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View Full Version : [3.5] I want to drop a mystery in my Eberron campaign...



overduegalaxy
2009-04-11, 01:36 AM
But I really don't feel like I'd be able to write a really good, engaging mystery with a nice twist and all. Most of the rest of the campaign is hand-built, but I'd really like some sort of pre-written mystery that I could sort of drop into the middle of it, or just take the "mystery" part and re-adapt it to the campaign.

But I have no idea where to find a really good mystery-adventure. I've been idly browsing Wizard's free adventures, because that's about the length I need (it should take just about one or two evening's play), but nothing really struck my fancy. Level doesn't really matter, since I'm most likely going to strip it down and re-appropriate it, and it doesn't necessarily have to be free or online, but that'd be a plus.

The only real requirement is that it should be an urban mystery, but it could be any kind of urban mystery (that is, there's other types of mystery outside of murder).

Triaxx
2009-04-11, 05:33 AM
True, but like Watchmen, a murder is a good place to start. Kill someone right in front of the party to get them hooked. Preferrably Directly in front of them on an open street and have them see nothing. They should be suitably intrigued, especially if you faked rolls to see if they would see anything. (Rig them, something like a 5000 DC.)

Now once they start investigating, you could pull in a supernatural plot, say a ghost killing those who executed, or even murdered him. Or you could pull in a crimeboss who has discovered an invisible assassin and is using him to take out rival bosses. Or perhaps the murder has nothing to do with anything and was simply an accident, as a powerful, but dangerous creature bumped into the character. The PC's have to solve the mystery of how it got here, and how to send it back, or kill it. Give it some nasty side effects that would naturally wipe out lower level and commoner characters, but that would be annoyances to the PC's. Perhaps something planar. Lawful Evil who just wants to go back to his own world would work just fine.

Rhiannon87
2009-04-11, 09:51 AM
There's always one problem with murder mysteries in D&D: if you've got a cleric, you can speak with dead, and depending on how the mystery is set up, that can rather abruptly end things right there.

Have you tried checking out any other game systems? Call of Cthulhu comes to mind-- adapting a creepy haunted house type thing could work pretty well. The trick would be making it something that's not a ghost-- again, clerics tend to turn first and ask questions later.

Ah, how'd I forget-- do you have access to Cityscape? It's entirely about urban adventures, and there's a whole section on mysteries and urban villains and such. It doesn't have a pre-made adventure in it, but you might be able to pull out some good ideas.

Graymayre
2009-04-11, 10:07 AM
There's always one problem with murder mysteries in D&D: if you've got a cleric, you can speak with dead, and depending on how the mystery is set up, that can rather abruptly end things right there.


It should always be noted that magic opens doors and shuts them.

For every magical trick there is a corresponding way to nullify those tricks. There are plenty of ways to do this, some aren't even magical.

Taking an example of the "Speak to Dead" spell, perhaps the main churches of believe its disrespectful to raise something for questioning. If so, the players would have to spend time finding a cleric that could. Even then, there is the problem of transporting the body, and by the time you find someone that would do it, the corpse may not have seen enough for you to get anything that would help. The same goes with a Cleric in the party. Hell, the murderer could have used some type of befuddling magic (doesn't have to be a real spell, you are the DM) to cancel speak to dead.

Things like this apply for every situation. Honestly, I love putting magic into investigations. It really helps adding that extra piece to the puzzle game.

If you want help thinking of mysteries, I highly recommend reading some of [I]"The Inquisitives" ,which a collection of Eberron novels detailing investigations; or any of the Sherlock Holmes short stories. Arthur Conan Doyle was master of mysteries and tweests.

Glimbur
2009-04-11, 10:50 AM
The other way to foil Speak With Dead is to have the victim not have seen the murderer. Or the murderer was disguised at the time. He/she could have no enemies who would want to murder... or lots of enemies.

In short, if you plan for it, Speak with Dead can give a useful clue instead of destroying the mystery.

Ravyn
2009-04-11, 03:59 PM
Speak With Dead can be sidestepped by deceiving the victim one way or another; I could see someone assuming that the corpse would be questioned and using it as a way to frame someone else. And I've made a hobby of finding ways to bypass truth detection (http://exchangeofrealities.today.com/2009/01/23/nine-ways-to-hide-the-truth-and-get-away-with-it/).

