing how you're getting that it's the GM's fault the players are resorting to torture. The only information we've been given is that the party captured a borg, and that their threats to hurt him were ignored because he doesn't feel pain. Ambrosius never went into details of what the party tried.

The Beast wrote:

Freemage wrote:I would be part of the 'why are you using torture in the first place' crowd, except that question was already answered--the party only ever gets intel from a captive if they use, or at least threaten to use, torture and other extreme interrogation methods.

This is a problem with the GM, not a lack of creativity on the part of the players. So here's what you do:

Next time the players have a captive, and he refuses reasonable interrogation methods, just execute him (if appropriate), or deliver him to the authorities for prosecution, etc. Take no actions that cross a moral line for your group.

The GM now has a couple choices:

1: Let the game come to a grinding halt because the intel the party needs to move forward is now lost forever because they had moral standards.
2: Figure out a way to let the party acquire the desired intel without using methods that cross the moral event horizon.

I'm not seeing how you're getting that it's the GM's fault the players are resorting to torture. The only information we've been given is that the party captured a borg, and that their threats to hurt him were ignored because he doesn't feel pain. Ambrosius never went into details of what the party tried.

From up-thread, emphasis mine:

Ambrosius wrote:
Psychological would be the best route. I imagine there are other ways to play with the senses.

I think we have access to Words of Truth. The save makes it a bit dodgy but it's better than nothing.

As for your last point, you are right. However, for us it seemed that anything less than some form of torture doesn't get a peep out of people. I mean, I'm not a pro at interrogating in real life. And I think a google query for that might seem questionable. lol.

That's indicating that this (captives never giving up intel, short of torture) is a frequent situation, not just with this one 'Borg.

Ambrosius wrote:

Blue_Lion wrote:For torture it would have to be psychological torture. such as hacking into his controls and lock his ears on and put him in a room with its a small world after all playing on a loop until he talks.

Have a mage cast words of truth (he can not lie but he can refuse to reply if he saves.) saves you from needing torure.

Use of psy.

Have a cyber doc introduce chemicals in his bio system that makes him more truth full.

I would point out a skilled interrogator can often get information without torture, any intelligence gained from torture is not reliable because they will tell you what they think you want to here to make it stop weather or not it is true. Torture may make people talk but it does not make them tell the truth.

Psychological would be the best route. I imagine there are other ways to play with the senses.

I think we have access to Words of Truth. The save makes it a bit dodgy but it's better than nothing.

As for your last point, you are right. However, for us it seemed that anything less than some form of torture doesn't get a peep out of people. I mean, I'm not a pro at interrogating in real life. And I think a google query for that might seem questionable. lol.

The save just means he does not have to answer, the wording implies that they can not make a save and lie. You can ask the same question multiple times. Other than a mind probe it is the best way to gather intel from unwilling targets in game. (also I do not think FCB retain or have a high PE so no stat bonus to save, if your mage can make it a interrogation ritual 16 to save means good chance to get info.

Freemage wrote:

The Beast wrote:

Freemage wrote:I would be part of the 'why are you using torture in the first place' crowd, except that question was already answered--the party only ever gets intel from a captive if they use, or at least threaten to use, torture and other extreme interrogation methods.

This is a problem with the GM, not a lack of creativity on the part of the players. So here's what you do:

Next time the players have a captive, and he refuses reasonable interrogation methods, just execute him (if appropriate), or deliver him to the authorities for prosecution, etc. Take no actions that cross a moral line for your group.

The GM now has a couple choices:

1: Let the game come to a grinding halt because the intel the party needs to move forward is now lost forever because they had moral standards.
2: Figure out a way to let the party acquire the desired intel without using methods that cross the moral event horizon.

I'm not seeing how you're getting that it's the GM's fault the players are resorting to torture. The only information we've been given is that the party captured a borg, and that their threats to hurt him were ignored because he doesn't feel pain. Ambrosius never went into details of what the party tried.

From up-thread, emphasis mine:

Ambrosius wrote:
Psychological would be the best route. I imagine there are other ways to play with the senses.

I think we have access to Words of Truth. The save makes it a bit dodgy but it's better than nothing.

As for your last point, you are right. However, for us it seemed that anything less than some form of torture doesn't get a peep out of people. I mean, I'm not a pro at interrogating in real life. And I think a google query for that might seem questionable. lol.

That's indicating that this (captives never giving up intel, short of torture) is a frequent situation, not just with this one 'Borg.

What I see is interrogation techniques is not part of what he is familiar with. If a skill is something a player does not have but his PC would that is what skill checks are for. Hard to roll play something you do not know. Look at your skills to see what you have that might apply or if you have a investigator occ see what it would use. Stats-getting intel often involves getting the person to trust you or be afraid not to talk so trust/intimidate from MA could be used.(after all a high MA means he is more scare/likeable than you. Perception rolls could be used to find tells and when he is not telling the truth. Bribes combined with these might help. What does he gain by giving you the information?

Ambrosius wrote:Last weekend my party and I captured an enemy cyborg. We needed info so we decided to interrogate him. However, borgs don't exactly feel pain, so a lot of threats were just laughed off. Is there something we can do? At least in the future. I thought about just disassembling them, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

Any thoughts or suggestions for the future?

Hire a hacker!
Get the borg to take it's self apart by getting the hacker to re-program the body. Then if you really want to be nasty. Transfer the biological parts into a shoddy robot frame with the hacker remotely controlling the body to jump off buildings, bridges and oh so many other humiliating things. It would be a digital possession. LOL

eliakon wrote:I am going to side with the "why are you needing to torture people" crowd.
Unlike TV torture is not a fast way to get reliable information.
Even today most torture methods are long duration processes designed to break the prisoner on a psychological level (water boarding for example) and take weeks if not months of performance.

