So I ran my first murder mystery-style adventure last night. Hadn't run a game like before. Thought I'd share my observations and see what other ideas people had for future consideration:
My adventure was for 2 mages and a fighter, all first level. There was only 3 fight scenes (local riff-raff trying to scare off investigators) and the final confrontation with the bad guy ( because players like action).
It was the first game with these PCs, and they didn't know the city. This slowed things down a bit, because I didn't give them a map really, or at least a list of all the obvious places that exist (they had to ask, and I'd tell them where/what it was).
[solution: next time give them a detailed map of the district, or at least a list of all the shops/buildings they could visit to speed up their thinking of places they could check out.]
My story was very Jack the Ripper-esque. I had 3 mages killed in a ritualistic fashion. No sign of struggle. He was leaving the bodies in a position similar to a common holy symbol of the land. The players didn't catch that (and one played the Paladin in a parallel campaign where he invented the holy symbol). I also had the murders occuring in a pattern (forming the sign of the symbol) and had them all occuring on nights where the same astronomical event was occuring (a specific star was in view, as shown on the calendar).
[Cool bits, I had to have a NPC ally make the connection on the hoky symbol half-way through the game. That impressed them that they missed that. They did catch the dates and mapping clues, so they predicted the 4th killing and got in position. They mostly missed the clue that it the Astronomer was a suspect (and the bad guy) since few would know that kind of info.]
In general, I learned the following things to improve on if I do this style game again:
make a map/location list of all the most likely places PCs could go. That probably means a place for every real suspect, and then double the count and make up extra places. Giving the players a defined list of places to go helps speed up play and jogs their brain for ideas and people to question
Make up lots of NPCs, both suspects and normal people. Players will clue in on people who seem to have more personality or detail as being important. You probably want as many normal NPCs as you have suspects. The normal people should have their own simple reactions and possible back story (ie. hates mages, involved in smuggling, acts suspicious).
Players want to search everything. Make sure you roll up full gear/possesion lists for the bodies, and make up their living quarters (investigators like to look at where people live). Their living quarters should have clothes, food, hobby stuff, and at minimum evidence of their profession (something showing recent work they've done, mud, documents).
Clues are hard to plant, and in the end, they represent the mistakes the bad guy made while committing the crime. This includes murder weapon, clothes worn during the murder, and possible witnesses/alibis. You should make sure at least some percentage of the murders have a witness, possibly, before the murder, during or after. The witness does not need to know the identity. A vague description should do, and that would be another clue.
On the player's side I noticed that they spent the most time talking to people and asking them "if they knew about the murder" They never asked any questions such as:
Where were you last night around 2AM?
What can you tell me about JoeBlow?
What other ideas for players/GMs have for running a murder-mystery style adventure?
Janx
My adventure was for 2 mages and a fighter, all first level. There was only 3 fight scenes (local riff-raff trying to scare off investigators) and the final confrontation with the bad guy ( because players like action).
It was the first game with these PCs, and they didn't know the city. This slowed things down a bit, because I didn't give them a map really, or at least a list of all the obvious places that exist (they had to ask, and I'd tell them where/what it was).
[solution: next time give them a detailed map of the district, or at least a list of all the shops/buildings they could visit to speed up their thinking of places they could check out.]
My story was very Jack the Ripper-esque. I had 3 mages killed in a ritualistic fashion. No sign of struggle. He was leaving the bodies in a position similar to a common holy symbol of the land. The players didn't catch that (and one played the Paladin in a parallel campaign where he invented the holy symbol). I also had the murders occuring in a pattern (forming the sign of the symbol) and had them all occuring on nights where the same astronomical event was occuring (a specific star was in view, as shown on the calendar).
[Cool bits, I had to have a NPC ally make the connection on the hoky symbol half-way through the game. That impressed them that they missed that. They did catch the dates and mapping clues, so they predicted the 4th killing and got in position. They mostly missed the clue that it the Astronomer was a suspect (and the bad guy) since few would know that kind of info.]
In general, I learned the following things to improve on if I do this style game again:
make a map/location list of all the most likely places PCs could go. That probably means a place for every real suspect, and then double the count and make up extra places. Giving the players a defined list of places to go helps speed up play and jogs their brain for ideas and people to question
Make up lots of NPCs, both suspects and normal people. Players will clue in on people who seem to have more personality or detail as being important. You probably want as many normal NPCs as you have suspects. The normal people should have their own simple reactions and possible back story (ie. hates mages, involved in smuggling, acts suspicious).
Players want to search everything. Make sure you roll up full gear/possesion lists for the bodies, and make up their living quarters (investigators like to look at where people live). Their living quarters should have clothes, food, hobby stuff, and at minimum evidence of their profession (something showing recent work they've done, mud, documents).
Clues are hard to plant, and in the end, they represent the mistakes the bad guy made while committing the crime. This includes murder weapon, clothes worn during the murder, and possible witnesses/alibis. You should make sure at least some percentage of the murders have a witness, possibly, before the murder, during or after. The witness does not need to know the identity. A vague description should do, and that would be another clue.
On the player's side I noticed that they spent the most time talking to people and asking them "if they knew about the murder" They never asked any questions such as:
Where were you last night around 2AM?
What can you tell me about JoeBlow?
What other ideas for players/GMs have for running a murder-mystery style adventure?
Janx