I've gotten pretty good results out of non-murders. A while back, I hit my players with a mystery arc I'd spent a while thinking about. Four people magically sworn to secrecy about a certain topic. The group runs into one, a friend of theirs who's been unusually antisocial and worried because of this oath. They manage to figure out the oath exists from her, and one of the other participants.

That's when things get amusing. They figure out pretty soon that the fellow who sealed the oath has a tendency to occasionally get possessed by the prior arc's BBEG. Logical conclusion is that something nefarious is going on, right?

Not exactly. Not only is the actual mind behind the oath an old friend of theirs, she's very good at covering up her tracks; the oath is carefully worded, and she's even managed to scry-proof the room in which the incident the group was sworn to secrecy on actually happened. (Not that the entire group figured out that last bit, mind you; just one of the players.) What's actually going on is that she's doing a divination to figure out the likely results of one of the group's projects, and the secrecy is partly because it's a politically dangerous project to begin with, and partly because she suspects--correctly--that the most logical way to mitigate the risks is going to require her to make a rather hefty sacrifice. The group's original witness is twitchy partly because she's scared of breaking the oath on accident (Heaven literally abhors an oathbreaker), and partly because she's figured out about half of what's going on with the perpetrator and is worried. The oathsealer's just confused. And the former BBEG who serves as passenger for the oathsealer? He's the star witness; he couldn't get sealed into the oath without giving his existence away, and that's an even bigger can of worms. He'd missed about half of the original conversation, but he knows quite a bit, and since he's got a bit of a soft spot for the perpetrator, he's planning on investigating it through his host.

The group got as far as figuring out what the oath was about, then decided they weren't going to meddle with it further; I plan on dropping them a couple hints about what's coming later, but if they miss it, that's their problem. They enjoyed it; that's what counts.

Every mystery depends on three things: the Who, the Why and the How. (When and Where are also useful, but not quite as important.) Why and How are where most of the clues come from; knowing who's got the motive is good for narrowing down suspects, and how it's done narrows it down to the people who are capable of doing that. So you figure out who the perp is, why they did it, and how they're hiding it, and make sure there are a few hints to each. Then you add other people, all of whom have a relation to the why and the how. For witnesses, this is going to relate by knowing something, whether true or false, about the why, the how or maybe the who. For suspects, there's going to need to be a direct or perceived relation to the why or the how; in the case of my example, the group immediately suspected the ex-BBEG of working through his host because a. his host was the oathsealer (How), b. secret plots were an old modus operandi of his (How again), and c. they had no reason to expect him not to want to take over the world anymore (Why).

Help any?

Teron
2009-04-11, 04:36 PM
If the corpse has been subject to speak with dead within the past week, the new spell fails. You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all.
Speak with dead has a couple of important restrictions built in. If the murderer has time, he can prevent its use for a week by using it first, from an item if necessary. Even easier, he can take a minute or so to mutilate the corpse to diminish its helpfulness, and the DM can conveniently tailor the "partial or partially correct" answers to make the investigation interesting, such as having the corpse only recall its killer's race or sex.

allenw
2009-04-11, 04:52 PM
For general guidance on Mystery adventures, a good starting point is GURPS Mysteries:

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-0301

It is not system-specific and will give you ideas for running these kinds of adventures.

Random NPC
2009-04-11, 05:15 PM
Even easier, he can take a minute or so to mutilate the corpse to diminish its helpfulness, and the DM can conveniently tailor the "partial or partially correct" answers to make the investigation interesting, such as having the corpse only recall its killer's race or sex.

Which can be rendered moot if the killer was a Changeling :smallbiggrin:

Kara Kuro
2009-04-11, 08:04 PM
Honestly, I'm surprised that someone hasn't already brought up an entirely different side of this issue. My suggestion is read and watch a lot of good movies or books from which you could draw some ideas from and then write them into a D&D (or whatever) campaign instead of trying to work from the ground up - work from the top down. Get a good idea from any other form of story-telling that you find really interesting and then work it into your chosen gaming world.

Or, if you don't have a particularly large amount of time to read and watch whatever... Think about stuff you've watched/read/seen/heard recently, is there anything that you found really interesting from which you could draw inspiration?

