Mars Ultor
2017-08-17, 04:45 PM
I had posted a while ago asking for opinions on an Agatha Christie-style whodunit, here are the results. The mystery was described in depth in a previous post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517289-Test-Drive-My-D-amp-D-Mystery).
After escorting an Earl to his estate, the weather turns bad and the PCs invited to stay until the storms ends. Confined in the house during the storm, the mystery begins. The earl’s wife had discovered that the steward is connected to bandits that had killed members of her family, and was still acting in concert with them. The lady’s plan was to poison the steward, then arrange the scene of the crime to indicate that someone had come into the house, stabbed the steward, and escaped. The steward died from the wine, but while staging the room the lady was forced to hide on the balcony—in the rain—while the butler came in. The butler had intended to threaten the steward, who had been blackmailing him, but finding the steward already dead, he fled, leaving behind evidence implicating him for the murder. The lady then finished staging the room and went to bed.
The other members of the family were up that night doing various things that initially suggested malice, but if questioned they would clear themselves and implicate others. Comparing alibis would eliminate most of these suspects.
I’ve run the adventure and it was a success. It took four four-hour sessions to run nearly the complete mystery; I didn’t think it would take anywhere near that long. I’ll address what caused the delays during my recap.
They arrived at the earl’s house during a heavy rainstorm (tracking in mud). They were invited for dinner and this is where I inadvertently caused a big problem: I told them that this adventure would be a mystery and they should be prepared to keep notes.
This was a big mistake and added several hours to play time. The initial dinner, which was to serve as a brief introduction of the suspects and victim, took almost the entire session. It’s impossible to get anything done when an NPC says, “pass the salt,” and six people want to Sense Motive and use Spot to see if it’s really salt.
The first session had them choosing suspects for an unknown crime before it had taken place, then the murder actually taking place, the earl requesting the party investigate the murder, the party contaminating the crime scene, destroying and ignoring evidence, and arguing over whether they should search for evidence or interrogate the suspects first.
The second session resumed with their discussion of whether to investigate or interrogate, eventually they decided to do a more thorough search of the crime scene. Finding several clues, after some discussion, they decided to search elsewhere. The party was pretty good at detecting things overall, they were specific about how and what they would search, and only missed a few pieces of evidence. Since I included multiple clues leading them to the same evidence, this wasn’t a problem.
The entire second and third session were devoted to the search, much more time than I thought, but there were extensive delays when half the part wanted to investigate and half wanted to interrogate and they spent too much time debating what to do. I feel one entire session combined was wasted because of their fighting over nothing and trying to solve a crime that hadn’t actually taken place.
Out of the six players, there was one player who took extremely thorough notes, another who took good notes, and another who seemed to note only that information which confirmed his suspicions. The other three used an unreliable system of shouting, “I found a clue! Someone write it down!” Since there were several interactions with NPCs where only one or two PCs were present, their not taking notes eventually caught up with them.
As the third session was wrapping up, someone had the idea of using the spell Zone of Truth as an interrogation aid. I had anticipated this and had prepared evasive replies and rambling answers intending to defeat the spell. The fourth session began with them choosing questions and deciding on the order of the suspects. I told them I was going to time the questioning to conform to the duration of the spell, in this case, three minutes. I set a timer on my computer, and paused the timer when they talked out of character to ask me a question or Sense Motive.
I rolled the Will saves in plain sight, both times they cast the spell. When the first Zone spell expired, the cleric cast it again, and I repeated the previous procedure. This time they saw that five out of eight suspects had rolled high enough to save versus the spell’s effects. Coincidentally, the lady—the actual killer—made her save both times.
Also, I had explained to them the parameters of the spell and suggested that they ask specific questions; vague questions would lead to vague answers. They asked several people, “Did you kill the steward with the knife?” before recalling that he was dead from poisoning before he was stabbed.
They decided that they could have asked better questions and debated confining everyone while the cleric rested and prayed for new spells. They eventually decided to just interrogate everyone. During one of the interrogations, a Sense Motive check convinced them that that one the suspects was being completely dishonest. The party decided a better course of action was to confront them with the evidence while asking the questions. “If you didn’t leave your room, how do you explain this?”
