I took this from another thread and didn't want to derail that topic:
torture is an evil act no matter how you try and justify it, both in the real world and in D&D and especially in Ravenloft--and any PC who engages in it will automatically fail a powers check
Does that include waterboarding? Hahaha, topical irreverence toward my fellow man.
No seriously, this is huge and far less clear cut than we can casually assume. If there's a hard and fast rule, where is the thread on this? Where do you draw the line? If you capture one member of a group and are trying to get names, places, plans, how are you supposed to get the information without resorting to strongarm tactics? Torture for sadism's sake is an obvious act of evil, as is any stiffy-eliciting cruelty inflicted on another person, but torture in order to extract important, possibly life saving information is one of the most morally grey acts in existence. Certainly it can never be considered a "good" thing to do, but it can certainly be seen as amoral, even sometimes necessary. We should also remember that while being tortured probably sucks, it's usually (not always) preferable to death. The way that people treat death in D&D is so cavalier that it seems silly to get our panties all bunched up about physical abuse.
We should also consider the realities of the setting - the fact that anyone who gets sucked up into the maw of Barovia's legal machine is reasonably likely to end up on the unforgiving end of a whip or knife. Same with the rebels. Who is really responsible for the torture in either case? The sap who happens to administer the actual torture? The justices who turn their attention to more pressing issues? The one who engineered the prisoner's capture or the one who gives the order as to the specifics of the torture? The man outside the door who ignores the prisoner's screams? The informant who ratted out the person being tortured, knowing full well that torture would result? The community at large? The leaders who create societies which end up making torture a fact of life, a virtual necessity?
If a despot general orders a firing squad to murder a living saint, does each member of that firing squad become evil as a result? What about (to draw on a recent event as an example) soldiers who are ordered to kill the "rebel" inhabitants of a town by their sovereign commander? What about the firebombing of Dresden? What about the sacking of Berlin? The My Lai massacre? I have three words for you: mitigating freaking circumstances. Across-the-board answers about what is good and evil are not the solution to such complicated, ongoing conflicts. This is not to say that good and evil are meaningless (I'd have to be an asshole to try and get that one to fly in a D&D world, and such arguments are basically masturbatory anyway) but that good and evil are far more subtle things than the likes of Dragonlance would have us believe. Characters in cheap fantasy rarely have to make morally ambiguous decisions. The mark of a good PW is a setting where such decisions are as difficult as they are common - this is one of the best things that PoTM has going for it.
Motivation counts for a lot more than the act itself. Torture is a fact of life in Ravenloft. The characters did not invent it or decide that torture was a fun idea from behind the cloisters of their computer screens. No. They were born or thrust into circumstances that sometimes mandate torture. Titillating and shocking aspects of torture aside, there really isn't anything obvious about its ethical nature. I respectfully (but pretty adamantly) disagree with the stance that PoTM has taken for the above reasons. I would like to realize that I am mistaken... but I don't think that'll happen.
Goddamn I love coffee.