M is for MURDER!

[der_kluge]

So, I want to know what kinds of good murder mystery campaigns you've ran. It seems to me that murder mysteries are hard to do in D&D with the prevalance of magic, things like "speak with dead" can put a damper on such things kind of quickly. Have you ran a murder mystery? How did you circumvent magic to resolve the issue easily? And was the game successful? What was the plot?

 

[demiurge1138]

I'm actually running a game designed as a detective series, set in Eberron. Not too many real murder mysteries (a lot of stolen-property cases, a few missing persons, etc), but I just ran Steel Shadows from Dungeon Magazine for them, and it went really well., although they didn't think the murderer was guilty (despite the clues pointing to him) until they found body parts in his trash. The way I've resolved speak with dead and the like is simply not to deal with it; the players are mostly fighter and rogue types, and the only spellcaster's an artificer. I realize this isn't a good solution for everyone, of course.

There are some ways to get around speak with dead, though. If the corpse is mutilated enough (ie, no head), it can't respond. Likewise, if the victim didn't see the murderer (shot from ambush, death attacked from behind, etc), it's no help to the detectives. Thirdly, of course, is the idea that the speak with dead causes more problems than it solves; the murderer is a nobleman, the PCs catch the wrong guy, who's being framed by a doppelganger, and so on.

Demiurge out.

 

[Voadam]

I'm running two IMC currently where I'm running modified versions of Demon God's Fane and Lord of the Iron Fortress. Monte's advice is pretty good in DGF, the murder is designed to be solved by the PCs and the answers only push the party further down the plot. One has been pretty much solved leading the party into getting deeper into the events that are going on.

So I don't have wierd divination blocking situations set up so far, the PCs powers work and aid them in figuring things out. Of course the murders are only the start of many events.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Flow charts, time table and working backwards. Flow charts were simple, find clue: yes or no, yes leads to you B, no leads you to C. Working from the end backwards helps.

Spells are a pain, speak with dead gets a will save as if alive, so knowing the spells is always helpful. I have a house rule that assassian keeps the sin of murder from the person hiring them and their god(s) keep the dead from giving away information.

 

[tarchon]

Smart murderers in D&D always get rid of the head.
One time I had some players trying to question a guy about an assassination plot, and naturally an arrow ripped through him right as he was about to spill it.
No problem - just speak with dead when they get a chance, right? This would have worked, however, they went off to loot some other bodies and left the dead suspect alone, without having being able to track down the (now invisible) assassin.
I think coming back and finding the headless body creeped them out more than the original kill shot.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Oh, steal...movies, books are a great great for ideas, clues and NPCs! Crime novels are great!

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

Well, for the first step of a murder is for it to not necessarily to be a murder. Let it start as a missing person. That way, the first step is then to find out that it is a murder. Heck, even a small Divination spell could tell the PCs that, but that makes the players feel like you're not nerfing their magical powers and such.

Then comes having to find a body to cast Speak with Dead. They might never come across a body.

Other then that, some good advice has been given above. For stealing from movies, I suggest older movies. They have some great plot lines and suggestions and, especially with a younger group of players, many will have forgotten about that movie or never have seen it to begin with. It always good to make you appear smarter and more imaginative then you may be.