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Hiya all,

This is a very common situation, I think, but given I'm runnink Masks of Nyarlathotep these days, the situation is bound to come again and again. Despite that, I'm not asking for advice specific for this campaign, but for advice suitable for any CoC game.

Long story short, my players now are becoming uninterested in interrogating cultists, as they perceive it will be a waste of time. After all, cultists are by definition SAN 0 guys, so most of them won't be intimidated by anything the PCs may threaten them with. For example, many members of the Brotherhood of the Dark Pharaoh would willingly throw themselves in the sacrificial pits. How the fuck are you supposed to interrogate these guys, expecting them to provide any information about the cult members, places of worship, or rituals?

So, my players will either get these guys arrested and don't bother talking to them, or more frequently, shoot them in the face as they 'cannot be saved'. They will only look for physical clues,or clues obtained by surveillance of the bad guys (following them to the ritual, and the like).

Thing is, in the original Call of Cthulhu story the police interrogates some of the Cthulhu cultists they arrest in New Orleans, and one of them (the old Castro) really tells the police a lot of stuff. I would like to make interrogating cultists a valid option: something that may or may not ork, instead of an automatic waste of time because the only thing the PCs may get is "you're doomed because I HAVE SEN THE TRUE FACE OF THE GODS AND YOU ARE POWERLESS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" It may make sense given that in CoC the cultists are the guys who really understand how stuff works, but is not very interesting.

Question is, how can I make cultist interrogations more interesting and useful? What is needed to make them talk? How can you intimidate a member of a Mythos sect to spill out the beans on their evil plans? I would love to get as many ideas as possible.

Thanks in advance, guys!

Suppose the cultist had caved in during your interrogation. What would you have done with him then?

Your threat is this: If he doesn't cooperate, you will do the exact thing you just said you'd do above. You're gonna let them out of the interrogation chamber, you're gonna shake their hand in broad daylight, and you're even gonna stuff a ten dollar bill in their shirt pocket.

Right where all their other cultist buddies can see them.

After all, YOU might not be able to think of what can scare a SAN 0 person. But you can bet your ass the other SAN 0 guys can. And I doubt they'll be too happy with your prisoner if it appears that his captors went very easy with him, released him quickly, and even paid him for his cooperation.

Perhaps if you can convince the cultists that you too would *really* like to join the cult and worship their deity...perhaps having one of the PCs free a cultist, pretending its without the knowledge of the other PCs, they could get them to talk some more...

Here are a few assorted thoughts I had :

This may not be exactly in keeping with the game text, but I generally do not equate 0 SAN with no sense of self-preservation; actually often present it as after a "difficult period" of switching over from normal SAN to zero SAN NPCs may have a cunning and clarity that is very logical, depending on how much of the "big picture" they came to terms with. Remember, human sanity is sort of a self-deception in the face of a very mechanistic universe in COC. Many cultists may lose all fear and self-preservation, but not all or necessarily even most.

I think depending on what the cultist believes there is also a wide gulf between being willing to die in a frenzied sacrifice or communion with* a Mythos deity and being perfectly cool with getting shot in the balls in the back of a warehouse by an investigator. The cultist may be terrified by the idea that they die such a prosaic death instead of getting to go out in the grip of ecstasy as a monster devours them. For many cultists the End Times are supposed to be awesome and they would not want to miss them.

(Incidentally, I also opine that in the face of the monster showing up, a certain portion of even zero SAN cultists may have a change of heart and beat a hasty retreat. They're not necessarily freaking out as a presently sane character might, but may merely decide that it's a preferable choice to observe the carnage at a safe distance for the time being.)

It's also possible that cultists may give the investigators information out of the sense that there's nothing that the investigators can do - yes it's the "Bond Villain" cliche, but CoC investigators do in fact have a far poorer success ration than James Bond - the cultist may well turn out to be right that there's jack and shit the investigators can do. They may also regard giving the investigators clues that lead them to cult sites as a viable tactic to groom them as sacrifices or potential cult members.

They may also appear to be behaving according to one of the cases above, but merely be lying for their own amusement, talking purely crazy-talk, or some combination of those and the truth.

* i.e. eaten by, stepped on, etc.

Just to add a few more observations on cultist interrogation:

Not all cultist join the cult at the same time, so some may be in a different stage of sanity loss. These later recruits might still be forced to provide information since they haven't completely gone over the edge yet.

Also, just because you are insane doesn't mean you can't still provide information. The CoC rulebook even discusses this when they talk about player characters who go temporarily insane and have a flash of 'insight.' I generally assume if players can do something so can an NPC. Now getting the cultist to share his insight might be hard, but it can be done.

