Murder Mystery vs. Magic

[DwarfFighter]

The adventurers are enjoying their breakfast at the inn, when a scream is heard from the stables. Rushing out, they learn that the wealthy merchant they noticed in the inn the night before has been found murdered! Can the PCs solve the mystery?

The attraction of a good murder mystery is the piecing together of clues and weighing statements and observations against each other to discover the truth. With magic in the mix, however, the challenge of the puzzle can quickly fail to the challenge being broken with the casting of the right spell, often a less satisfying experience.

As a player, what 5e spells would you use to solve the mystery, and as a GM what would you do to stop that same spell from being a "Win now!" button, but still have it prove useful in the investigation? Or even serve up a red herring!

Example:

Player: I cast Speak with Dead. "Who killed you, bro!"

GM (Victim): "I don't know, it was dark and he wore a hooded cloak and mask!" You learn that the killer appeared to be a male, and had disguised himself.

EDIT:

Let me reiterate the challenge:

1. Suggest the use of a spell to help solve the mystery

AND

2. Suggest how the circumstances of the mystery might be adjusted to stop that spell from instantly solving it. Magic to counter magic is OK, but mundane countermeasures are preferable.

2.1 BONUS ASIGNMENT: Suggest how the the spell might provide a red herring, making the mystery harder to solve.

Also, I see people suggesting how spells could be used to set up the mystery. That's a bit outside the scope of the challenge, but sure. Just bear in mind that that GM is free to rule that NPCs are not limited to, and do not have access to, the same repertoire of magic as do the PCs.

-DF

[RSP]

The adventurers are enjoying their breakfast at the inn, when a scream is heard from the stables. Rushing out, they learn that the wealthy merchant they noticed in the inn the night before has been found murdered! Can the PCs solve the mystery?

The attraction of a good murder mystery is the piecing together of clues and weighing statements and observations against each other to discover the truth. With magic in the mix, however, the challenge of the puzzle can quickly fail to the challenge being broken with the casting of the right spell, often a less satisfying experience.

As a player, what 5e spells would you use to solve the mystery, and as a GM what would you do to stop that same spell from being a "Win now!" button, but still have it prove useful in the investigation? Or even serve up a red herring!

Example:

Player: I cast Speak with Dead. "Who killed you, bro!"

GM (Victim): "I don't know, it was dark and he wore a hooded cloak and mask!" You learn that the killer appeared to be a male, and had disguised himself.

-DF

It might help if the killer also was under Disguise Self or Alter Self. Similarly, the victim could have been killed with Phantasmal Force and as such would answer with whatever they’d feared the most. If that fear was of another person in town, the PCs might go on quite a bit of a goose chase.

Maybe the real murderer started rumors that the person they feared was after the victim, causing said fear in the first place. Couple that with some strange occurrences at the merchants home, set up by the real murderer to look like the person they feared. Have some house staff witnesses around to either misdirect or blame the person they feared.

The PCs can then try magic on the suspect and ultimately find them innocent, leaving them needing to dig deeper.

Maybe also put a clock on everything, like the real murder leaving town after a few days.

[MoiMagnus]

Zone of Truth is an obvious answer. More generally, divination magic can be quite problematic for mysteries unless you're talking about bad guys of level high enough for them to successfully hide information from the gods.

Suggestion/Mass Suggestion (and other charm spells) are quite good too, as things like "confess your crimes to the authorities to get lower sentences" looks as reasonable to me as the examples of "give [your] warhorse to the first beggar [you] meet" or "give all [your] money to the first beggar [you] meet" given in the rulebook. And there are a lot of other uses.

[Unoriginal]

Keep in mind magic can also make *solving* the murder mystery harder.

Pass Without a Trace, Invisibility, Nystul's Magic Aura, Mage Hand, Disguise Self, and many other spells and powers would make finding who did it and how much harder.

