When To Let the Dice Roll

There's a general axiom in gamemastering; if players are willing to roleplay a scenario, you should give them every opportunity to do it, even if you have a simpler and faster mechanic available. These are, after all, role-playing games by proclamation, and so naturally anything that enhances the roleplaying experience should be embraced.

There is one exception I've come across in my time. Well, two, but ignoring me having to roleplay a female NPC being seduced by a male PC, there's one situation that I "fade to black" on and call for a die role; interrogation.

Normally interrogation is a great opportunity to roleplay, and I enjoy playing a scared, witless, defiant, or even punch-drunk NPC having answers beaten out of him. It gives me a wonderful mechanism for delivering information to the party in an immerseive way. Every now and then, though, you run into a particularly... well-educated player.

Every GM knows that trying to run a game with elements of a profession or interest that your players participate in in real life is annoying, because the player will stop and correct you at the expense of gameplay, momentum, and sometimes basic etiquette. When you have a player who knows particularly grisly trivia, though, sometimes it is best to skim over those actions. This comes up most frequently with veterans, or firefighters, or even particularly colorful policemen, but even those pale next to somebody who has studied the art of compulsory interrogation and psychological manipulation.

One of my players has more knowledge of such things that I care to think of (I have never dared ask where he got it) and the one time I let him run with it in a game years ago he fairly seriously freaked out everybody else at the table. Not gory, not messy, not even terribly brutal. Just... disturbing. So ever since then when a situation like that arises, I just go to an Interrogation check. If he asks, I give him a bonus.

The point I'm trying to convey is that while roleplaying is good, remember to keep in mind the sensibilities of your players. Sometimes they vary wildly on a particular topic. Like yesterday's discussion of being the "bad guy" in shutting down the game, be sure to act quickly to shutdown any scene that is trending into an area that is going to psychologically traumatize one or more of your players, or most importantly, you. You are the GM, the accepted moderator of the table. Only you have the social authority to intervene if a situation like the one I've described comes up, and it is your responsibility to your players and to yourself to do so.

No session this weekend, but hopefully more a more cheerful post on Monday.