They also tried to intimidate, I explained they were still all dressed in nightshirts and sleeping caps, but they took the penalty and persisted.
After the questioning they made a timeline and eliminated everyone but the lady and the daughter, and possibly the jester. They weren’t sure on the motive for the daughter, but thought the bandit connection was the motive for the lady. There was some disagreement over whether the jester was uninvolved, an accomplice, or a werewolf. Then they seemed stumped for a while and didn’t know what to do. I suggested that they reread their notes and make connections between things they had noticed, not necessarily just physical evidence, and what they had learned. Among other things, this led them to realizing that the lady always covered her hands and suspected she had burns from the fires set by the bandits. This seemed to convince most of them the lady was the killer.
They weren’t completely sure and felt they had missed something. I thought of “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” (from a Sherlock Holmes story where he deduces it was an inside job because the guard dog didn’t bark) and told them there were two types of clues: The things that happened and the things that didn’t happen. They considered this and realized that part of the lady’s alibi—her dress was wet because she had gone outside to look for the jester—was false. They double-checked and confirmed that everyone else who had been outside had tracked mud in the house, this was mentioned several times, but the lady’s dress, though wet, was free of mud and so were her shoes and cloak. The ranger, who had investigated the balcony and who had also searched outside, came to the (correct) conclusion that the lady was on the balcony, hiding there while the butler interrupted her arranging the murder scene.
I feel they got a little stuck at the end, they had all the information but it needed to be drawn out of them. I had to prompt them to think about what some evidence actually meant. One player said she thought about the mystery during the week, reviewed notes, texted the other players, and finally began to put it all together. I suggested that they do a Hercule Poirot-style walkthrough of everything, and she did this (sadly, she refused to do the accent), the other players offered explanations for the gaps in her solution. They finally came up with a unified story, confronted the lady, and solved the crime.
They argued about what should happen to the lady, and some were disappointed that she wouldn’t be put on trial (the earl was also the judge). The earl said he would go public with everything and see what the people decided. The party was enthusiastic about this for the most part, only player was unhappy with the resolution when he heard the earl speak. The earl announced that his wife had discovered a spy in the household, she took matters into her own hands and killed him. He chided her for not following the law, but explained that she was eager to end the threat to her family and the kingdom, who could blame her for that?
The Good
• Everyone enjoyed themselves.
• Most of the players want to do other mysteries in the future.
• At first they figured the butler did it, then realized they had solved one crime, but not the one they were expected to solve.
• Zone of Truth didn’t ruin things.
• They all had different suspects initially, some for no particular reason.
• There were eight suspects and the players were able to keep track of them and eliminate a few pretty quickly.
The Bad
• Knowing in advance it was a mystery made them try to solve a crime that hadn’t yet been committed.
• They didn’t know if they should first interrogate or find clues, there was a long argument over how to start.
• They kept attempting to split the party and search the house independently.
• If a clue was found in one bed, they fought over who would search the next bed.
• They were inconsistent in their interrogations; sometimes they would use Intimidate and Sense Motive, other times they forgot completely.
• I couldn’t seem to recall whether the murder weapon was on the wall (yes) or in the body (no). This led to a bit of confusion as I had described it both ways and their notes were contradictory.
• Early on a player realized that an NPC kept talking about something and thought it might be important because I had repeated it. For some reason they didn’t make a note of it, couldn’t remember it, and it took a while going over things before someone recalled it. I’m not sure how this could be fixed. If the players disregard a clue over and over, after recognizing it might be a clue, there’s nothing to be done.
The Ugly
My hard drive crashed the day before the first session and I used an old computer to recreate the murder from memory and what I had posted here. It was impossible to find things sometimes and some things were forgotten or ignored.
After that session I typed out a bullet list of every clue grouped by room, and a list of suspects with their alibis, excuses, and confessions. I printed this out and could check off clues as they found them or make notes. This worked very well and I wish I had thought of it initially.
I would definitely run another mystery, but I’m going to make it less complex. It would be a slightly different format, more of a police procedural. The players would encounter the crime, be able to eliminate two of the three suspects with minimal effort, and then spend their time investigating the actual criminal in an effort to prove that he’s the guilty party.