[DwarfFighter]

Let me reiterate the challenge:

1. Suggest the use of a spell to help solve the mystery

AND

2. Suggest how the circumstances of the mystery might be adjusted to stop that spell from instantly solving it. Magic to counter magic is OK, but mundane countermeasures are preferable.

2.1 BONUS ASIGNMENT: Suggest how the the spell might provide a red herring, making the mystery harder to solve.

Also, I see people suggesting how spells could be used to set up the mystery. That's a bit outside the scope of the challenge, but sure. Just bear in mind that that GM is free to rule that NPCs are not limited to, and do not have access to, the same repertoire of magic as do the PCs.

[RSP]

Let me reiterate the challenge:

1. Suggest the use of a spell to help solve the mystery

AND

2. Suggest how the circumstances of the mystery might be adjusted to stop that spell from instantly solving it. Magic to counter magic is OK, but mundane countermeasures are preferable.

2.1 BONUS ASIGNMENT: Suggest how the the spell might provide a red herring, making the mystery harder to solve.

Also, I see people suggesting how spells could be used to set up the mystery. That's a bit outside the scope of the challenge, but sure. Just bear in mind that that GM is free to rule that NPCs are not limited to, and do not have access to, the same repertoire of magic as do the PCs.

What level are the PCs?

[Amnestic]

How to solve it: Zone of Truth ask the killer if they did it
How to counter it: Modify Memory (to remove memory of killing the dude, probably has to be cast by someone else on you), Glibness(?), be a 17th level mastermind rogue.

[Lavaeolus]

So I think one obvious way a PC could mess up a murder mystery... is with Raise Dead! Or really any resurrective spell. This is going to, if nothing else, really alter the tone of the murder mystery, because the target's still going to be walking around. In the case of Raise Dead and Resurrection specifically, magical curses won't be removed from them and there are some other conditions, so you can get around this -- but not without implying certain things about the murder and/or murderer in the process.

To hide the reveal... It was dark, the murderer wore a cloak and a mask, they took me by behind and took me out in one clean strike, I walked into a trap and never saw them personally, etc.

But... Who says this was murder in the classical sense? If you know a Cleric's come to town, maybe you were counting on the revive. So maybe you performed the murder acting like someone else: a frame-up. Maybe you just needed them out of the way for a few hours (murder the Wizard, he can't react to the Alarm spell he set!), or to distract from another crime. Maybe there's a devil in town and you agreed to sacrifice a life in return for the town's safety; but no one said they had to stay dead...

Hell, maybe the 'victim' was in on it, if not the primary culprit. Hell of a gamble to make, though.

[Unoriginal]

How to solve it: Zone of Truth ask the killer if they did it
How to counter it: Modify Memory (to remove memory of killing the dude, probably has to be cast by someone else on you), Glibness(?), be a 17th level mastermind rogue.

Or just knowing how to tell the truth without revealing anything.

[GloatingSwine]

Example:

Player: I cast Speak with Dead. "Who killed you, bro!"

GM (Victim): "I don't know, it was dark and he wore a hooded cloak and mask!" You learn that the killer appeared to be a male, and had disguised himself.


Sneakier example:

Player: I cast Speak with Dead

GM: Nothing happens. (Someone has cast Speak with Dead on the corpse before them.)


How to solve it: Zone of Truth ask the killer if they did it
How to counter it: Modify Memory (to remove memory of killing the dude, probably has to be cast by someone else on you), Glibness(?), be a 17th level mastermind rogue.

You've still got to ask the right person. And they don't have to answer. And they might just pass their Cha save and if they do you don't know whether they lied or not, just that they passed the save that would allow them to.


To be honest, most magical "investigation" spells are intended to find out things about the future, not the present or past, and most of the ones that do reveal present information require you to have at least a basis of knowledge before they become useful. (eg. Divination, Contact other Plane, or Commune all get you simple one word answers so you've really got to ask the right questions.)