Finally, insanity doesn't necessarily mean ravening madness. There are several NPC villains in the prepared scenarios who are able to function in every day society without tipping off their insanity. We also know this to be true from a cursory study of real life serial killers (surely Bundy, Gacey, and Dahmer all qualify for 0 sanity). These people have a sense of self preservation and to some extent a need to be self-aggrandizing. After all, in the case of CoC, they serve a true god and the investigators are merely ants before the mighty work he has done.

Insanity, like most things in RPGs, can be over-simplified. But the truth is very different. The human psyche is capable of truly horrific things and I think that was one of the subtler themes Lovecraft was reaching for in his work. Yes, Cthulhu is a terrible, soulless, alien entity, but how much more terrible is it that there are some humans who feel affinity and even adoration for something so abhorrent.

If your up for a video or two, I can recommend a BBC series called 'Wire in the Blood.' The main character is a psychologist who is a consultant for the police. The writing is really good and the stories are quite chilling.

QuoteAfter all, cultists are by definition SAN 0 guys, so most of them won't be intimidated by anything the PCs may threaten them with.

Like others are saying, I think your assumptions about 'crazy' folks are a bit off... I've worked around mentally ill patients in hospitals and a lot of the time you'd never know until certain topics came up in conversation, and sometimes not even then (unless you knew enough about them to detect the fantasy)... very few were 'raving loonies' like Renfield...
A lot of them know they're 'crazy' and will self-edit what they do/say when other people are around...
One friend of mine had violent paranoid delusions... but you'd never know unless he chose to let you in on it... it was pretty scary when he did.
I'm sure most all of them would have given up information under interrogation... it's more a matter of whether or not you could trust the information they gave. But I guess that goes for interrogation of 'sane' people as well...

It depends on the cultist but just because he might be willing to throw himself into the pit in service of his god doesn't mean he sees getting shot in the face by some pasty-faced investigator as an equivalent fate... Besides, modern interrogators use lots of tricks to gain the confidence of the people they question, not just the rubber hose treatment... one of your more charismatic investigators might try 'secretly' letting the cultist know that he is interested in joining the cult... wants to know how to become a member... promising to let the cultist sneak away so he can throw himself into the black pit... what zealot can resist the question 'so, tell me about your god...'?

A few things I've had success with:

Have them emulate Ben Linus from Lost. Make them lie, wheedle, play on sympathy, mislead, beg, and do everything they can to stay alive and lead the PCs down the primrose path to destruction.

Have them misrepresent their identity (pretend to be another investigator working undercover, etc.)

Occasionally throw in a cultist who can be saved. Maybe he has just 1 SAN left.

Actually, one of the best interrogation scenes I ever ran was in a modern supernatural game... we'd played many, many sessions, and I let the group almost universally succeed by using mild violence / torture during interrogations. Then I introduced an NPC who was, for lack of a better term, an insane masochist. The harder they hit him, the more he liked it. The players had had so much success with punching the bad guys to get info, they were completely at a loss as to what to do. :D

Here's some San 0 cultists:

Mary-Anne Carsden.  Mary-Anne saw something she shouldn't have.  She investigated, and learned of terrible things.  Of ancient evils that would one day swallow the world.  She learned that humanity was doomed.

Mary-Anne is a mother of two.  She decided to save her children, no matter what.  She became obsessive, prone to depression and violent mood swings.  Her husband left her and the kids are now with her parents, who've taken out a restraining order against her.  Even so, Mary-Anne will save her children.  

Her investigations led her to discover a cult worshipping the Great Mother.  She joined, and is now one of the priestesses.  She's sacrificed children, other people's, she's killed those who found out too much.  She'll do anything, anything at all, because she believes come the day the Great Mother will protect her priestess's children.  She's wrong, but that doesn't make her any the less dangerous.  

Want to interrogate her?  She fears nothing for herself, but if she thought you could hurt her children...  Of course, are you willing to make that kind of threat?

Warren Huxtable III.  Warren is the child of the East Coast Huxtables, old money and an old family.  He's a weak and pampered man who fell in with decadents and from them to much worse.  His money and his taste for increasingly specialist pleasures brought him to the attention of the cult of the Great Mother.  Mary-Anne seduced him, and now he would do anything for her.  He is her willing slave, his ego suborned to hers.  Quite mad, he exists only for the pleasure of her approval.

He would die for her, and kill for her.  He wouldn't believe threats to her because he believes she could overcome all foes.  What then does he fear?  He fears losing her approval, if he thought he would be humiliated before her that would be unbearable.

