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Structuring A Murder Mystery

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
inconsistentdm
Aug 15, 2010 3:09:01 ... I need help with it.

So my PC is a inquisitive who is set out to solve some murders, I want to challenge myself with writting a murder mystery game but I'm totally green at this sort of thing. Is there someone out there that can help me with this?

To give some background on the matter

A faction with in The Twelve have approached Aundair with an alliance, should they wish to break the Korth Edicts, pledging substantial support for a new Aundairian war effort with crazy homebrewed technology. However, Aundair has expressed no will to make a move until both Karnnath and Breland are unable to move against them.

The Twelve then set out to underhandedly provoke civil war in Breland by destablizing the government and making sure whomever is left will to busy infighting. The nobility are divided about who they are going to back when Boranel kicks the bucket and the twelve are betting on this to be what will put Breland in a state of civil war. (props to Hellcow for the inspiration)

Now my issue is that I want there to be a murder case in Sharn, where as clues are gathered, will get my PC involved in the plot of taking down Breland and hopefully she'll want to stop it. Or help it. Thats not the problem.

The problem is that I haven't written a murder mystery game before (my background is more traditional fantasy games) and I want to try my hand at it. I was looking for some guidence and a bit of hand holding to help me write this part of the game.

Any chance in getting some help? maybe what goes into the skeleton and structure of a murder mystery as a starter?
#2
Novacat
Aug 15, 2010 3:55:22 I've never run a murder mystery before, but I'm writing one right now for the next leg of my campaign. I thus can't say for sure how good of advice this is, but here's how I'm going about it.

First, figure out exactly how the murder went down. Details are important. Obviously, the murder was successful, but that doesn't mean everything went exactly according to the murderer's plans. Maybe the victim struggled. Maybe there was a witness. In any case, you should design some deliberate holes in the murderer's plot, because there is no such thing as the perfect crime. Mistakes mean evidence, so each mistake that you deliberately design should leave some telltale sign. Significant clues may provide the answers to these important questions:
• Where did the murder take place?
• Was the body moved?
• When did the murder take place?
• How did the victim die?
• Was the murderer injured?

Second, come up with a list of NPCs that are potential suspects, and make sure they're as fleshed-out as the actual murderer, so your PCs can't deduce the mystery just because it *must* be the only NPC with a name. Many of the suspects should have one or more of the Big Three: Motivation, Means, and Opportunity for the murder. To keep things simple on your first foray, you should make sure only the actual murderer had all three. Also make a list of NPCs that aren't potential suspects (they have none of the Big Three). These can be potential witnesses, with bits of information they might not even know is useful, or they might be more cloud-cover for the actual killer.

Thirdly, have a plan for the progress of the investigation. As the PCs get closer to the murderer, will he play it cool, or will he panic and try to throw them off the scent? Does the murderer have an escape plan? Does he have allies? Does he have an alibi? Solving the mystery should involve more than just asking questions. Some answers should only be gotten after walking over the corpses of some very tight-lipped individuals.

These are my thoughts on the matter. Your milage may vary.
#3
Madfox11
Aug 16, 2010 5:18:40
Take magic into account when designing a murder mystery, and think about how much the murderer knows about magic. Magic both complicates and simplifies murder mysteries. It simplifies, because the characters have easy access to clues through various rituals. So make sure you read up various divination rituals, and decide how much the murderer actually knows about them. Some are easier to fool then others, while other rituals allow a rather modern approach to solving the case (e.g. Object Reading could work very well like gun registration, especially if the murderer keeps his face hidden at the time of the murder).

Magic complicates, because it can befuddle clues, makes eyewitness accounts extremely unreliable and above all allow murderers to use innocents to commit the actual murder. Unlike RL, possessions and magic domination can indeed cause a person to commit attrocities, and prenomitions might very well result in a sudden attack that for witnesses appeared to be unprovoked.

Finally, never assume the players will find all clues, especially not the first time you write a mystery. Unless you want your PCs to fail, add multiple clues and see how PCs react to them. At the same time, if you feel that the murderer is highly intelligent and unlikely to make mistakes, think twice before you put the PCs on their trail unless there is some other victory goal. As a DM I really dislike it to have NPCs make silly mistakes to give the PCs a chance, but at the same time, I am well aware that this is a game and players will have no fun if they repeatedly fail at something or are truely stuck. One thing you could do to help in this regards is to check how your players take to mysteries. Start with a simple one where somebody was murdered in the heat of the moment, as opposed to something planned well in advance. In a world of magic those are very easy to solve, and it gives you an idea on how quick the PCs are, especially in regards to magic. You can make the following ones more complicated ;)
#4
inconsistentdm
Aug 16, 2010 11:14:59 Thank you both, as i go back and rewrite the case/mystery/game I feel much more confident each time about the one; ease of the mystery, and two; tying it in to the greater story.

