Monday, May 18, 2009

A query for those inclined

Mental exercise:

Necropolis 2350. Your unit has been assigned to capture and interrogate a vampire.

Vampires in this setting:
-are not destroyed by sunlight
-do not feel pain
-tend to have between d12 and d12+2 Strength
-are not affected by garlic or holy items (except those of unusual power - the Spear of Destiny or Holy Gail might do something, while your garden variety holy water does not; let us assume the group does not have access to a powerful relic)
-are sentient, free-willed creatures

How do you go about getting information from that thing?

2 comments:

Sitting Duck said...

From a purely mechanical perspective, you could always initiate a Test of Wills. Neither Young or Ancient Vampires have the Fearless ability, so you can use Intimidate against them. And there is no Montrous ability that nullifies Taunt. Young Vampires have both Smarts and Spirit at d8. While tough, it's still potentially beatable. Ancient Vampires are a more daunting proposition, what with their having Smarts and Spirit at d12. Any Intimidation or Taunt rolls might take a penalty, as there are fewer options in successfully Intimidating or Taunting a vampire, unless a player comes up with a real good one. As a caveat, my source is the original edition of Necropolis and does not take into account any changes the TAG edition might have made.

Anonymous said...

The usual suspects. Starvation. Sleep depervation. Constant interrogation with rolling teams. Bribery. Drugs. Find out what they care about and strap high explosives to it. Debbie Gibson songs at high volume for 72 hours. Live burial.

In an old changeling game our motley once had to get info on a missing mcguffin from a hardened killer who knew that he and his family would be killed if he talked. We broke in to a hospital, liberated some gear. Then we snuck into his hotel and drugged him. When we woke him up it lookeed like he was lying in a makeshift surgery theater. We had his right leg wrapped so tight against his thigh that it had gone numb due to lack of blood circulation. The other leg was loosly wrapped and extended. A bit of pigs blood and a warmed up cadaver leg compleated the stage setting. It wasn't hard to convince him that we had removed his leg at the knee. We told him that if he told us what we needed to know we would reattach the blood vessels to restore blood flow. We also told him that once we verified what he told us we would call in paramedics who could get him to a hospital for a full reattachment. We also told him that without blood the nerves in his leg would start dying in about 15 minutes. He talked. We drugged him again. Freed his leg and left.

You see it's about creativity, finding what the target values and then putting it at risk. In this case say the vamp is immortal, un foolable, un phazeable, has no needd to eat or sleep, is easily able to withstand any injury and quite willing to put his plans on hold until you simply die of old age. In that case I would recommend using boredom. Place the vamp in a block of stone or steel with only the face exposed. Cover the face. Check in at random intervals. With good makeup you might even be able to convince the vamp that many years have gone by in a few months. Might work and if it doesn't you have a unique end table.