I ran a d20 modern campaign with a similar mystery element that was spun off/inspired by my love of the book 'The Picture of Dorian Grey' by Oscar Wilde. In that the main character was very much based on Dorian Grey's key personality concepts that I had modified to fit the plot line I wanted.

sonofzeal
2009-04-11, 09:14 PM
I've done a good mystery in Eberron before that worked out perfectly, and could probably be slotted in to any given Eberron game of any level. In one word: Tsochari.

Tsochari (from Lords of Madness) in Eberron are from Khyber instead of the Far Realms, but the rest applies. They're intelligent masses of tentacles that can inhabit living bodies and either manipulate them by promises of rewards and threats of massive pain, or by hollowing it out and using it like a puppet. They'd take control of a personage or two known to the party, and manipulate the party through them to try and acquire some magical mcguffin or other; meanwhile the person captivated might be resisting (possibly only able to take action while the Tsochar is asleep), and the Church of the Silver Flame may have its suspicions. The Tsochari may also have inside men in the Church, complicating matters endlessly. Use as many double-double-double-crossings and Xanatos Gambits as you need. Either way, the party gets stuck in between, unsure what to believe, and facing terrible consequences if they choose wrong.

Ravens_cry
2009-04-11, 09:29 PM
Maybe something Asimovian involving Warforged or Golems? A golem and the body of a major noble are in a locked room, with a freshly writtem will on the table. If it was murder, then the benefactors of the will have a lot to gain, as long as they didn't do it themselves. But if it was suicide, the will is null and void, as he wasn't in a proper state of mind when he wrote it.
Just some ideas.

Lapak
2009-04-11, 09:44 PM
Mysteries are excellent fun, and I encourage you to use them, but if you're looking for inspiration, you should keep something in mind.

I read an article a while back - I unfortunately can't remember where I saw it, now - that talked about how to do mystery plots in roleplaying games, and it made a very important distinction: in a well-written mystery story, the reader is kept in the dark until the very end, and maybe given just enough clues to figure things out. This is because the detective has all those clues and more, and can make the correct intuitive leap at just the right moment.

RPG players are not Sherlock Holmes, and they will often make the wrong intuitive leap - not because they're not being smart, though; sometimes they're being smarter than the DM running the mystery. But they'll still be running down the wrong track.

So for a successful mystery, you should overload the routes to success. Don't have one string of possible solutions, have several paths that lead to the correct answer and have clues to ALL those paths at each point they're investigating. They may pick up one clue in one place by searching the right area, a clue on a different track by using the right Knowledge check when they go to where the first clue pointed them, and etc. Remember, basically, that you want them to solve the mystery, and give them several opportunities to proceed at every sticking point.

allenw
2009-04-12, 07:00 AM
I read an article a while back - I unfortunately can't remember where I saw it, now - that talked about how to do mystery plots in roleplaying games, and it made a very important distinction: in a well-written mystery story, the reader is kept in the dark until the very end, and maybe given just enough clues to figure things out. This is because the detective has all those clues and more, and can make the correct intuitive leap at just the right moment.

RPG players are not Sherlock Holmes, and they will often make the wrong intuitive leap - not because they're not being smart, though; sometimes they're being smarter than the DM running the mystery. But they'll still be running down the wrong track.

So for a successful mystery, you should overload the routes to success. Don't have one string of possible solutions, have several paths that lead to the correct answer and have clues to ALL those paths at each point they're investigating. They may pick up one clue in one place by searching the right area, a clue on a different track by using the right Knowledge check when they go to where the first clue pointed them, and etc. Remember, basically, that you want them to solve the mystery, and give them several opportunities to proceed at every sticking point.

That sounds like the intro chapter to GURPS Mysteries. I remember it talking about the difference between a TV show or book, where the author wants to fool the audience as long as possible and the audience is generallly ok with being surprised by the answer if they feel they were given a fair chance to figure it out and the true answer is a good one, and an RPG where the GM wants the players to figure it out.

The writer has control of what the TV/book detective does and when, and how questions are asked, so the detective gets the right clues, at the right time, in the right order, to figure things out, and knows what red herrings to ignore. The GM has limited control, so multiple paths to key clues are good and hammering the players with the same clue from multiple souces if they don't seem to be getting it is ok.

The book also talks about the ball of twine or path of least resistance plotting -- the GM can set up a logical path of from the initial scene (the only one he or she has control over) thru key scenes and clues. Each scene has an obvious clue leading to the next -- the corpse scrawled the name of a known NPC in its blood -- that the PCs can follow up on. If they go off on their own, fine, but that clue will be there if they start thrashing around.

