Torture And Burn

The enemy lurks in shadows
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AdrianGrom
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Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2022 12:43 pm

Do Witch-Hunter PCs have to torture and burn people? As in, is this a job requirement? Will you get fired for insufficient zeal if you let some 15-year-old peasant kid and his sister go free without torturing them enough?
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Orin J.
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it's not explictly required, but the order prefers you risk killing an innocent than let a guilt one go free because of misguided mercy. if you have reason to suspect they're a witch or servent of the dark powers, you should kill them or torture them to prove their innocence. let too many cultists free and the order will suspect YOU of being turned into a servent of the dark powers.
AdrianGrom
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Okay thx Orin. Just not sure I have the stomach to burn people. Good thing it's only a game.
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Orin J.
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Eh, just get the GM to roll with handling the torture/fire stuff "off-camera" instead of acting it out. i do that all the time to move the game along.
Theo
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AdrianGrom wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 11:59 pm Okay thx Orin. Just not sure I have the stomach to burn people. Good thing it's only a game.
How about just playing a profession where you don't have to be an evil piece of shit?

Then again, actually playing a decent and humane witch-hunter would be an interesting subversion. He'd probably be considered a bad witch-hunter by his peers, regardless of his actual track record.
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Wyrmslayer
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I had one of those. He'd started as a student, educated so I draw on player knowledge. That also left me with a character that had more critical thinking than other Sigmarites.

Fire can be regarded as mercy. Those purifying flames can clean a mutants soul to allow them to enter Morr's realm rather than be an eternal plaything of the Chaos gods.

The taint of chaos is cancer. To a person, and to the Empire. In a person it's established that any taint will spread and inevitably lead to them succumbing to the call of Chaos. It's no mercy to spare them.
To the Empire any taint of Chaos had to be purged, by any and all means, to ensure the Empire as a whole survives intact without being tainted and subverted towards the aims of Chaos.

While it is acceptable to go BIG, torching a village with a better safe than sorry angle, that doesn't really work for a PC that's just one person in a party. "My character would/wouldn't do that" is no excuse for behaviour that upsets the party dynamic and negatively impacts other player agency. We have to work to find reasons for our characters to play ball. With a Witchhunter Pc you have to lean more into the investigation angle and be a scalpul towards Chaos than the NPC's with their torches.

It didn't happen with our party but it would have been interesting if another PC acquired a mutation. As the WItchunter PC it would have been rude to remove the mutant PC player's agency. I would have had to come up with reasons to not be a dick, perhaps taking the opportunity to learn by observing their decline.
Theo
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Wyrmslayer wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 6:35 am The taint of chaos is cancer. To a person, and to the Empire. In a person it's established that any taint will spread and inevitably lead to them succumbing to the call of Chaos. It's no mercy to spare them.
Interestingly, if the character actually did observe empirically, he might eventually figure out - as all of us who've read the actual rules know - that this is not, in fact, true. It's perfectly possible to gain a mutation and never gain another one, as long as you can steer clear of Corruption or chaotic influences (depending on edition). In 2E there was a chance you'd continue mutating after the first but the odds were you'd "stabilise" at 2 or so.

An actually empirically observant character gradually figuring out how much of the stuff he's learned and dedicated his life to is just plain wrong could be quite interesting, if tricky, to play.

Wyrmslayer wrote: Mon Feb 14, 2022 6:35 amWhile it is acceptable to go BIG, torching a village with a better safe than sorry angle, that doesn't really work for a PC that's just one person in a party. "My character would/wouldn't do that" is no excuse for behaviour that upsets the party dynamic and negatively impacts other player agency. We have to work to find reasons for our characters to play ball. With a Witchhunter Pc you have to lean more into the investigation angle and be a scalpul towards Chaos than the NPC's with their torches.
Generally speaking, I think this is a case for Witch-hunters being a terribly poor choice for PCs - much like Chaos cultists. Unlike the whole group is witch-hunters (or cultists) it's bound to cause problems. Unless you subvert the archetype somehow.
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