Magic wasn't something I took seriously enough into account. I'll being going back over what i've written and seeing if magic would make the crime a bit more interesting.

of all the games I have ever written, this has got to be the most. time consuming. : )
#5
weenog42
Aug 17, 2010 19:29:41 As it happens, the opening game of my new campaign was a murder mystery. I was planning on doing a write-up just to share the story and get some input on future adventures. If I ever get around to it, I'll add the link.

Murder mysteries are hard for several reasons.

Details details details. The PCs will undoubtedly ask questions you haven't foreseen, so you need to understand the surrounding events thoroughly so as to avoid unintended discrepancies. PCs also notoriously fixate on the less significant "fluff" details while overlooking what you thought were obvious clues. That Red Herring you cleverly placed? Don't be disappointed if the PCs either (a) fixate on it to the point of derailing the actual investigation or (b) completely miss that it was ever there, thus negating your hours of planning.

Mechanics. Avoid a long string of Perception and Streetwise checks. Try to come up with other ways to glean clues.

Simultaneous Activites. In my game I stumbled across this one pretty much by accident - Have the PCs trying to accomplish something else at the same time as solving the mystery. That way if they get stumped they can go back to their other activity, giving you space to throw in some new clues.

Allow for failure. Just as with any skill challenge, whether this mystery is a single challenge or a series of challenges and combats interwoven, you need to account for what happens if the PCs simply can't figure it out.
#6
inconsistentdm
Aug 18, 2010 7:07:30 The end result of the murder mystery is a noble (masqurading lich) who has set this event up to get most of parlament in a tower so his mage agents can dispell the magic and have it "look like a accedent" and cover up enough evidence to pin it on a scapegoat.

The murdered individual was an inquisitive who stumbled into the plot and hid a mcguffin with the names of the plotters.

so i think there will be a narritive time limit on this, so other stuff will be going on and if too much time passes then (PC dosn't express enough intrest in finishing it) the plot will happen and now i have breland with no parlament and a king who is old and no good heirs to follow... to lay the connections down (connecting the dots) is getting to me.
#7
sevoo
Aug 18, 2010 15:46:09
The problem is that I haven't written a murder mystery game before (my background is more traditional fantasy games) and I want to try my hand at it. I was looking for some guidence and a bit of hand holding to help me write this part of the game.

Any chance in getting some help? maybe what goes into the skeleton and structure of a murder mystery as a starter?

This is my favorite resource on mysteries in roleplaying games: The Three Clue Rule.

The rule itself is "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues" but the whole article is great.
#8
weenog42
Aug 19, 2010 20:02:36 Excellent article! Bookmarked!
#9
zeropoint
Aug 21, 2010 8:10:07 I, too, have never run a murder mystery, but I've given it some thought. Everything that people has said is good advice, and I'll add some of my own.

Make sure there are many plausible suspects. At the beginning, it can be hard to get the PCs to do anything. If they run out of clues or obvious next steps, they may be stuck motionless for hours. Giving them many suspicious characters at least gives them something to investigate. Make sure to provide solid exculpatory evidence that lets the PCs eliminate each of the suspects in turn as the investigation proceeds. You do run the risk of overwhelming the group with options, which brings me to my next bit of advice.

Prepare "instigating events" that you can scatter throughout the adventure. These are events that you can use to liven up the session when things are slowing down. Is the party endlessly debating the next step? Have a combat encounter prepared to jolt them out of it. Are they convinced that the wrong character is responsible for the crime? When they go to confront her, she's been murdered too. You can sketch out a bunch of these beforehand, and add them whenever you need to up the pace.

Plan the mystery so that, in the end, you can decide which character was responsible on the fly and have it be plausible. Have you seen the old movie Clue? It's a comedy murder mystery movie with multiple endings, each of which details how a different character was responsible for the murder that happened at the beginning of the movie. It's an interesting template for a mystery adventure because the same events are explained in different ways to yield completely different outcomes. If you plan your adventure like this, you pretty much have to leave clues that can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. I understand that seems like a cop-out to many people, but let me defend the concept and then make up your mind.