Stealing from books hard -- too complicated. Stealing from short stories and from TV shows better -- fewer characters and twists.

elliott20
2009-04-12, 10:09 AM
there are things you need to understand about mysteries.

While hiding a crucial clue in the middle of all the vasts of details and such where you've created a brilliant plot on how the antagonist perpetrated the crime can be fun for you, that digging process can kill your game entirely if not managed correctly.

the key to running a good mystery, is to make sure every piece of information you give them also gives them a course of action to take. i.e. if the killer fled to another island, make sure that the clue left behind will allow them to know with absolute certainty that's where the killer went.

A good way to start it off is to have the perp perform the crime, and think about 3 steps ahead of how he or she will get away with it, and THEN throw in other parties who gain to see the investigation go in either direction but are fundamentally not on the player's side. (i.e. a rival law enforcer group who finds the players to be nothing more nuisances and given the chance would put the players in jail themselves)

An important thing to remember though, is that you need to leave a LOT of clues for the players. Don't have to think these out one by one, but just try to give the players a lot of avenues to figure out how to get that next crucial clue to the next stage of the investigation. Remember, secrets will kill your game. If the players can't figure out what to do next (and do so on their own) they will just get bored and frustrated. The Alexandrian suggests the rule of three, where you always leave at least 3 clues at the scene for them to work off of.

Hell, in some games, they recommend that if the stagnation sets in, the best way to solve this is to just ask them for a roll, ANY roll, and give them something to go on. Or, when in doubt, throw in the ninjas.

(some of you might think this advice reads awfully like the advice in Spirits of the Century... that's because it is and it's damn good advice at that)

allenw
2009-04-12, 11:30 AM
Hell, in some games, they recommend that if the stagnation sets in, the best way to solve this is to just ask them for a roll, ANY roll, and give them something to go on. Or, when in doubt, throw in the ninjas.

(some of you might think this advice reads awfully like the advice in Spirits of the Century... that's because it is and it's damn good advice at that)

You can also start with Chandler's 10 rules for mystery writing:
http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/triv116.html

The ninja bit paraphrases Chandler's advice in The Simple Art of Murder, where he talks about writing his stories and notes that whenever the plot threatened to bog down, he'd have a man with a gun walk into the scene -- the author didn't need to know who he was or why he was there just yet, it would keep the plot moving, motivate his hero, and give him someone to search or question for info after the fight scene.

Note -- this doesn't work if you are doing the Agatha Christie style cozy adveture. There, if things bog down usually another body turns up and offers more clues (and usually excludes one suspect -- the deceased).

But yes, lots of clues, and simplify, simplify.

You may also want to think it thru from the bad guy's PoV. Who is he/she/it expecting to investigate, with what resources, and what precautions can he/she/it logically take? Someone who, FREX, uses a complex disguise to avoid the deceased being able to make an ID, is someone with ranks in that skill, which implies a thief. Someone who just uses a hood and cloak likely doesn't have those skills. Means can be a key clue.

allenw
2009-04-12, 06:25 PM
But I really don't feel like I'd be able to write a really good, engaging mystery with a nice twist and all. Most of the rest of the campaign is hand-built, but I'd really like some sort of pre-written mystery that I could sort of drop into the middle of it, or just take the "mystery" part and re-adapt it to the campaign.
***
The only real requirement is that it should be an urban mystery, but it could be any kind of urban mystery (that is, there's other types of mystery outside of murder).

The short answer is I don't know of any good pre-built mysteries. By their nature, they work best when customized to the PCs and the setting.

The longer answer is it isn't hard.

Let's start with your PCs and your players.

Mysteries are a good place to reward those who have generated background info for their characters, or invested in skills (esp those that aren't used often), or have taken an interest in relationships with NPCs. I had a PC samurai who had skill in tea ceremony, and impressing an NPC with this cerimony was important to getting that NPC's help.

Look specifically at the PCs social skills -- Diplomacy, Intimidation, and Sense Motive are likely to be important; detection skills -- Spot, Listen, and Search; and any analystical skillls and feats. And look at spells and items that can substitute for skills and/or short-circuit your plot.

You'll want to know what kinds of mysteries your players like -- CSI? Law & Order? Burn Notice? Monk? Dexter? That may give you an idea of the style they'll enjoy and the conventions and expectations they bring to the game.

