Murder mystery on a boat ideas?

[danzibr]

I'm going to be starting a campaign soon and I want to have the first session be a murder mystery. Here's the long version:
For various reasons (in the players' backstories) the players get on a boat headed to a prosperous port/trading town (used to be a mining town but the mine shut down). The trading town has two people vying for leadership, someone who used to be the sole leader, then a new guy who showed up about the time the mine shut down. Turns out the new guy who showed up is a Beholder in disguise and the ship is transporting exotic mushrooms to eat (courtesy Keld Denar's sig).

Anyway, the captain will be a Water Orc who works for the Beholder, and I'm thinking someone figured out something he or she should not have and got offed for it. The party sees the person alive, then later dead so the killer must be on the boat. There'll probably be a couple fishy locked doors and maybe an ambush waiting for the party by some thugs when they realize the party's onto them.

Regarding the boat, it's about fifty feet by a hundred feet, 3 stories. I haven't populated it, but other than the players, the captain, the murderer (who might be the captain, dunno) and the murderee there will be very few people.

Regarding the players, we're starting at level 1 with some high-power rules. Gestalt, free +1 LA, generous point buy.
Regardless of whether you read the stuff in the spoiler or not, what suggestions do you have for a murder mystery on a boat? The usual concerns of not being able to speak with the dead and other clairvoyance stuff aren't an issue due to this occurring at level 1.

[ksbsnowowl]

The 7th level Eberron adventure The Voyage of the Golden Dragon might give you some ideas. It even has a murder mystery occur on board.

[danzibr]

The 7th level Eberron adventure The Voyage of the Golden Dragon might give you some ideas. It even has a murder mystery occur on board.
Oooh, reading it now. Very devious. Thanks!

[Darrin]

Very old-school and wrong rule system, but if you can track down "The Emperor Luitpold" for Warhammer FRP (White Dwarf #122, reprinted in the Warhammer Companion and/or Apocrypha Now), then that was another "murder on a boat" scenario, based somewhat loosely on Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express".

[Gildedragon]

Have multiple people have means and motive.
Also expect the players to discover the beholder connection. Can they kill/detain the captain of the ship? What happens if they do? What prevents the captain from delaying the boat once he feels he's been found out so as to kill the PCs?
What backup does the captain have for his discovery? How is his connection discovered?

[gorfnab]

Steal the plotline from the Agatha Christie novel Hercule Poirot - Death on the Nile.

[CaladanMoonblad]

Is there a nearby amusement park? Is it abandoned? Is there an owner wearing an orc mask? These are all valuable things to ascertain in any murder mystery...

It may help to have the victim be someone low class, but someone who came to the heroes for help earlier and still ended up dead... you need to build a reason why the heroes care about solving the murder. Unless it's a Mike Hammer murder mystery, these sorts of things tend not to have a paycheck at its conclusion.

[danzibr]

Hmm, thanks for the responses.

I've done some more building up. Here's the current situation:
There will be 7 distinguishable people on the boat other than the 4 players (and 20 generic crew members).

The captain is a Water Orc named Grag. She doesn't work for the Beholder.
The first mate is her son, a Half-Orc named Lurg.
A female Halfling passenger named Daisy. She's actually very evil but isn't the murderer. Works for the Beholder.
A male Warforged named Shaft. Threw away his humanity. Buddies with Drunden. He's actually a good guy. People think he's dumb but he's quite smart.
A male Mongrelfolk named Drunden. Has a fondness for booze. He gets killed.
A female Dwarf named Karem Goldenbeard. Used to run the mine that closed.
A male Gnome named Baglor. He's an Illusionist, quite a friendly fellow. One of the murderers.
A male human named Joe. He's a Thug (Fighter variant). Hangs out with Baglor. He's the actual murderer.

Sequence of events:
Before breakfast Drunden happens upon (he's really sneaky) some dirty documents in Baglor's room.
Drunden tells Shaft he has something to show him but it's dangerous now, to meet in his room during breakfast.
Daisy overhears the above conversation, tells Baglor.
Baglor tells Joe to intercept Drunden.
Bell indicating breakfast rings. People go to breakfast. Baglor is over in a corner casting Minor Image to make it look like Joe is there. In reality Joe put some poison in some booze and gives it to Drunden. Being fond of booze, Drunden drinks it. Being a Mongrelfolk he passes his Fort save. Joe resorts to stabbing him to death.
Basically Daisy, Baglor and Joe work for the Beholder while Drunden, Shaft and Karem work for the person opposing the Beholder.

From here I'm not sure what to do. Maybe Shaft finds the body, maybe not. Maybe he alerts people, maybe not. Maybe Drunden contacted the party at some point, maybe not.

PC options: Karem noticed Joe being weird (that is, the Minor Image Joe being maintained by Baglor).
Suspects include anyone not at breakfast. Shaft, the captain and first mate, Daisy, any party members.
I'm thinking Search checks to find things, Heal check to see he was poisoned also.

The PC's will start to puzzle things out, which worries Baglor. Baglor, who's pretending to be helping the party, will tell them (or have Joe tell them) to go somewhere to talk. He actually bribes some of the generic crew members to kill the party. The party presumably bests them, interrogates one and finds out about Joe/Baglor, then the party fights Joe/Baglor.

At the end of the day Daisy (who will be a villain later) has the dirty documents so the party doesn't discover the Beholder guy is actually a Beholder... yet (they also don't yet know Daisy is a bad girl).

Any thoughts on this?

[Gildedragon]

Why is the mongrelfolk killed?

The discovery of the murder could be delayed if the mongrelfolk drank a lot the previous night and is not leaving quarters because of hangover+seasickness combo

Having multiple un-allied factions allows for more intrigue. Having the boat divided so cleanly is less interesting, because it becomes a matter of extracting info from any one to reach all others.

[danzibr]

Why is the mongrelfolk killed?

The discovery of the murder could be delayed if the mongrelfolk drank a lot the previous night and is not leaving quarters because of hangover+seasickness combo

Having multiple un-allied factions allows for more intrigue. Having the boat divided so cleanly is less interesting, because it becomes a matter of extracting info from any one to reach all others.
He's killed because... well, I'm still working on it. I'm thinking the Gnome had some sort of secret document which the Mongrelfolk broke in and stole.

Thanks for the delay idea there.

Regarding the factions, it shouldn't be clear to the players. It's not like Dwarf + Warforged + Mongrelfolk v. Halfling + Gnome + human. Really, the only sort of association the party will see is that the Gnome and human are buddies. I should've made that more clear :/