1) One problem with mystery adventures is getting PCs to make the "right" deductions. But what do you do when they don't? Leading them by the nose is unsatisfying for everyone, but leaving them to their own devices can suck up hours of fruitless gametime. With this strategy, you let them form their own theories, which may end up being wildly different from the scenarios you had envisioned. But then you can have their theory turn out to be right, which provides a satisfying conclusion to the adventure and allows them to triumph. They don't ever need to know that their solution wasn't the one you had planned.

2) A hallmark of mystery stories is that the investigator goes through multiple wrong suspects before nabbing the true perpetrator. This builds tension and thickens the mystery, but isn't always easy to duplicate in an RPG setting. What if their first hunch turns out to be correct? What if they refuse to investigate the right suspect? With this method you allow them to investigate suspects in any order they choose, and let them eliminate them one by one, building to the climactic ending where the "true" murderer is revealed. And you can control when the final revelation is made, which allows you to place it at the moment of maximum tension.

3) The main reason to run a mystery like this, which ties into everything I've said so far, is that it's fun. It's fun for you because you have to think on your feet to provide a twisting narrative where everyone seems to be a suspect. It's fun for them because they feel like they are constantly making progress; every theory is met with a new development that develops the mystery. And most of all it's fun because, in the end, they get to be right without you throwing up your hands and delivering a deus ex machina to end the pain.

If you run a mystery like this, keep in mind that you actually have to prepare more evidence than you would if you just planned out all the events beforehand. You need to prepare evidence to prove that every possible suspect is guilty, and also the evidence that proves that every possible suspect is innocent. You then choose which sets to reveal based on how the plot develops and how the PCs choose to proceed. But I think it will be worth it, because you can provide a fast-paced adventure that challenges your group without being impossible to solve.

