I was listening to a TV promo on the radio, and the guy was saying to another guy "I will get into your head and mess around until you tell where the boys are."

Which got me to thinking, now I have no idea what was meant in the promo the show looks pretty boring, but I was wondering could I go into someones head and alter their memories to give them images of what I might do to them or their loved ones. Like say they have a memory of their little kid riding thier bike down the street/sidewalk and create an image of me running them down, then relaying to them I haven't done but how easy it would be, since I mind probed them to see where they live. Or create a memory of me breaking their legs, then they look at their legs to notice they are fine. Is this a usable idea or am I just crazy?

sounds pretty cool.

If you're mind probing for the kids location, you can just mind probe for whatever other information you need and skip the torture.

Still, a cool idea.

No, I would no be probing for the kid, it was just the line "I will get in your head and mess around until you tell me where the kids are." that mafe me think of using that spell. I was just thinking of alternate possibilies of the spell.

I miss read the title as: Tutoring with Alter Memories.

Thought that sounded pretty cool too. If you don't have Mind Probe, this trick would work great. I recommend using Interrogation as complimentary... wouldn't want to push them over the edge. A broken mind is a useless mind.

If I had a PC with this spell and a skill in interrogation I would definitely let them do this, I think it's a great idea. Of course, the legal penalty for using a spell in this way is I think actually worse that if you really tortured them, but few SR's care about that.

Very creative. I will have to add this to my bag of nasty tricks.

Ditto. Great idea.

A classic... used to use it on my players for interrogation, you can do the NASTIEST thing to someone and the look on their face is always awesome.

You cast the spell, make all the rolls and if everything pans, you just keep talking, PC doesn't need to know WHY he's rolling, just shut up and roll flathead!

Then you do the most violent thing you can to him, something like.

GM: He asks you where your friends are?
PC: Frag off asshat!
*cast the spell*
GM: Ok well he produces a chainsaw and turns it on.
PC: *worried look*
GM: He starts cutting your left arm off at the shoulder, it really hurts quite a lot as bits and pieces of you dermal fly across the room.
PC: Woah! Woah!
GM: He seems completely uniterested in anything you have to say as he takes your left arm off, you do however, manage not to pass from the pain. He then starts on your right shoulder.

By this time, the PC is stunned, enraged, nay nay...livid.
PC: You're fragging mental!
GM: Suddenly you're back in the chair, both your arms attached, no pain whatsoever though you still cringe at the memory of the pain. He is standing in front of you staring into your eyes. He produces a chainsaw and puts it on the table.

GM: He asks "Where are you friends?"

One of my favorite SR scenes, he told that man everything, EVERYTHING. Yes, he had ways of detecting/forcing or ripping the truth from someone, but he was an artist.

Sunday

hell, you don't even need such fancy techniques if your character is like my friends: "we'll hurt you..." "ok ok! we're looking for this guy and my team's on the 5th level!"

You're crazy!

That's up for interpretation on Pacifism. You aren't really causing suffering. Or if you want to be brutally pragmatic, you can rationalize like crazy. Just don't push it or your GM might smack you upside the head.

As for the chainsaw idea, how do you alter memories that aren't there yet? That whole arm-cutting thing, there has to be something there for the mage to play with, and if you're going to keep the unlucky sod in the interrogation room long enough for memories to form then you might as well break them the old fashioned way.

Come to think about it, that book I read on KGB interrogation techniques might be useful soon...

You can alter any memory. You stand there staring at the guy. He now has memories of you standing there staring at him. Alter those. You weren't just standing there staring at him, you were in fact cutting his arms off, least, that's what HE remembers...

Sunday

Yeah, as I see it the only real limitation of Alter Memory is that the mage has to know something the victim would remember. This can be accomplished in a few basic ways - legwork, existing knowledge, mind probing, educated guesses.

The last one is fuzzy, I know - but I'd allow things like "last time target met his superior officer", "when target learned to ride a bike", "first kiss" and other vague-but-specific events - of course, if the mage happens to make a bad guess, then the spell either fails or the target might start suspecting something is up when he gets a conflicting memory he knows shouldn't be real, like "wait a minute...my first kiss was with an ork? I have never kissed anyone!" Or "My first kiss was in 2008 - there were no orks then..."

Oh my...there's the seed I was looking for to fill out the next game...

Good thing nobody took amnesia this time around.

Right up there with run-starters I've used such as bodies falling from the sky and landing on the PC's car/bike/cat/squat. (of course the body had a damaged wristcomp with some very desirable files on it...not to mention the owners and competition hot on the heels)