For creating a murder mystery in D&D, you need to do more. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nInstead of just using the 3 clue rule for plot points, we need to adapt it for every NPC. The players should be able to find out why every NPC is involved at this dinner party, ball, family gathering, whatever the setting is. You will need to link the clues for the mystery with clues about each NPC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of room 1 giving potential answers to plot point a, b, and c, you need to make room 1 give potential answers to plot points a, b, and character 3’s reason why they are here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This makes the 3 clue rule turn into more of a web. You are not just linking phases to each other, but instead making every clue and reason why people are there linked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This way the players will be able to solve the murder, but they also will learn about each suspect. Your players should also not need every clue in order to solve the murder. If your players find 2\/3 of the clues they should be able to solve the murderer with some doubt, but 2\/3 is a pretty good amount. If you are unsure, just add more clues. Speaking about uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Red herrings <\/h2>\n\n\n\n A red herring is a false trail. In good detective stories, red herrings are set so that the investigators will be thrown off. Your players are not good detectives. I would be impressed if they were just below average. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because most players don’t play detective very often, they won’t be able to solve things easily. Your players will even make their own red herrings!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis is why you should not plant any red herrings in your game. Players are already going to have a tough enough time to solve a mystery on their own. With red herrings involved, there is almost no chance of success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The players’ red herrings might be so bad that it will stop them from even solving the adventure. This is why you really should talk to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ask them from time to time what they are thinking or just listen into their conversation. They might start deceiving themselves and believe that the gnome fetish was a coverup for the real reason! This is when you need to step in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of having 3 clues in an area just add another clue that re-affirms what they already know. It shouldn’t be too hard to do this. Add a note in a gnome’s journal entry about how the gnome fetish guy seems to be staring creepily at him\/her. Just keep adding a few things here and there to help the players steer away from self-destructive thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What you do not want to do in any murder mystery in D&D is to pull a Game of Thrones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Changing the plot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nYou have carefully created a murder mystery in D&D to lead to a specific conclusion. You made every clue, foreshadowing, and plot point lead up to the main culprit. If your players find out beforehand, don’t feel bad and don’t pull a Game of Thrones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the TV series Game of Thrones, they foreshadowed and put forth little clues. There was a specific ending in mind and some people saw it coming. Since some people saw it coming the whole ending was changed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This made everyone feel betrayed, that a master story was destroyed, and the ending at worst made the whole series forgettable since it betrayed it’s audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why you do not want to change the plot!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nAdding a little bit of guidance as we talked about above is only changing 1 thing to help players realize the narrative. If you change the endpoint you are not changing 1 thing. You are changing everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is extremely bad and should never be done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now with all this being said, there are some specific D&D problems with murder mysteries in D&D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5 Specific D&D problems<\/h2>\n\n\n\n Your players are not detectives. They cannot find a bloody piece of paper and figure out who committed a murder. If you have a specific idea in mind your players will not follow it. You are playing D&D, not writing a book. That is why when creating a murder mystery in D&D, you have 5 specific problems that you need to plan for <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Give extra time.<\/strong><\/em><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\nWhen players try to investigate they will dally. Instead of chasing a suspect they might decide to go shopping. That is why they should be given extra time when trying to figure out the murder. Do not expect a whole murder mystery to be solved in 2 hours. For every player add at least 1 game to solve the mystery. If the mystery is laughably simple it will be solved in 1 session or you did something wrong like focus too much on story and not have enough characters to keep your party guessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why you need extra time. Any decently done mystery will require extra time for your amature detectives to work out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Don’t have too many suspects.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIf you have too many suspects it will overwhelm the players. Instantly narrow it down. Make the players know about 2-3 suspects and build from there if you can. At most, have 10 NPCs. When you have 100+ suspects the players will most likely move on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If something is too hard the players will give up and do something else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Give the players the authority to investigate. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIf players don’t feel like they can investigate they might not do so. This could be trouble and why should they feel responsible for someone’s death? It is just a random dude when the players kill dozens of things a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At worse, the players might just break and kill everyone to get out of there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why you need to give them the authority to investigate. Killing a guard would make the party feel like they have authority because no one is in charge now and they don’t want to get blamed for the murder. Players could be told that they are able to help investigate. Whatever you need to in order to get players to cooperate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Players are not fictional characters that will go out of their way to help people. If you push authority on them then no group, even a shy one, should just abandon the job of finding out who did it. (unless it was too hard, the evolved 3 clue rule wasn’t followed, or they had too many suspects).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. Plan for magic<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nMurder mysteries in D&D should easily be solved because of magic. Zone of truth and speak with dead are 2 big ones. “Who killed you?” solves most murders. Why wasn’t the person able to see their killer? Everyone doesn’t want to tell the truth about everything so no one will want to be in a zone of truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think of reasons why big spells like these will not just solve the mystery for the players. Plan for game-breaking magic like you are designing a high-level dungeon even though you might be doing a low-level game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Adjust for your group<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nNot every group wants to just solve a mystery with their minds. Some groups have barbarians and people who want to adventure even when solving a mystery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For these groups, you can have a climactic fight or hide clues under fights. You have multiple clues and areas pointing towards the truth or motivation of one character so having a few clues tucked under traps and monsters might make the game more interesting. Perhaps the monsters themselves are clues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adjust to your group so that the mystery is right for your party when needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n I was going to extend on the last 5 things to consider for D&D murder mysteries, but this article is already pretty long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are still unsure about how to create a murder mystery in D&D, our affiliate at Dungeon Vault has a great murder mystery to give you a template to work off of or just use as your own here<\/a>. I started designing dungeons with old D&D modules as a guide to learn and I would have loved this back when I was trying to run my first murder mystery. I leave you to decide, but it might help you out or just be very interesting to you!<\/p>\n\n\n\nIf you are running a murder mystery in D&D make sure you look at the 5 specific D&D problems and our article on mysteries. If you read just two things from this article those are the most important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While those are the two most important things, you still should implement every aspect of the article when creating your murder mystery. You have not run quite a few murder mysteries yet and should keep basic things in mind like <\/p>\n\n\n\n
-don’t change the plot<\/p>\n\n\n\n
-talk to your players (at specific points)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
-Red herrings<\/p>\n\n\n\n
-NPCs and how to properly make them for a murder mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you keep all of these things in mine and read the article you should make a successful murder mystery and not run a failure murder mystery like many other dungeon masters have run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has been Wizo and keep rolling! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Creating a murder mystery in D&D is something that many dungeon masters want to do at least once in their lives. The problem is that … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":1053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Creating a murder mystery in D&D: What you need to know - The Level Up Corner<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n