I’m going to preface this with the fact I’ve never played this sort of communal table top roleplay game so I’m not as familiar with the style of story telling. :)

I think I’d be tempted to give the players false information.

No information drives home the point that torture doesn’t work, but it doesn’t necessarily do it in a way that builds a more exciting story. Whereas false information can be used to lead the players in all sorts of different directions.

And I think this is probably where my lack of experience with communal story telling comes in. Because I can easily see this being used to punish the players. And while I don’t see a problem with making things more difficult for the players as a result of their choices I think it needs to be done in a way that…doesn’t end up feeling personal.

One of the things that frustrates me about a lot of online activism is an attitude that seems to encourage breaking relationships in the name of advancing a cause. I think that making people feel…small rarely helps. It shifts their focus from the message we’re trying to send to how hurt they’re feeling.

You know the people you’re playing with a lot better than I do so you probably know best how to balance making the point without making them feel as if you’ve turned the game against them. It’s up to you which of these suggestions you feel ‘fit’ with both the game and the people you’re playing with. This is what comes to mind for me:

• Sending the players to the     wrong place completely. This could mean they don’t get an item they need     or that the quest completely shifts into a different story.
• Sending players to the wrong     place within a larger area. So if there’s an easy route through the     dungeon sending them towards the harder one instead.
• Giving players the wrong     information on how to open a door/by pass a trap or barrier.
• Giving players inaccurate     information on how to defeat powerful enemies.
• Giving players inaccurate     information about important items they’ll need later, forcing them to     backtrack and try to figure out the problem from scratch.

Depending on how the scene itself plays out I think you could also try to have the victim character sow dissent in the party. For instance if the victim isn’t giving the torturer character information they could accuse one of the other party members (preferably not present while the torture occurs) of already having the information.

This could also work to have one NPC victim try and shift the ‘blame’ to another (helpful) NPC.

There’s another, completely different approach, that comes to mind.

Ages ago I got a D&D related question which asked me how best to translate the symptoms of torture on to a player’s stats. I think the conclusion was that being a victim of torture would give a character penalties to wisdom, charisma and intelligence, possibly constitution as well.

Given how similar the symptom pattern is between victims and torturers it would make sense to assume that torturers have lower wisdom, charisma and intelligence.

I wouldn’t suggest sticking a penalty like this on a player without warning. To me that feels a bit too much like punishing the player for not having a particular piece of real world knowledge.

But if they’re going into a situation where it looks like torture is becoming an increasing possibility you could tell them that their choice will cost them stat points. In the same way that using the magic spell presumably costs them magic points of some kind. You could then justify that based on the real world effects of torture on torturers.

I think with an advanced warning of the cost you’ll make the player really think about their actions and decisions.

Probably the best idea here is not to tie yourself to a single option ahead of the campaign. I think judging what fits best based on the overall story you’ve created with your friends is going to work better than trying to completely script the encounter ahead of time.

I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

Where do I fucking start?

So, Thatcher was the bane of the working classes, and much of what she did still has repercussions to this day. So, in no particular order, just in the order I remember them, here are some things she did that pissed us off - 

• In 1989 she introduced this thing called the “Community Charge” but which everyone calls the “Poll Tax” which replaced an older system in which your tax payment was based on the rental value of your home. This new tax meant that people living in one bedroom flats would pay the same as a billionaire living in a mansion. Obviously, the rich loved it, everyone else… not so much. So there were riots (video of news about the riots) - There were lots of riots in the Thatcher years, and they were all notable for the extreme levels of police brutality.