If you think my idea is complete rubbish that cheats on your players, I respect your opinion. Heck, you might even be right! But this is just my theory and I'm convinced that a good adventure could be had from it.
#10
plundermifflin
Dec 01, 2010 22:54:33 This is some great advice, thanks for sharing! I love the idea of creating multiple endings!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 inconsistentdm Aug 15, 2010 3:09:01	... I need help with it. So my PC is a inquisitive who is set out to solve some murders, I want to challenge myself with writting a murder mystery game but I'm totally green at this sort of thing. Is there someone out there that can help me with this? To give some background on the matter A faction with in The Twelve have approached Aundair with an alliance, should they wish to break the Korth Edicts, pledging substantial support for a new Aundairian war effort with crazy homebrewed technology. However, Aundair has expressed no will to make a move until both Karnnath and Breland are unable to move against them. The Twelve then set out to underhandedly provoke civil war in Breland by destablizing the government and making sure whomever is left will to busy infighting. The nobility are divided about who they are going to back when Boranel kicks the bucket and the twelve are betting on this to be what will put Breland in a state of civil war. (props to Hellcow for the inspiration) Now my issue is that I want there to be a murder case in Sharn, where as clues are gathered, will get my PC involved in the plot of taking down Breland and hopefully she'll want to stop it. Or help it. Thats not the problem. The problem is that I haven't written a murder mystery game before (my background is more traditional fantasy games) and I want to try my hand at it. I was looking for some guidence and a bit of hand holding to help me write this part of the game. Any chance in getting some help? maybe what goes into the skeleton and structure of a murder mystery as a starter?
#2 Novacat Aug 15, 2010 3:55:22	I've never run a murder mystery before, but I'm writing one right now for the next leg of my campaign. I thus can't say for sure how good of advice this is, but here's how I'm going about it. First, figure out exactly how the murder went down. Details are important. Obviously, the murder was successful, but that doesn't mean everything went exactly according to the murderer's plans. Maybe the victim struggled. Maybe there was a witness. In any case, you should design some deliberate holes in the murderer's plot, because there is no such thing as the perfect crime. Mistakes mean evidence, so each mistake that you deliberately design should leave some telltale sign. Significant clues may provide the answers to these important questions: • Where did the murder take place? • Was the body moved? • When did the murder take place? • How did the victim die? • Was the murderer injured? Second, come up with a list of NPCs that are potential suspects, and make sure they're as fleshed-out as the actual murderer, so your PCs can't deduce the mystery just because it must be the only NPC with a name. Many of the suspects should have one or more of the Big Three: Motivation, Means, and Opportunity for the murder. To keep things simple on your first foray, you should make sure only the actual murderer had all three. Also make a list of NPCs that aren't potential suspects (they have none of the Big Three). These can be potential witnesses, with bits of information they might not even know is useful, or they might be more cloud-cover for the actual killer. Thirdly, have a plan for the progress of the investigation. As the PCs get closer to the murderer, will he play it cool, or will he panic and try to throw them off the scent? Does the murderer have an escape plan? Does he have allies? Does he have an alibi? Solving the mystery should involve more than just asking questions. Some answers should only be gotten after walking over the corpses of some very tight-lipped individuals. These are my thoughts on the matter. Your milage may vary.
#3 Madfox11 Aug 16, 2010 5:18:40	Take magic into account when designing a murder mystery, and think about how much the murderer knows about magic. Magic both complicates and simplifies murder mysteries. It simplifies, because the characters have easy access to clues through various rituals. So make sure you read up various divination rituals, and decide how much the murderer actually knows about them. Some are easier to fool then others, while other rituals allow a rather modern approach to solving the case (e.g. Object Reading could work very well like gun registration, especially if the murderer keeps his face hidden at the time of the murder). Magic complicates, because it can befuddle clues, makes eyewitness accounts extremely unreliable and above all allow murderers to use innocents to commit the actual murder. Unlike RL, possessions and magic domination can indeed cause a person to commit attrocities, and prenomitions might very well result in a sudden attack that for witnesses appeared to be unprovoked. Finally, never assume the players will find all clues, especially not the first time you write a mystery. Unless you want your PCs to fail, add multiple clues and see how PCs react to them. At the same time, if you feel that the murderer is highly intelligent and unlikely to make mistakes, think twice before you put the PCs on their trail unless there is some other victory goal. As a DM I really dislike it to have NPCs make silly mistakes to give the PCs a chance, but at the same time, I am well aware that this is a game and players will have no fun if they repeatedly fail at something or are truely stuck. One thing you could do to help in this regards is to check how your players take to mysteries. Start with a simple one where somebody was murdered in the heat of the moment, as opposed to something planned well in advance. In a world of magic those are very easy to solve, and it gives you an idea on how quick the PCs are, especially in regards to magic. You can make the following ones more complicated ;)
#4 inconsistentdm Aug 16, 2010 11:14:59	Thank you both, as i go back and rewrite the case/mystery/game I feel much more confident each time about the one; ease of the mystery, and two; tying it in to the greater story. Magic wasn't something I took seriously enough into account. I'll being going back over what i've written and seeing if magic would make the crime a bit more interesting. of all the games I have ever written, this has got to be the most. time consuming. : )
