Page 82 - World of Darkness

Failure: The victim isn’t impressed and does not co-
operate.
Success: Your character overpowers his victim with
threats and compels cooperation for the moment.
Exceptional Success: Your character thoroughly awes
his victim, asserting himself as the dominant personality
for some time. The victim is certain to cooperate in fu-
ture encounters, if your character can ever find him again.

Interrogation
Dice Pool: Wits + Intimidation + equipment (inter-
rogator) versus Stamina + Resolve (subject)
Action: Extended and contested (the task demands
a number of successes equal to the subject’s Willpower;
each roll represents one hour of interrogation)
Interrogation involves wearing down a subject’s re-
sistance until he or she is incapable of concealing infor-
mation. It’s an extended and contested process. Make Wits
+ Intimidation + equipment rolls for the interrogator. Roll
Stamina + Resolve for the subject. The number of suc-
cesses that each participant seeks is equal to his opponent’s
Willpower dots. Thus, if an interrogator has 5 Willpower
and his subject has 3, the interrogator wins if he accumu-
lates three successes first, and the subject wins if he accu-
mulates five successes first. The winner breaks the
opponent’s will to continue asking questions or to resist
any longer. The interrogator’s roll can be modified by
equipment such as torture instruments. If the subject is
allowed sleep between interview sessions, rolls are made
for him normally. If he’s denied normal sleep, he suffers a
cumulative -1 penalty for each night of sleep that he misses.
Thus, he’s at -1 after the first night, -2 after the second,
and so on.
Example: Wilson has arrested a suspect in the recent
“Vampire Killer” murders and interrogates him in hopes that
his alibi will fall apart. Wilson’s Wits is 4, his Intimidation is
2, and he uses the department’s bleak interrogation room,
designed to make subjects feel isolated, which provides a +1
modifier. Wilson’s Willpower is 4. The suspect’s Stamina +
Resolve dice pool is five, and he has a 5 Willpower. Wilson’s
first roll produces a 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 (two successes),
while the suspect’s roll is 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 (one success). An
hour passes. Both need three more successes to break the
other, but can Wilson win before the man’s lawyer arrives?
If participants’ accumulated successes meet their tar-
gets simultaneously, the interrogator fails to learn what
he wants and the process must start over again from
scratch.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character’s system of threats,
violence and deprivation falls apart, reinforcing the
subject’s resistance. She cannot be broken by your char-
acter at this time. An interrogation subject who suffers a
dramatic failure collapses completely and tells everything
she knows.
Failure: Your character fails to make any headway
against his opponent, either as interrogator or subject.

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SOCIAL SKILLS-EXPRESSION-INTIMIDATION