How to: Murder Mystery

[Scarey Nerd]

My players (three Level 4s) will, in the next session, be attending a 4 day festival of fun, debauchery, carousing, gambling, and general hedonism.

Naturally, as a DM, such joy and peace is intolerable.

I'm trying to think of an interesting and engaging (preferably RP-heavy) issue to come up during the festivities, and I've hit on the idea that a cult of the Goddess of Trickery, Praesta (whose festival this is), is going to get a tad carried away and kill some acolytes/peasants/whoever in an orgy of blood. I want to then have a sort of investigation, murder mystery, track down and bring to justice thing, but I've no clue how to go about it in a way that the players will be able to find clues without me making them too obvious (there's a scrap of cloth that could only belong to this temple, and as luck would have it they're in the next street!) or too complex that they'll miss it (the scrap of cloth when taken to a local tailor is recognised as being Anduan silk, which is a privilege of the wealthy of the city, yada yada yada).

Have any of you run a find-the-clues style game like this before? I'd really appreciate any advice you have, since I want to make this an interesting session for them.

[RealCheese]

I read a really good article on this. One of the key elements I remember is that for every clue you NEED them to follow, leave two more that point in the same place. OR if you have few and vague clues, don't decide beforehand what is the correct conclusion, whatever they conclude is correct. Make them feel cool.

[Scarey Nerd]

I read a really good article on this. One of the key elements I remember is that for every clue you NEED them to follow, leave two more that point in the same place. OR if you have few and vague clues, don't decide beforehand what is the correct conclusion, whatever they conclude is correct. Make them feel cool.

That's a good idea - it'll take a fair amount of prep but I was expecting that anyway. I don't suppose you have a link to that article somewhere?

[RealCheese]

That's a good idea - it'll take a fair amount of prep but I was expecting that anyway. I don't suppose you have a link to that article somewhere?

Afraid not. It was a link to a GM blog that was posted on this forum.

[Finieous]

My advice is not to script the "clues" at all, because no matter how many clues you plant or how obvious you think they are, the PCs will ignore them or miss them or just go off on their tangential line of investigation that you haven't planned for at all.

Know the details of the crime inside and out: who, what, when, where, why, how. Then let the PCs investigate as they choose and uncover evidence as appropriate given those details. For example, if you tried to plan out the investigation, maybe you focus on physical evidence (like the cloth bit). Instead, the PCs want to look for witnesses. Using my method, you know exactly when and where the murder took place, so it's a simple matter for you to determine who else might have been at that place at that time (it's usually the gardener :smallbiggrin:).

If you have all the details figured out, it's a simple matter to just follow the players' lead. It's not even "winging it" because you already have all the answers.

[DeltaEmil]

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule

[Scarey Nerd]

Excellent article - I also agree with the whole "knowing the crime inside and out" approach, so I'll probably combine the two of them, since as you've said if the players decide to talk to witness rather than search for physical clues, even 3 clues might not be enough