Tom Delaney was a beat cop.  He spent his days working the Red Hook beat and grew to hate the people there.  He saw them as filthy, unclean, parasites on the body of America.  One day he busted a shack and when he was beating an ugly old man the old man started chanting and Delaney felt his mind being beaten down.  He was faster than the old man had expected, and shot him mid-chant.  Delaney didn't know what had happened, but he recognised power.

It took him months to decipher the old man's books, but now he has and now he has communed with entities that promise him the power he needs to clear America for good.  OK, some good people might get lost with the filth, but when he calls the Dancer at the Centre of All he knows New York will finally be purified.  

There's nothing you can do to break this guy, he's a total believer in his cause.  That said, if you're of the right ethnicity and you seem sympathetic he might tell you some of his plans in the hope of recruiting you.

Jenny Feltham is terrified of dying.  Her mother died in a home, screaming and wetting herself.  Jenny's not going out like that.  In fact, she's not going out at all.

Jenny became obsessed with the occult scene, looking for evidence of an afterlife to help soothe her terrors.  She didn't find that, but she did find evidence that some sorcerors can surpass death, survive it somehow.

Now, she helps a group she encountered in her studies.  They worship the Opener of the Way, and hope to clear off the Earth so that his progeny can rule it with them as their viceroys.  Jenny knows they're fools, she knows when the Opener comes nobody will survive.  Nobody except her.  She thinks that the cult's inner tomes contain secrets that could help her transcend her flesh, and so she has to advance in the cult high enough to get access to them.  She's smart, so she's likely to get that high.  When she does, she plans to use the ceremony of Opening the Way to help herself ascend.  The world will end, but Jenny won't.

How to break her?  Threaten her life, it's as simple as that.  She's prepared to see humanity exctinct to ensure her own survival, but first she has to survive the interrogation.

And one last one.  Morris Speldon was born and raised within the Boston branch of the Esoteric Order of Dagon.  He knows he isn't human, he knows that one day the change will come and he will go into the sea and live in glory forever.  

This life here, this is just a brief prequel.  A few years on land and then millennia in the water.  He wants to help the cult expand and gain influence, but more important is that those of the family reach the water.  If he thought that was threatened, that he and his family would be prevented from making the transition through being arrested or committed, he'd make almost any deal to prevent it.

At the end of the day, Morris will abandon Boston if it means he and his can still get to the sea.  His people are patient, he's not going to risk a single one of his family's lives for some temporary victory now.

There you go, five cultists, all san 0, all eminently interrogable.  It's all about the motivations.  Why are they cultists?  What form does their insanity take?  San 0 doesn't mean raving, it means mad, but madness comes in many forms.

Hope that helps.

Quote from: D-503;406998Want to interrogate her?  She fears nothing for herself, but if she thought you could hurt her children...  Of course, are you willing to make that kind of threat?

I like choices like that in horror games... where the PCs have to battle becoming monsters themselves while facing down the cosmic threat.

When I've run CoC most cultists knew very little about the Mythos... either they were mostly low-level zealots who often had no idea about the true nature of their group (like a cult of 'hippies' who had no clue their leader was an undead necromancer who spoke to alien gods)... or they were part of a loose network with no real hierarchy or member-roster who primarily knew only about their own sinister endeavors (an international web of serial-killer pen pals who'd trade homemade snuff movies and 'souvenirs'...).
You'd have to kick a lot of frogs before you found one who'd croak out any useful information.

Hmmmm...

Ok, one thing that might work is to mock the cultist's god, claiming their god is a pathetic creature that can only have any effect by corrupting the weak minded to do it's bidding due to it's impotence.

"BLASPHEMER! WHEN WE COMPLETE THE RITE OF COSMIC ALIGNMENT NEXT MONTH AND GREAT CTHULHU RISES YOU SHALL SUFFER FOR YOUR VILE LIES!!!"

Another think that might work is to see if the cultist believes he'll be spared or "elevated" by his deity after serving it, and if he does convince him his deity won't keep it's word. That could be hard, but might work in some cases.

While you might not be able to intimidate them, maybe they could be tricked.

"Now that we've removed the bomb from the high school, your plan won't succeed!"

"Ha! You fools! We put the bomb in the junior high school!"

Seanchai

Wow, what a huge avalanch of helpful ideas! :) Many thanks to everyone.

Quote from: Axiomatic;406935Suppose the cultist had caved in during your interrogation. What would you have done with him then?

Your threat is this: If he doesn't cooperate, you will do the exact thing you just said you'd do above. You're gonna let them out of the interrogation chamber, you're gonna shake their hand in broad daylight, and you're even gonna stuff a ten dollar bill in their shirt pocket.