[DwarfFighter]

How to solve it: Zone of Truth ask the killer if they did it
How to counter it: Modify Memory (to remove memory of killing the dude, probably has to be cast by someone else on you), Glibness(?), be a 17th level mastermind rogue.

Zone of Truth is pretty significant - anyone believing themselves to be innocent of the crime will find it in their interests to subjecting themselves to the spell, and answer directly, and not be evasive. On the question "Did you kill him?" it makes no sense to answer anything but "No!" unless you are guilty.

To reduce the impact of this spell, I guess I would want to look at how the rest of the world considers it.

The suspect may object to being scrutinized by the spell: He feels his innocence is obvious, or should be assumed. The use of the spell implies that the PCs do not believe what he says, which may be construed as a slight to his honor.

A suspect may object to the spell since the questions may force him to reveal other secrets he believes is not related to the investigation. "What secrets may that be?" the players ask themselves, and down the rabbit-hole we go!

The authorities may not recognize the spell as a real means of investigation. Just because the PCs can cast it does not mean that the authorities are aware that such a spell exists. Or if the authorities are aware, they may have experience with the spell yielding false positives, that the caster is not guaranteed to be reliable, that counter-magic exists, etc. In short, authorities may consider facts gleaned through Zone of Truth to be circumstantial evidence (which is still evidence!) or inadmissible due to being unreliable.

I feel Zone of Truth shouldn't be dismissed by the GM out of hand. It may be an easy reveal of who can be assumed to be innocent, and thus by elimination point the PCs in the direction of the guilty, but in solving the mystery there still remains the means and the motive, and there may be accomplices.

When writing a murder mystery for 5e, Zone of Truth should definitely be a thing to consider.

[Democratus]

A clever murderer would probably do something like decapitate the victim and take the head.

This prevents Raise Dead (and possibly Speak w/ Dead).

For high-level assassinations, the best approach is to kill the target and then raise them as a skeleton or zombie and walk away with them following you. Not even True Resurrection works if the target is still undead.

[Sneak Dog]

Get all suspects in a zone of truth. Get uncomfortable as you get a lot of hesitant evasive answers. Maybe even a confession or if you question them one by one, several contradictory ones.


Most suspects realise they might be responsible due to the mysterious circumstances of the death, or even honestly believe they are:
The spouse might've arranged for a bounty hunter to capture them and is now questioning whether they made it clear they wanted them alive.
The cook might've mixed in some rat meat to cut costs.
The waylaid traveler might've smuggled in their cat despite the victim being allergic.
The old visiting friend might've sparred 'like the goold old days' despite neither of them being in the best of shapes anymore.
The neighbour might've let their guard dog roam a little too free.
The wild magic sorcerer might've been within a 1 mile radius.
The town carpenter might've been using cheap wood for the scrooge's stables.
The town clown might've poisoned the wine with what should have been mostly harmless fun poison.

---

Speak with dead on the corpse. The victim blames their spouse, definitely saw it was them.


People have a terrible memory, and the victim knew they were up to something, so it must've been them, right? Even though it was hard to see in the dark, and the victim got caught by surprise?

[kaervaak]

Ring of mind shielding is an excellent counter to zone of truth. It can even be made invisible, making figuring out that the person has a way of avoiding zone of truth much more difficult.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also, I see people suggesting how spells could be used to set up the mystery. That's a bit outside the scope of the challenge, but sure. Just bear in mind that that GM is free to rule that NPCs are not limited to, and do not have access to, the same repertoire of magic as do the PCs.

-DF A long time ago, I read a book set in the dragonlance world that was a murder mystery. It included a half elf protagonist who wore black dragonscale armor, and a sword and buckler assassin who was also a poet (he used a backsword). There were some plainsmen and magical shamans in it as well. And a black dragon, at one point.
It was, as much as it was anything, a mystery novel which included a murder in it.

So it can be done. I'll try to find the title, memory is not helping.