I’m considering eventually putting everything together as a module and posting it online. If you were an initial contributor to the “test drive,” I’ll send you a copy if you wish.
After escorting an Earl to his estate, the weather turns bad and the PCs invited to stay until the storms ends. Confined in the house during the storm, the mystery begins. The earl’s wife had discovered that the steward is connected to bandits that had killed members of her family, and was still acting in concert with them. The lady’s plan was to poison the steward, then arrange the scene of the crime to indicate that someone had come into the house, stabbed the steward, and escaped. The steward died from the wine, but while staging the room the lady was forced to hide on the balcony—in the rain—while the butler came in. The butler had intended to threaten the steward, who had been blackmailing him, but finding the steward already dead, he fled, leaving behind evidence implicating him for the murder. The lady then finished staging the room and went to bed.
The other members of the family were up that night doing various things that initially suggested malice, but if questioned they would clear themselves and implicate others. Comparing alibis would eliminate most of these suspects.
I’ve run the adventure and it was a success. It took four four-hour sessions to run nearly the complete mystery; I didn’t think it would take anywhere near that long. I’ll address what caused the delays during my recap.
They arrived at the earl’s house during a heavy rainstorm (tracking in mud). They were invited for dinner and this is where I inadvertently caused a big problem: I told them that this adventure would be a mystery and they should be prepared to keep notes.
This was a big mistake and added several hours to play time. The initial dinner, which was to serve as a brief introduction of the suspects and victim, took almost the entire session. It’s impossible to get anything done when an NPC says, “pass the salt,” and six people want to Sense Motive and use Spot to see if it’s really salt.
The first session had them choosing suspects for an unknown crime before it had taken place, then the murder actually taking place, the earl requesting the party investigate the murder, the party contaminating the crime scene, destroying and ignoring evidence, and arguing over whether they should search for evidence or interrogate the suspects first.
The second session resumed with their discussion of whether to investigate or interrogate, eventually they decided to do a more thorough search of the crime scene. Finding several clues, after some discussion, they decided to search elsewhere. The party was pretty good at detecting things overall, they were specific about how and what they would search, and only missed a few pieces of evidence. Since I included multiple clues leading them to the same evidence, this wasn’t a problem.
The entire second and third session were devoted to the search, much more time than I thought, but there were extensive delays when half the part wanted to investigate and half wanted to interrogate and they spent too much time debating what to do. I feel one entire session combined was wasted because of their fighting over nothing and trying to solve a crime that hadn’t actually taken place.
Out of the six players, there was one player who took extremely thorough notes, another who took good notes, and another who seemed to note only that information which confirmed his suspicions. The other three used an unreliable system of shouting, “I found a clue! Someone write it down!” Since there were several interactions with NPCs where only one or two PCs were present, their not taking notes eventually caught up with them.
As the third session was wrapping up, someone had the idea of using the spell Zone of Truth as an interrogation aid. I had anticipated this and had prepared evasive replies and rambling answers intending to defeat the spell. The fourth session began with them choosing questions and deciding on the order of the suspects. I told them I was going to time the questioning to conform to the duration of the spell, in this case, three minutes. I set a timer on my computer, and paused the timer when they talked out of character to ask me a question or Sense Motive.
I rolled the Will saves in plain sight, both times they cast the spell. When the first Zone spell expired, the cleric cast it again, and I repeated the previous procedure. This time they saw that five out of eight suspects had rolled high enough to save versus the spell’s effects. Coincidentally, the lady—the actual killer—made her save both times.
Also, I had explained to them the parameters of the spell and suggested that they ask specific questions; vague questions would lead to vague answers. They asked several people, “Did you kill the steward with the knife?” before recalling that he was dead from poisoning before he was stabbed.
They decided that they could have asked better questions and debated confining everyone while the cleric rested and prayed for new spells. They eventually decided to just interrogate everyone. During one of the interrogations, a Sense Motive check convinced them that that one the suspects was being completely dishonest. The party decided a better course of action was to confront them with the evidence while asking the questions. “If you didn’t leave your room, how do you explain this?”
They also tried to intimidate, I explained they were still all dressed in nightshirts and sleeping caps, but they took the penalty and persisted.