The better bet is to simply perform an interrogation.
Ask rapid fire questions
ask trick questions
let the cyborg talk about anything it likes... but interject your questions
Ask the same question different ways
ask control questions (things you know the answer to already)
stuff like that
Words of Truth is an amazing spell for this sort of thing
Telepathy minor psi power is also amazing... just ask leading questions that cause the subject to think about the topic you want... and then read the information out of their brain.

And being a cyborg you have a host of advantages if you have no qualms or concerns about the subjects rights or ethical concerns (which if your first go to is torture I am guessing is probably the case here)
You can get a cyber-doc in to install a tap so you can monitor the cyborgs neurological responses directly (when it is surprised, or scared, or worried... there will be neurological responses even if it visibly shows nothing)

If you absolutely must use torture...
Then the simplest solution is to use sensory depravation. It is one of the more effective, if rather horrifying and destructive on a psychological level (subjects tend to never be the same... assume they will gain one or more insanities)
Fear spell is a good way to make someone afraid. They fail their save and they need to roll a HF check. That's sort of terrifying right there. And you can do it over and over and over and...
Get your ethically challenged cyberdoc in again and have him rig up an over ride for the cyborgs neural controls. Now instead of the various sensors in the body giving it feed back what ever you desire is giving it what ever sensations you desire.
Find out who its loved ones are, capture some of them, bring them in and start torturing them in front of the cyborg. Make sure that the cyborg understands that you will continue doing this until your satisfied with what you get from the cyborg.
It shouldn't be to hard... just look at the various things the villains do in movies and books to torture the 'untorturable hero'... and do that.

like the babylon 5 episode "intersections in real time"
a clips from it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwtncUWXxoQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5l3g2d3qf0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSMsF3Of_RM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7uqCZCgRKU
(you really, really need to watch the full episode in sequence. it is brilliant writing by someone who really did good research into extreme interrogation tactics)
one interrogator, one prisoner, and tons of psychological tricks to break down the subject's resistance. wear them down physically (passively), make them question their reality. make them lose track of time. bombard them with stimuli. deny them stimuli. tempt them with rewards for cooperation, penalties to others for refusal. etc.

a cyborg would be worse, because they could never know whether everything they see, hear, or feel is real, or something being just fed into their systems. and when you need to cut stimuli, you can just cut the feeds from their body's sensors..


the problem with torture is that you can't get good information from it. eventually, when the person breaks.. they'll say anything to make it stop. it is better at forcing confessions (whether true or false) than obtaining information.

Ambrosius wrote:Last weekend my party and I captured an enemy cyborg. We needed info so we decided to interrogate him. However, borgs don't exactly feel pain, so a lot of threats were just laughed off. Is there something we can do? At least in the future. I thought about just disassembling them, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

Any thoughts or suggestions for the future?

a) The whole "interrogation and torture are two different things" bit that people have already mentioned.
b) "Borg's don't exactly feel pain?"
Says who?
I don't remember the books mentioning that Borgs are impervious to pain or pain-like effects, unlike Juicers and Crazies. Borgs have a simulated sense of touch that isn't as sharp as normal humans, but it's still there.

Honestly once you hack the borgs body you basically own it.

In order to function the borg will need a form of feedback. If it's designed well than such a system would make use of an existing system... the brain's natural feed back paths. IE pain, touch, temperature, pleasure... With control of these systems you can induce pain, sensation of pressure. If pushed to the limit one could create a virtual world that the borg wouldn't have anyway to tell isn't real.

The hardest thing with interrogating a borg is that you can't read their body, no nervice sweat, no rapped eye movement, ext. You can't even tell if they are lieing to you. So you have to get a mind reader.

rem1093 wrote:The hardest thing with interrogating a borg is that you can't read their body, no nervice sweat, no rapped eye movement, ext. You can't even tell if they are lieing to you. So you have to get a mind reader.

Actually based on the studies with MRI technology and the fact that you have a direct feed into and out of their brain I'd say a mind reader is almost redundant at this point.

rem1093 wrote:The hardest thing with interrogating a borg is that you can't read their body, no nervice sweat, no rapped eye movement, ext. You can't even tell if they are lieing to you. So you have to get a mind reader.

That depends on how much of them is Borg.
Even full conversion borgs often keep their faces, if not their eyes.
And bionic eyes would still move the same way the normal ones did anyway.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

rem1093 wrote:The hardest thing with interrogating a borg is that you can't read their body, no nervice sweat, no rapped eye movement, ext. You can't even tell if they are lieing to you. So you have to get a mind reader.

That depends on how much of them is Borg.
Even full conversion borgs often keep their faces, if not their eyes.
And bionic eyes would still move the same way the normal ones did anyway.

Nervice sweating would only happen in a normal person is scared or nervice, it is an emotional state and can not be used to tell if any given statement is true. If a subject is scared or nervice he could have nervice sweat even if he tells the truth.(the only thing you might get from it is the subject is scared about something.)- If Sam is scared you are going to harm or kill him he is likely to have nervice sweat, you ask him 2 questions one he tells the truth one he lies on. You see he sweating bullets the whole time because he is scared of you.


They would still have body language only changes to normal body language would be do to change in shape. There is a study of facial expressions that can be used to find subtle tells that most well trained interrogators know. Most borgs retain their human face, and the eye movement will happen. The command for the movement in the body and eyes does not come from the body/eyes but the human brain and we know that even if every thing else is changed a borg still has a human brain.