#5 weenog42 Aug 17, 2010 19:29:41	As it happens, the opening game of my new campaign was a murder mystery. I was planning on doing a write-up just to share the story and get some input on future adventures. If I ever get around to it, I'll add the link. Murder mysteries are hard for several reasons. Details details details. The PCs will undoubtedly ask questions you haven't foreseen, so you need to understand the surrounding events thoroughly so as to avoid unintended discrepancies. PCs also notoriously fixate on the less significant "fluff" details while overlooking what you thought were obvious clues. That Red Herring you cleverly placed? Don't be disappointed if the PCs either (a) fixate on it to the point of derailing the actual investigation or (b) completely miss that it was ever there, thus negating your hours of planning. Mechanics. Avoid a long string of Perception and Streetwise checks. Try to come up with other ways to glean clues. Simultaneous Activites. In my game I stumbled across this one pretty much by accident - Have the PCs trying to accomplish something else at the same time as solving the mystery. That way if they get stumped they can go back to their other activity, giving you space to throw in some new clues. Allow for failure. Just as with any skill challenge, whether this mystery is a single challenge or a series of challenges and combats interwoven, you need to account for what happens if the PCs simply can't figure it out.
#6 inconsistentdm Aug 18, 2010 7:07:30	The end result of the murder mystery is a noble (masqurading lich) who has set this event up to get most of parlament in a tower so his mage agents can dispell the magic and have it "look like a accedent" and cover up enough evidence to pin it on a scapegoat. The murdered individual was an inquisitive who stumbled into the plot and hid a mcguffin with the names of the plotters. so i think there will be a narritive time limit on this, so other stuff will be going on and if too much time passes then (PC dosn't express enough intrest in finishing it) the plot will happen and now i have breland with no parlament and a king who is old and no good heirs to follow... to lay the connections down (connecting the dots) is getting to me.
#7 sevoo Aug 18, 2010 15:46:09	The problem is that I haven't written a murder mystery game before (my background is more traditional fantasy games) and I want to try my hand at it. I was looking for some guidence and a bit of hand holding to help me write this part of the game. Any chance in getting some help? maybe what goes into the skeleton and structure of a murder mystery as a starter? This is my favorite resource on mysteries in roleplaying games: The Three Clue Rule. The rule itself is "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues" but the whole article is great.
#8 weenog42 Aug 19, 2010 20:02:36	Excellent article! Bookmarked!
#9 zeropoint Aug 21, 2010 8:10:07	I, too, have never run a murder mystery, but I've given it some thought. Everything that people has said is good advice, and I'll add some of my own. Make sure there are many plausible suspects. At the beginning, it can be hard to get the PCs to do anything. If they run out of clues or obvious next steps, they may be stuck motionless for hours. Giving them many suspicious characters at least gives them something to investigate. Make sure to provide solid exculpatory evidence that lets the PCs eliminate each of the suspects in turn as the investigation proceeds. You do run the risk of overwhelming the group with options, which brings me to my next bit of advice. Prepare "instigating events" that you can scatter throughout the adventure. These are events that you can use to liven up the session when things are slowing down. Is the party endlessly debating the next step? Have a combat encounter prepared to jolt them out of it. Are they convinced that the wrong character is responsible for the crime? When they go to confront her, she's been murdered too. You can sketch out a bunch of these beforehand, and add them whenever you need to up the pace. Plan the mystery so that, in the end, you can decide which character was responsible on the fly and have it be plausible. Have you seen the old movie Clue? It's a comedy murder mystery movie with multiple endings, each of which details how a different character was responsible for the murder that happened at the beginning of the movie. It's an interesting template for a mystery adventure because the same events are explained in different ways to yield completely different outcomes. If you plan your adventure like this, you pretty much have to leave clues that can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. I understand that seems like a cop-out to many people, but let me defend the concept and then make up your mind. 1) One problem with mystery adventures is getting PCs to make the "right" deductions. But what do you do when they don't? Leading them by the nose is unsatisfying for everyone, but leaving them to their own devices can suck up hours of fruitless gametime. With this strategy, you let them form their own theories, which may end up being wildly different from the scenarios you had envisioned. But then you can have their theory turn out to be right, which provides a satisfying conclusion to the adventure and allows them to triumph. They don't ever need to know that their solution wasn't the one you had planned. 2) A hallmark of mystery stories is that the investigator goes through multiple wrong suspects before nabbing the true perpetrator. This builds tension and thickens the mystery, but isn't always easy to duplicate in an RPG setting. What if their first hunch turns out to be correct? What if they refuse to investigate the right suspect? With this method you allow them to investigate suspects in any order they choose, and let them eliminate them one by one, building to the climactic ending where the "true" murderer is revealed. And you can control when the final revelation is made, which allows you to place it at the moment of maximum tension. 3) The main reason to run a mystery like this, which ties into everything I've said so far, is that it's fun. It's fun for you because you have to think on your feet to provide a twisting narrative where everyone seems to be a suspect. It's fun for them because they feel like they are constantly making progress; every theory is met with a new development that develops the mystery. And most of all it's fun because, in the end, they get to be right without you throwing up your hands and delivering a deus ex machina to end the pain. If you run a mystery like this, keep in mind that you actually have to prepare more evidence than you would if you just planned out all the events beforehand. You need to prepare evidence to prove that every possible suspect is guilty, and also the evidence that proves that every possible suspect is innocent. You then choose which sets to reveal based on how the plot develops and how the PCs choose to proceed. But I think it will be worth it, because you can provide a fast-paced adventure that challenges your group without being impossible to solve. If you think my idea is complete rubbish that cheats on your players, I respect your opinion. Heck, you might even be right! But this is just my theory and I'm convinced that a good adventure could be had from it.
#10 plundermifflin Dec 01, 2010 22:54:33	This is some great advice, thanks for sharing! I love the idea of creating multiple endings!