You'll want to think about how the adventure can fit into your game? Do you want to use it as a way to introduce your PCs to a new urban environment? To new NPCs, or possible patrons? To new adversaries or organizations? To a new plot element (a cult or conspiracy, for example).

OK...now the crime. Murder is a favorite. But there's the faking one's death, or fraud, or theft, or embezzlement, and so on. If you are looking for a twist, there's the classic Scooby-Doo bit of having it seem like there's a monster, but having a mundane explanation in the end.

You need an adversary, and this ought to be someone worthy of your PCs. Someone who is interesting, and clever, and will get away with his/her/its crimes but for the PCs intervention. You might want to give the adversary a henchman/woman/thing for the PCs to encounter early on, saving the adversary for later. Make the adversary's means, motive, and personality part of the adventure -- what is it about the crime that is specific to this adversary. (Look at the current OotS -- the way V handles the Black Dragon is very specific to V, then to the epic necromancer. If Haley somehow got the same magical power, she'd kill the dragon and prevent future revenge in a very different way.)

You need a reason for the PCs to be involved -- are they hired, is the case personal, are they in the wrong place at the wrong time and become suspects? Why do they care about the case or the victim?

elliott20
2009-04-12, 09:43 PM
Involving the players is ALWAYS going to be the hard part though and not just something that you need to look out for when doing a mystery.

Just to see whether or not my own advice works, I'm going to write something right off the cuff right now.

First, the crime itself
duke has a McGuffin of importance. Duke was murdered by his adviser, who is actually an evil priest that the Duke wronged as a child. (Maybe he killed his family) The priest then spent two years by the Duke's side to study him and look for the location of the McGuffin.

Eventually the time came and the priest poisoned the Duke. let's say he umm.... let's say he poisoned the Duke's tea... which he has before bed every night. This way, the Duke would die in his room alone, leaving the priest till morning to make his get away. Oh yeah, of course the priest absconds with the McGuffin. for an easy twist, make the McGuffin something that is not actually powerful, but just something personal to the priest.

okay, so now we have the basic crime. Let's complicate things a little.

First, the priest has planned out his escape a little. He has done several things to try to throw people off of his trail. He has disguised another man's corpse to be his own, and left it to be discovered by the PCs or whoever in the garden. This way, it removes himself from the list of suspects and people won't think to look for him. (of course, if the players were to cast speak with the dead here...) The priest himself has shed his disguise as a priest and now looks like something else entirely.

Oh yeah, and let's throw in some more suspects, since this is a murder mystery, not a chase. The Duke himself? Not exactly well liked. Has a few enemies. Let's start with his rival, a nobleman who has been vying after his estate for quite some time. Then let's throw in a son who is a little too eager to take over his father's place. Let's see... while we're at it, let's add on an adulterous wife and her lover, who don't really want the power but would love to walk away from all of this with a large portion of the Duke's fortune. Oh yeah, and then let's throw in a bunch of servants who just LOVE to gossip and let the rumors fly. (Melrose Place, here we come!)

So that's a good start for the setting. We have our basic crime, we have suspects with their own motivations, etc. Now let's add in some events to keep things moving.

Once the duke is dead, everyone will try to make the best of the situation. The nobleman will try to use this as a chance to make move on the duke's estate (legally or illegally, your pick), the son will try his best to make his inheritance official as quickly as possible, the lovers will try to gather as much wealth as they can before they leave, and oh yeah, the priest is already on his way out. (thinking he's safe though, he'll be a little slower than optimal and probably a bit sloppier in leaving a trail)

Let's throw in another twist to this: other parties involved with the investigation:

Let's put in a local law enforcement, who for all intensive purposes, do not trust anybody, and probably think the PCs are just as much of a suspect as anybody else. (Hell, given half the chance, they'd probably throw the PCs in jail too) Oh yeah, and they would like to solve this crime just so they can look good.

The rival nobleman would probably like to pin this murder on the Duke's son so he can remove another obstacle to taking the Duke's estate.

The lovers... well... they don't care who solves this. They just want to get out of this all with enough money before they elope.

and now the king, who realizes that this case could tear the whole community apart, just wants to wrap this up ASAP, and doesn't really care if the REAL killer is brought to justice as long as SOMEBODY is.

wedged in the middle are the PCs, who have the only information that something is amiss - the duke's McGuffin seemed to be missing.