Right where all their other cultist buddies can see them.

After all, YOU might not be able to think of what can scare a SAN 0 person. But you can bet your ass the other SAN 0 guys can. And I doubt they'll be too happy with your prisoner if it appears that his captors went very easy with him, released him quickly, and even paid him for his cooperation.

This is a very very sound idea :D Really sadistic.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;406947Perhaps if you can convince the cultists that you too would *really* like to join the cult and worship their deity...perhaps having one of the PCs free a cultist, pretending its without the knowledge of the other PCs, they could get them to talk some more...

One of the PCs is struggling to learn the Curse of Azathoth because he has realized that he can impress cultists and look like a powerful sorcerer, so they are halfway there.

Quote from: Cole;406956Many cultists may lose all fear and self-preservation, but not all or necessarily even most.

I think depending on what the cultist believes there is also a wide gulf between being willing to die in a frenzied sacrifice or communion with* a Mythos deity and being perfectly cool with getting shot in the balls in the back of a warehouse by an investigator. The cultist may be terrified by the idea that they die such a prosaic death instead of getting to go out in the grip of ecstasy as a monster devours them. For many cultists the End Times are supposed to be awesome and they would not want to miss them.

You definitely have a point on this. I guess I was carried away by the descriptions of rituals in the campaign, where every time the cultists summon Nyarlathotep or whatnot, there is always a bunch of them willing to throw themselves at the gaping maw of the monsters.

But certainly getting strangled at a Soho brothel (true story) is not what a cultist would see as communing with his Dark Gods.

QuoteIt's also possible that cultists may give the investigators information out of the sense that there's nothing that the investigators can do - yes it's the "Bond Villain" cliche, but CoC investigators do in fact have a far poorer success ration than James Bond - the cultist may well turn out to be right that there's jack and shit the investigators can do. They may also regard giving the investigators clues that lead them to cult sites as a viable tactic to groom them as sacrifices or potential cult members.

They may also appear to be behaving according to one of the cases above, but merely be lying for their own amusement, talking purely crazy-talk, or some combination of those and the truth.

* i.e. eaten by, stepped on, etc.

Definitely a very good idea :)

Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;406968Not all cultist join the cult at the same time, so some may be in a different stage of sanity loss. These later recruits might still be forced to provide information since they haven't completely gone over the edge yet.

Yeah, for example, the most new could be tasked with shadowing the PCs, breaking in their hotel rooms (the baddies know at these point that the PCs snatched several key magical items and books from their HQ in London), slashing their car tires, that stuff.

QuoteIf your up for a video or two, I can recommend a BBC series called 'Wire in the Blood.' The main character is a psychologist who is a consultant for the police. The writing is really good and the stories are quite chilling.

I willl definitely check this out :) Thank you so much.

Quote from: Simlasa;406985Like others are saying, I think your assumptions about 'crazy' folks are a bit off... I've worked around mentally ill patients in hospitals and a lot of the time you'd never know until certain topics came up in conversation, and sometimes not even then (unless you knew enough about them to detect the fantasy)... very few were 'raving loonies' like Renfield...

Don't get me wrong, I'm a clinical psychologist with an actual practice (though most of my experience has been treating with depression, anxiety and addiction, not actual schyzophrenia) :) When I run CoC I try to portrait a more literary, as shown in Gothic horror stories madness, not so much an actual madness. Most insane people are almost completely unable to function at all.

QuoteI'm sure most all of them would have given up information under interrogation... it's more a matter of whether or not you could trust the information they gave. But I guess that goes for interrogation of 'sane' people as well...

I have to absolutely agree with you here.

QuoteBesides, modern interrogators use lots of tricks to gain the confidence of the people they question, not just the rubber hose treatment... one of your more charismatic investigators might try 'secretly' letting the cultist know that he is interested in joining the cult... wants to know how to become a member... promising to let the cultist sneak away so he can throw himself into the black pit... what zealot can resist the question 'so, tell me about your god...'?

Well, we have several PC with really high social skills (Fast Talk, Persuasion, Psychology), so that can be easily done.

Actually, your comment makes me wonder about how could we implement a good set of Interrogation rules for BRP...

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;406991A few things I've had success with:

Have them emulate Ben Linus from Lost. Make them lie, wheedle, play on sympathy, mislead, beg, and do everything they can to stay alive and lead the PCs down the primrose path to destruction.

This is an absolute win :) I'm embarrassed for not having thuoght of this.

QuoteHave them misrepresent their identity (pretend to be another investigator working undercover, etc.)

