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Skrum
2022-03-08, 09:04 AM
My upcoming game is going to be a murder mystery one-shot (sort of one-shot - it's complicated). But anyway, my plan is to have the players get recruited by the local magistrate to solve a murder. The game will begin at the murder scene, where they will find 2-3 clues. It will then run essentially like a choose-your-own-adventure book: the players will follow up on a clue, which may or may not lead to more clues, and if they get stuck they can backtrack and follow up on something else until they find their way through the "flow chart" to the killer and final confrontation.

In my head, this should work great. My problem is I don't really have a plot. I'm not a reader of mystery, so I feel like I don't have a ton to draw from. I'm not actually expecting anyone to like, write this in full of course, but any suggestions either for the plot itself or for resources would be appreciated.

Edit: My idea so far involves the victim being related to a shady guy (that the players - not the characters - know from a different game) that maintains a respectable face as a merchant. The magistrate knows the guy has a past though, and is worried he's going to take matters into his own hands if the players don't solve the murder quickly.

J-H
2022-03-08, 09:15 AM
Have a plan for if they just decide to cast Speak with Dead or get the victim Rezzed. There's also only so much table time to chase down leads that don't pan out in a time-consuming fashion.

You probably should read:
The Three Clue Rule (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule)
Making Clues 1 (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46338/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tips-making-clues) and Part 2 (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46340/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tip-making-clues-part-2)

Skrum
2022-03-08, 09:23 AM
Have a plan for if they just decide to cast Speak with Dead or get the victim Rezzed. There's also only so much table time to chase down leads that don't pan out in a time-consuming fashion.

You probably should read:
The Three Clue Rule (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule)
Making Clues 1 (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46338/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tips-making-clues) and Part 2 (https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46340/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tip-making-clues-part-2)

The level cap for the game is 6, so I won't have to worry about resurrection. Speak with Dead is a possibility for sure though.

Thank you very much!

Eldan
2022-03-08, 09:23 AM
So, your basic four building stones for a murder mystery are:
Suspect - Motive - Means - Opportunity

Who did it, why, how and when.


Entirely separately from that, you need your adventure. The basic setup for a mystery investigation I do is:

Initial investigation - Follow-up - Twist or Complication - Resolution


Start with a crime scene that is littered with clues. One important rule that I've learned and that many mystery RPGs strongly emphasize: never just one clue, or one combination of clues. If your players need to put three clues together to advance, and they miss one of the clues, they can't advance. So, put something like ten clues in there. More than you think you'll need. The main goal here is to get the players started and have them feel clever for putting it together. The most important thing is preventing them from getting stuck.

Next part of the investigation is follow-up. The party has clues and has to put together what they mean. This is usually most of the meat of such a story and where the actual investigation happens. Interviewing witnesses or suspects. Going to shady locations to talk to informants. Researching clues in a library or talking to an expert (bringing a poison they found to an alchemist. Showing a mysterious magical text to a librarian, etc.) The goal of this section is converting clues into evidence. The poison was bought by exactly one customer. The witness gives you a suspect description. The ritual is in an exotic language only two people in the city speak, etc.

Third, you want rising tension. Here, something unexpected should happen that leads to action. The killer kills again. The main suspect dies mysteriously, revealing that the investigators were on the wrong track. The killer tries killing the investigators. The killer flees town, leading to a chase. Your shady guy starts acting on their own and takes revenge on the wrong suspect. Suddenly, new evidence shows up and blames the investigators (dun dun dunn!)

Possible interlude, back to 1+2: the beat may reveal new evidence or create a second crime scene, leading to more investigation.

Fourth, the investigators survive and confront the suspect. Depending on your genre, that leads to a fight, or they just lay out the evidence. The suspect is either defeated or arrested. Possible twist: the perp is important enough that they can't just be arrested, but they face social consequences instead. The players just made an enemy.

Vahnavoi
2022-03-08, 01:38 PM
When was the last time you've played Twenty Questions?

Find some group to test your scenario with: give them all three clues and the have them do Twenty Questions with it. See how many questions it takes for them to figure out what happened. Also record their question and think what would need to happen in a roleplaying game for them to be answered once they're done.

A one-shot mystery doesn't need any more plot than what the players themselves choose to do in pursuit of clues. If your players are bad at deduction, they will possibly go wildly off the direct path - let them. Be willing and prepared to end scenario on the one who did it getting away, with you revealing the sad truth to the players after they've spent last 1 to 4 hours of real time chasing red herrings.

TheFamilarRaven
2022-03-08, 05:11 PM
As someone who has recently run a murder mystery one shot using Pathfinder 1e without having prior experience, I can share a few things I learned based on my own approach, observations, and feedback from my players.

1) the mystery should be solvable without requiring that players get the “critical roll(s)”. Meaning don’t block vital clue discoveries behind skill checks the players may or may not make.