[Segev]

Speak with dead and raise dead can both be thwarted by cutting off the head and taking it with you, or by smashing the head to the point that it's not a "head" anymore.

Augury and divination aren't as useful as one might think, because "weal" or "woe" for taking particular actions to hunt down the villain could be confusing. Is it weal or woe if you would find him but he'd be a very tough opponent who might kill you?

Commune is yes/no questions, so not an auto-gimme, but clever use of it could still narrow things down a lot. Fortunately, "narrow things down a lot" is within acceptable parameters to keep the investigation going at a satisfying pace, rather than one-hit solving it. Contact other plane is similar.

Detect thoughts could risk being a give-away if they use it regularly and are clever about conducting interviews. Whether this is too fast or not is subjective; like the zone of truth operating at its best, it still requires finding the murderer and questioning him, so you're going to be going through a number of interviews. If that's too straight-forward, then having a number of people with complicated thoughts and feelings about the deceased might help. "Surface thoughts" including hatred and fantasies about being the one to have killed him might be good red herrings, though the actual murderer would need to be able to keep his mind from saying "haha yeah I did it and you can't prove it" or something like that.

A higher-level murderer using magic jar to possess somebody could be out of town and gone, leaving the investigation to deal with somebody who under zone of truth and detect thoughts earnestly and truthfully insists he didn't do it as the one to whom all the physical evidence points.

A suicide-as-frame-up could be interesting: the victim possesses somebody he hates and wants jailed/ruined, and murders his own body, then goes on to the afterlife to leave the framing victim to take the fall. Under speak with dead, the dead guy lies and blames the one he's framing. All the physical evidence points to the one he framed (as he has no reason to do anything but make the physical evidence easy to place).

[greenstone]

I would rule that magic used by the PCs is simply not accepted as evidence.

So, a divination spell might tell the PCs that the butler did it, but if they want the local law to bring the butler to justice, they can't just go, "they did it, magic said so!"

The players now have some interesting choices.

Find evidence that allows the local law to convict?

Manufacture evidence?

Take law into their own hands and punich the butler, possibly leading to the PCs being prosecuted for assault or murder?

Blackmail the butler?

...?

Whatever they pick usually leads to an interesting game.

Don't think that magic makes murder mysteries pointless - it doesn't, it just makes them different.

[Lunali]

Speak with dead

The victim is the murderer or wants to protect the murderer and wants to frame someone else.

[kingcheesepants]

Hmm, this is an interesting challenge. Several folks have already mentioned the obvious ones like speak with dead, detect thoughts, zone of truth. I would add speak to plants and animals. Surely a nearby spider or rat or dandelion saw what was going on and could probably have seen the murderer even before any disguises were donned. However plants and animals have very different kinds of things that they're interested in. It's likely that they'll give information that can provide a clue but not just instantly solve the mystery.

[Ettina]

Scrying is another one. If it's an ongoing thing rather than a one-and-done murder, scrying could potentially catch someone in the act. Or you could catch them doing incriminating stuff like disposing of evidence. Or find out that the red herring is having an affair/doing drugs/whatever else he was doing at the time of the murder and gave evasive answers about.

Easiest solution is to have them happen not to be doing anything sketchy when the PCs look in. Or they could succeed their save, or be under nondetection. Or even have some way to usurp scrying and turn it back on the PCs - always terrifying when you're spying on someone and they look back at you.

[Ettina]

Suggestion/Mass Suggestion (and other charm spells) are quite good too, as things like "confess your crimes to the authorities to get lower sentences" looks as reasonable to me as the examples of "give [your] warhorse to the first beggar [you] meet" or "give all [your] money to the first beggar [you] meet" given in the rulebook. And there are a lot of other uses.

Potential pitfall - if you word it wrong, you could trigger a false confession, or irrelevant confession.

Also, likely to cause conflict with NPCs if you use it without good enough cause.