This may be a bit harder in the current campaign, because most cultists follow the Lovecraftian stereotype of inbred degenerate savages. Though, in every branch of the cult there are always some Europeans that could play that role.
 

QuoteOccasionally throw in a cultist who can be saved. Maybe he has just 1 SAN left.

Would this be against the point of Mythos? If redemption is attainable, wouldn't it weaken the cosmic horror of the Mythos corruption?

Awesome interrogation story, by the way. :D

Quote from: D-503;406998Here's some San 0 cultists:

Mary-Anne Carsden.  [snip awesome]

Warren Huxtable III. [snip more awesome]

Tom Delaney was a beat cop. [snip even more awesome]

Jenny Feltham is terrified of dying. [holy shit this gets more and more awesome]

Morris Speldon was born and raised within the Boston branch of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. [This is now crazy awesome]
Hope that helps.

Max, you now win the thread, and Internet. Forever. Next time we meet I'm buying you dinner. Now I'm set afire with ideas.

Quote from: Simlasa;407001You'd have to kick a lot of frogs before you found one who'd croak out any useful information.

That is a key issue here. PCs are realizing that the cultists that may ambush them in the streets of Cairo are just cannon fodder. The Black Pharaoh Brotherhood thas thousands of them available. They know where they meet for rituals, they know the name of their local priest, shit like that. But the average cultist doesn't know what the PCs need to know, which is something only the top guys at every branch ofthe sect know.

So why bother?

Quote from: Cylonophile;407009Hmmmm...

Ok, one thing that might work is to mock the cultist's god, claiming their god is a pathetic creature that can only have any effect by corrupting the weak minded to do it's bidding due to it's impotence.

"BLASPHEMER! WHEN WE COMPLETE THE RITE OF COSMIC ALIGNMENT NEXT MONTH AND GREAT CTHULHU RISES YOU SHALL SUFFER FOR YOUR VILE LIES!!!"

Another think that might work is to see if the cultist believes he'll be spared or "elevated" by his deity after serving it, and if he does convince him his deity won't keep it's word. That could be hard, but might work in some cases.

Well, tough call but could work.

Quote from: Seanchai;407030While you might not be able to intimidate them, maybe they could be tricked.

"Now that we've removed the bomb from the high school, your plan won't succeed!"

"Ha! You fools! We put the bomb in the junior high school!"

Seanchai

Ha! Also, that would perfectly fit the pulpish tone of the campaign. Good advice.

Seriously, thanks you everyone for this answers. Definitely a lot to think about. Please, keep the good ideas coming!

Soon... interrogation rules! :D

I have opened a thread to discuss some interrogation rules here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=407057#post407057).

SAN 0 certainly doesn't mean that a character necessarily becomes a gibbering idiot. I'd say that's kind of the minority, really. Most of those with SAN 0 who become cultists will still be capable of at least marginally functioning in society, otherwise they'd be useless to the cult and mythos.

So I would think that about one third of the cultists captured would be the fanatical kind that would say nothing, no matter what the PCs did; one-third would be the kind who would be so filled with the "spirit of the mythos" that they would think it wouldn't matter what they told the PCs because they were all doomed anyways (and thus would be quite willing to talk), and the last third would be somewhere in between, capable of lying to the PCs, making deals with them, revealing some information, while withholding other info, etc.

RPGPundit

Pain is the answer, and Hate is the message.

Even San 0 guys are gonna crack after they have torture applied to them for a couple of days.  Maybe not even that long.  

Their gods might be powerful...but the interrogation room is empty save for interrogator and subject.

Quote from: Blackhand;407144Even San 0 guys are gonna crack after they have torture applied to them for a couple of days.  Maybe not even that long.

They'll probably crack but it doesn't mean that what they tell you is true... Most likely they are just saying whatever is necessary to make the pain stop... And their idea of what's true might be quite... Insane. If their insanity is a retreat from their newly realized cosmology... Beating on them might just as likely drive them further away (Brazil).
I'm inclined to think torture is good at getting confessions... But not so hot at getting reliable information.

Quote from: Simlasa;407153They'll probably crack but it doesn't mean that what they tell you is true... Most likely they are just saying whatever is necessary to make the pain stop... And their idea of what's true might be quite... Insane. If their insanity is a retreat from their newly realized cosmology... Beating on them might just as likely drive them further away.
I'm inclined to think torture is good at getting confessions... But not so hot at getting reliable information.

I agree on this. My players have been just interrogating them. They just grew (understandably) tired of getting nothing from it. That, of course, is going to get fixed thanks to the helpful advice you all gave me :D