After the questioning they made a timeline and eliminated everyone but the lady and the daughter, and possibly the jester. They weren’t sure on the motive for the daughter, but thought the bandit connection was the motive for the lady. There was some disagreement over whether the jester was uninvolved, an accomplice, or a werewolf. Then they seemed stumped for a while and didn’t know what to do. I suggested that they reread their notes and make connections between things they had noticed, not necessarily just physical evidence, and what they had learned. Among other things, this led them to realizing that the lady always covered her hands and suspected she had burns from the fires set by the bandits. This seemed to convince most of them the lady was the killer.
They weren’t completely sure and felt they had missed something. I thought of “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” (from a Sherlock Holmes story where he deduces it was an inside job because the guard dog didn’t bark) and told them there were two types of clues: The things that happened and the things that didn’t happen. They considered this and realized that part of the lady’s alibi—her dress was wet because she had gone outside to look for the jester—was false. They double-checked and confirmed that everyone else who had been outside had tracked mud in the house, this was mentioned several times, but the lady’s dress, though wet, was free of mud and so were her shoes and cloak. The ranger, who had investigated the balcony and who had also searched outside, came to the (correct) conclusion that the lady was on the balcony, hiding there while the butler interrupted her arranging the murder scene.
I feel they got a little stuck at the end, they had all the information but it needed to be drawn out of them. I had to prompt them to think about what some evidence actually meant. One player said she thought about the mystery during the week, reviewed notes, texted the other players, and finally began to put it all together. I suggested that they do a Hercule Poirot-style walkthrough of everything, and she did this (sadly, she refused to do the accent), the other players offered explanations for the gaps in her solution. They finally came up with a unified story, confronted the lady, and solved the crime.
They argued about what should happen to the lady, and some were disappointed that she wouldn’t be put on trial (the earl was also the judge). The earl said he would go public with everything and see what the people decided. The party was enthusiastic about this for the most part, only player was unhappy with the resolution when he heard the earl speak. The earl announced that his wife had discovered a spy in the household, she took matters into her own hands and killed him. He chided her for not following the law, but explained that she was eager to end the threat to her family and the kingdom, who could blame her for that?
The Good
• Everyone enjoyed themselves.
• Most of the players want to do other mysteries in the future.
• At first they figured the butler did it, then realized they had solved one crime, but not the one they were expected to solve.
• Zone of Truth didn’t ruin things.
• They all had different suspects initially, some for no particular reason.
• There were eight suspects and the players were able to keep track of them and eliminate a few pretty quickly.
The Bad
• Knowing in advance it was a mystery made them try to solve a crime that hadn’t yet been committed.
• They didn’t know if they should first interrogate or find clues, there was a long argument over how to start.
• They kept attempting to split the party and search the house independently.
• If a clue was found in one bed, they fought over who would search the next bed.
• They were inconsistent in their interrogations; sometimes they would use Intimidate and Sense Motive, other times they forgot completely.
• I couldn’t seem to recall whether the murder weapon was on the wall (yes) or in the body (no). This led to a bit of confusion as I had described it both ways and their notes were contradictory.
• Early on a player realized that an NPC kept talking about something and thought it might be important because I had repeated it. For some reason they didn’t make a note of it, couldn’t remember it, and it took a while going over things before someone recalled it. I’m not sure how this could be fixed. If the players disregard a clue over and over, after recognizing it might be a clue, there’s nothing to be done.
The Ugly
My hard drive crashed the day before the first session and I used an old computer to recreate the murder from memory and what I had posted here. It was impossible to find things sometimes and some things were forgotten or ignored.
After that session I typed out a bullet list of every clue grouped by room, and a list of suspects with their alibis, excuses, and confessions. I printed this out and could check off clues as they found them or make notes. This worked very well and I wish I had thought of it initially.
I would definitely run another mystery, but I’m going to make it less complex. It would be a slightly different format, more of a police procedural. The players would encounter the crime, be able to eliminate two of the three suspects with minimal effort, and then spend their time investigating the actual criminal in an effort to prove that he’s the guilty party.
I’m considering eventually putting everything together as a module and posting it online. If you were an initial contributor to the “test drive,” I’ll send you a copy if you wish.