(photo, poll tax protest in Trafalgar Square, 1990)

• Then there was her war on industry. There was a lot of inflation when she came to power, so she instituted anti-inflationary measures. All well and good… except not the way she did it. She closed many government controlled industries, most famously steel and coal. The amount spent on public industries dropped by 38% under Thatcher. The coal miners went on strike, for almost a year, but in the end, the pits were still closed, and 64,000 people lost their jobs. Unemployment rates soared in industrial areas, and inequality between these (generally northern or welsh) areas and the rest of the UK is still there. During the strike there were numerous violent clashes with the police at picket lines which were widely televised. As a memoir from one miner attests: “ I saw a police officer with a fire extinguisher in his hand, bashing a lad in the back. I tried to get closer to note down the officer’s number but they were wearing black boilersuits with no numbers. The next thing I knew, a police officer struck me from behind. I was coming in and out of consciousness as I was dragged across the road into an alleyway. They blocked off the alley and beat another lad and me with sticks until I was unconscious.” (I can’t post the whole thing it’s too long, but read it in the Guardian) Images such as this swept the country, turning many people against Thatcher -

And after it was all over people felt Thatcher had lied, saying she wanted to close only 20 pits, when in the end, 75 were closed down.

• Inequality soared whilst she was prime minister. There is a thing called the gini coefficient, it is the most common method of measuring inequality. Under gini, a score of one would be a completely unequal society; zero would be completely equal. Britain’s gini score went up from 0.253 to 0.339 by the time Thatcher resigned.

• During her time as prime minister the notorious ‘Section 28′ was published. It stated: A local authority shall not (a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality; (b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. - Section 28 wasn’t repealed until 2003.

• She introduced the Right To Buy scheme, which allowed people to buy their council houses for a very low price, which, at first glance, seems like a great idea, allowing people who normally wouldn’t be able to afford their own home to have one - however, loads of people have entered the scheme and now we have far too little social housing, meaning there has been a sharp rise in homelessness.

• The Battle of the Beanfield was a clash between hippies and police near Stonehenge in 1985. 1300 police officers converged on a convoy of 600 new age travellers who were heading to Stonehenge to set up a free festival in violation of a high court order. Again, there was an insane amount of police brutality, and 16 travellers were hospitalised, 573 people were arrested (one of the biggest mass arrests in UK history) - “Pregnant women were clubbed with truncheons, as were those holding babies. The journalist Nick Davies, then working for The Observer, saw the violence. ‘They were like flies around rotten meat,’ he wrote, ‘and there was no question of trying to make a lawful arrest. They crawled all over, truncheons flailing, hitting anybody they could reach. It was extremely violent and very sickening.’” (source) - Once everyone was arrested, the empty vehicles, which were in many cases the only homes the travellers had “were then systematically smashed to pieces and several were set on fire. Seven healthy dogs belonging to the Travellers were put down by officers from the RSPCA.” (source same as above)

Most of the charges were dismissed in court after Lord Cardigan, who had tagged along with them to see what would happen, testified on behalf of the travellers against the police. 

• Her removal of Irish dissidents right to be placed in a category that essentially made them political prisoners instead of merely criminals led to a hunger strike that ended in 10 deaths, including that of Bobby Sands, who was elected from his prison cell, reflecting the immense national, and international support for Irish nationalists. Thatchers lack of sympathy, or even empathy led to her becoming even more of a hate figure.

• She presided over a rapid deregulation of the banks, which ultimately led to much of the problems during britains 2007-2012 financial crash many years later.

• She took free milk from school children, which, though not as serious as anything else listed here, directly affected every child in the UK and was very unpopular, leading her to get the nickname “Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”, which is still used today.

• Oh… and she supported Apartheid and called Mandela a terrorist.

This is nowhere near everything she’s done that pisses people off, but I hope it goes some way to explaining why when she died “ding dong the witch is dead” became number one in the UK charts, people partied in the streets, and people protested her (State funded) funeral. She is a decisive figure, some people in the UK do actually love her. I do not. She decimated the UK’s industrial heartland, she caused mass unemployment and the destruction of much of working class culture, she was cavalier in her financial policies and increased inequality by staggering levels, she approved serious police brutality and attempted to destroy the culture of unions in this country.  I fundamentally disagree with all she stood for and it angers me that her mistakes are still affecting this country and the people who live in it. And I am VERY angry that the current government are spending £50 million on a museum about her.