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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 6233843" data-attributes="member: 20323">I just was reading S.S. Van Dine's 1928 manifesto on "Twenty rules for writing detective stories" and immediately parallels to adventure writing/running sprang to mind for DMs. I am an admitted fan of the whole mystery genre, but as I'm sure many DMs and players will attest they don't always play smoothly at the table. The players misinterpret, ignore, or utterly miss clues, and generally lolly gag while forgetting key NPC names and refusing to write anything down. The DM railroads the players to get back on track, and is indignant that the players could have missed something "so obvious" or is left scratching his or head when the genre-savvy players guess the villain fresh out of the gate.Do any of these ring true for your group?Obviously, D&D is not GUMSHOE. It's fantasy adventure, not hardboiled detective roleplay. But that doesn't mean a DM can't learn from the likes of the Canary Murder Case.Here is an interpretation of the twenty points (from <a href="http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/vandine.htm" target="_blank">http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/vandine.htm</a>) for DMs:This brings to mind Robin Laws in GUMSHOE where the core clues are automatically delivered when the PCs investigate a certain scene or witness. Substitute player for 'reader' and character for 'detective' and it is clear that a mystery needs to challenge the players and not just their characters.This one is pretty straight-forward. In D&D terms I would say you also want to avoid red herrings in adventure prep.Another straight-forward one that is more a reflection of S.S. Van Dine's personal biases. This one makes sense, and frankly it would be hard to pull off an investigation of a PC-committed  crime unless extraordinary measures were taken or it's the old "evil PC in a party of good PCs" schtick. Probably both are best avoided.I interpret this as the DM should allow that failure is possible, and not just lead the rambling and confused players to the truth with a throwaway encounter. The PCs may fail to solve the mystery, and that has to be prepared for with a Fail Forward. Without the risk of failure, success is less meaningful.Maybe the closest analogy in a D&D session is to having player buy-in that they're going to be playing in a mystery adventure. It's not to say that players should abandon their out-of-the-box ideas to sacrifice them on some altar of "genre appropriateness", but realizing that brute force won't solve a mystery is a good realization that will guide how they approach the session. Good old S.S. Van Dine shows another of his biases here. In D&D, if there's a corpse in a mystery scenario, you can bet that the PCs will bring some kind of forensic magic to bear, so a DM needs to know what sorts of spells/rituals are common and at the party's disposal, and be prepared to answer those. This ties into a later point about understanding how the crime was executed in vivid detail.The takeaway from this is that a mystery needs to be constructed so that no single divination spell will ruin the entire mystery, and even better that no battery of Divinations will reveal the whole mystery. Let them be a useful tool in the players' toolbox, but not an "I win" button. Accomplish this by understanding the Divinations available at the party's level and what their limitations are. For example, a speak with dead spell will learn little from a man struck from behind or shot at range or stabbed in the dark or who faced a masked assailant.Obviously, D&D breaks this rule by its very nature. However, just as old dungeon crawls used to designate one player as the "caller", one as the "mapper", and so on, you might have one player be the "detective" who takes notes on the investigation. This could be a player who is more naturally drawn to mysteries or it could be a player whose PC is intimately connected to the crime or victim.I take this one to imply the PCs need to meet the villain at some point before they know he or she is the villain, and have a chance to interrogate him or her. The important thing he is not to tip your hand and remember what the mystery is about. If the villain is noble and the mystery is about the methods and proving a case in court, then knowing who the villain is won't do the players much good - they still need to figure out how he did it and get that evidence. OTOH if the mystery is about identifying the villain and the PCs have carte blanche to deal with him/her as they see fit, then be very careful with the villain's answers. Dissembling - evading the truth by answering a different question than was asked, or bating the or distracting the PCs - is an exceptional tactic during any kind of questioning. Truth detecting magic should bear a social onus; and if done without permission should be grounds for hostility or legal action. Also bear in mind that the more convoluted the mystery is, the harder it is to know which are the right questions to ask until one has investigated it to a certain depth.Another curious bias that reflects the time S.S. Van Dine was writing in! I would say be aware of any biases or suspicions the players bring to the table. For example, if your last game featured a noble as the doppelgänger, they are going to be suspicious of nobles. It doesn't make sense. That's how players are. They will game the DM, so be aware of your patterns and break them with relish.There needs to be a villain, that's pretty much always true. Where this gets fun is when the person doing the wetwork/crime is different than the one ordering the hit/crime. In D&D this could even include crimes committed while under a charm spell.Another curious bias. Certainly mafias and secret societies can be used to great effect as potential suspects for the PCs to investigate. And they can feature as main villains too. I think the point here is that if you have just one really bad guy or organization, then it's easy for the players to glom onto that one as THE BBEG of the adventure. One solution is to have a whole network of scheming NPCs who operate in a morally grey setting. This makes anyone who is wholly altruistic or honest immediately suspect.Of course, D&D thrives in the uncharted reaches of adventure! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> A more appropriate analogue might be that the murder/crime must be definable in game terms. If it was murder-by-spell, then that spell needs to be written up and should be able to be guessed at thru examining effect, component remnants, etc.This gets back to the idea that the clues need to absolutely point to the conclusions that need to be drawn to solve the mystery. As a corallarly, the Three-Clue Rule is a good point to remember; for every conclusion you want the players to reach, there need to be three clues scattered in the adventure because the players will miss the first, ignore the second, and misinterpret the third <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />To me, this is a call against boxed text or the DM stealing the limelight from the players. Good advice, in general.This is a really good point. While a professional criminal may be included in the list of suspects, the players' quarry needs to be someone who wouldn't normally be suspected or who is above the law (but not above getting taken down by adventurers).This one makes sense and seems straight-forward enough to me. Ancillary deaths connected to the main crime could certainly be accidental or tragic, but the main crime needs a certain cruel intention behind it to evoke pathos in the players & make them want to solve it.I had to look up gemütlich - basically it means personal, or human-scale. And even if there are war politics behind the crime, there should always be something personal behind it. That's how you assemble a list of suspects, from some common motive. A slight terseness in an NPC's voice alerts the PCs that they don't care for the Duke. It's the human/emotional element that engages players and makes the villain more believable and either sympathetic, tragic, or hated.This is a great list! It would be fun to come up with something analogous for D&D adventures, a sort of collection of trite stereotypes that immediately alert the players to foul play.For example, (f) is clearly the use of a doppelgänger or other shapeshifter as the villain disguised as another NPC / PC.</blockquote>

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