Have a summary of the witnesses/suspects as well as crime and how it happened before the players arrived. This will help you ad-lib any clues you may have overlooked during prep.

2) Don’t worry about the mystery being “too easy” I often caught myself thinking the players would just skip straight to the end with certain clues, or that too many clues is bad. This was not the case. They had plenty of fun finding evidence and grilling witnesses. More clues generally means the players have more to go on and don’t have to play “guess the DM’s solution”.

3) Prepare a “Perry Mason” moment, where the culprit confesses their crime; Either to gloat or because of the guilt. Once the players zero in on the correct suspect and are able to provide sufficient pressure that should be a sufficient success condition. It is unlikely, (unless the case is very simple) that your players will deduce the HOW of the crime. But the true goal is to find out the WHO, (and possibly the WHY), so as long as they can do that then they’re golden.

4) It will help your players if you prep your clues and testimonies before the game starts. Have a map of the crime scene and a picture to go along with each suspect.

The clues and testimonies should be handed out to players. For clues I gave a detailed description. For testimonies I had a billeted list of important statements each witness made.

The request for pictures came from my players as they had difficulty keeping the names straight without a face to put them to.

I also gave each of my players an “ace detective” point that they could use at anytime to ask me for a hint or to treat any roll related to the investigation as a natural 20.

5) account for magic and other special abilities that can trivialize your adventure. In my case, I made sure the killer would not register with Detect Evil and that the victim’s body was mangled to prevent speak with dead.

6) Have fun. Seriously, my game was in the sillier side with two of the 3 characters playing discount Scooby-Doo characters.

Edit: As far as plots go, start with the perpetrator’s motive for killing the victim. Then work out how they would be able to accomplish the crime. Next determine how they messed up, (left clues). Then figure out who may have witnessed the event or could have relevant info.

Once you have that information, figure out your “happy path(s)” to concluding the investigation successfully. Then examine all the ways the players could stray from that path. From there, work out ways to keep them on track (or don’t, if you don’t mind them failing).

Duff
2022-03-08, 09:58 PM
Try not to have real dead ends. A clue that leads to a wrong suspect is fine as long as talking to the suspect points somewhere (it's fine to have 2 inocent people's conversation point at each other as long as there's enough other clues to prevent the players getting stuck on these 2

Alcore
2022-03-09, 10:26 AM
A murder mystery revolves around the fallout of a plot. The Whys often matter little where the law concerns (murder is murder) but a murder mystery requires a plot. Try watching those forensic shows; not quite a murder mystery but the PCs will need to go through the steps.

Sapphire Guard
2022-03-10, 11:36 AM
Think about what happens if the Players a) guess wrong, or b) guess right too early. That could happen, but you don't want to run into a brick wall.

Storm_Of_Snow
2022-03-11, 02:49 PM
Have contingencies, in particular decide what the culprit will do if the players get close then move away, or if they take too long - do they run, try and conceal evidence or set up extra alibis, plant a false trail onto someone else, do a false flag attack on the players or what?

Stonehead
2022-03-12, 12:37 AM
Are you looking for general mystery techniques, or more specific clues/story beats? For the latter, it might help to know what setting you're planning. Is this dungeon fantasy? Modern day?

I'm sure you've heard that red herrings are a bad idea, because the players are going to create their own incorrect assumptions. So like, to put that into a concrete example, say they figure out the murder weapon was a specific garden spade. Through talking to the head gardener, or the local shopkeep or something, they figure out it belongs to suspect A. Suspect A says it is his, but he loaned it to suspect B, because he wasn't working the day of the crime. From the players' perspective, it could be either A or B, because either of them could be lying, so they need more investigation.

You don't need the killer to set any false leads, just have him lie when giving his testimony. Maybe he has a fake alibi, but depending on how smart your players are, I might even shy away from that.

SimonMoon6
2022-03-12, 11:01 AM
One thing I've noted in a number of TV shows where the protagonists get roped into a murder mystery is this sort of story:

(1) The main characters (like the PCs) and some other characters are gathered together for a particular reason. (A dinner at a fancy house or a competition of skill or whatever).

(2) Somebody dies in a mysterious way (like when the lights go out... which wouldn't work if PCs have darkvision). The PCs (and possibly some of the other characters) start investigating. Naturally, nobody trusts anybody else (except the PCs probably trust each other). They go their separate ways to investigate.

(3) As they go on their separate investigations, more people die in mysterious ways, one by one.

(4) Eventually, the clues start to add up and they manage to capture the murderer who turns out to be...

<spoiler>

... the first person who was killed. He wasn't actually dead, it was all a trick. Perhaps the body wasn't even his. It was all a setup so that nobody would suspect him of being the murderer. This kind of requires that the PCs don't get a good chance to look at the original dead body. (Perhaps they see it briefly, the lights go out again, and the body vanishes while the lights were out.)