Who’s Played in a Doppelganger Murder Scenario?

[Crothian]

I've never played in this type of scenerio

 

[Joël of the FoS]

Yeah to Hour of the Knife! The Kargatane had a follow up adventure released as a parting gift when their site closed: Secret of the Knife. They are back in an aliens 2 way: we know they are out there, or may be already within us?

There was a short side trek I found in a Dungeon mag (can't remember which, but it's one from the 80's). It was a Inn murder mystery with a doppelganger.

When I read it, I found it very silly and predictable for veteran players.

However, I ran it for my san and his friends (all around 12 back then), and they found it very cool. It was a good intro to doppelganger, but you can use it only once.

Joël

 

[Jer]

\I must admit I’ve inflicted these upon players often and played in these kind of scenarios much more often, except for the doppelganger murder. In over 28 years of playing D&D off and on I’ve yet to run or play in that one.

So, is the "Solve doppelganger murder" as common as they think?

Absolutely. I've run a couple of doppleganger murder scenarios in the past, both of them horror settings (Ravenloft and Masque of the Red Death). My players enjoyed them quite a bit, though I agree that if you overuse the doppleganger thing it can quickly become cliche.

Its also fun to plant red herrings to convince your players that they're up against some kind of doppleganger/shapechanger as a murderer and then have the murderer actually not be a shapeshifter of any kind. This works especially well if your players have played in doppleganger murder mystery adventures in the past - you can really ratchet up the level of paranoia at the table to a huge degree.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I'm guessing that Dungeon #127 may be responsible for this thread?

(All three adventures in the issue feature doppelgangers.)

 

[TheEvil]

Someone may already have mentioned this, but the doppleganger murder scenario is quite common in Living Greyhawk.

 

[Wombat]

I've used dopplegangers to ruin reputations or to mangle people's lives, but never as direct murderers. For the most part I tread dopplegangers as strange beings who fully believe they are the other person, but without the full compass of their experience, so they attemtp to be the person without fully understanding what makes them tick. Depending on the situation, this can be comedic, confusing, or truly revolting. No murders yet, though.

 

[the Jester]

Nope, never have.

But I'm sure that, one of these days...

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

It wasn't a doppleganger, but a lycanthrope. Same difference.

AR

 

[egomann]

I recently ran a game with a Doppleganger murder.

With a twist, the Doppelganger was the one who was murdered. The real "Victim" was being kidnapped. The Doppelganger replaced him and then was killed to cover their tracks.

It was one of the scenarios from the "Four from Cormyr" 2E adventure.

 

[Psion]

I ran one, but it was more of a "why is the captain making us go arrest innocent people" scenario rather than a murder mystery.