Tips for creating murder mysteries in my games?
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As the title says. I eventually want to run an impostor scenario/murder mystery in my World of Darkness game at some point, and would like some pointers.
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As the title says. I eventually want to run an impostor scenario/murder mystery in my World of Darkness game at some point, and would like some pointers.
@Atlas48 First off, know from the outset whether you want to run a genuine mystery scenario, with an actual truth under the hood where the point is to overcome the challenge of finding that truth, or engage in mystery-*shaped* storytelling where the goal is to end up with a tale that resembles a mystery from the outside while not actually taxing the players' brains. Advice varies wildly depending on which you're doing.
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As the title says. I eventually want to run an impostor scenario/murder mystery in my World of Darkness game at some point, and would like some pointers.
There's a YouTube channel called Pointy Hat that has a really great video on murder mysteries, or mysteries in general and how to theme them and drop clues. Highly recommend
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As the title says. I eventually want to run an impostor scenario/murder mystery in my World of Darkness game at some point, and would like some pointers.
Hit your players over the head with multiple clues, and make sure that it's hard to get dead-ended.
The following is a ttrpg classic that I periodically reread: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule
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Hit your players over the head with multiple clues, and make sure that it's hard to get dead-ended.
The following is a ttrpg classic that I periodically reread: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule
Seconding this, use self-contained scenes and clues that lead you from one scene to the next without requiring a strict plot to guide you.
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R rpg shared this topic on
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As the title says. I eventually want to run an impostor scenario/murder mystery in my World of Darkness game at some point, and would like some pointers.
I wrote an article with my thoughts on running mysteries here:
Running Investigations and Mysteries
This article is one in a series where we look at types of adventures and examine how we prepare them. how we run them. what pitfalls we might run into. how we avoid these pitfalls. These articles in...
(slyflourish.com)
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I wrote an article with my thoughts on running mysteries here:
Running Investigations and Mysteries
This article is one in a series where we look at types of adventures and examine how we prepare them. how we run them. what pitfalls we might run into. how we avoid these pitfalls. These articles in...
(slyflourish.com)
Concerning decoupling clues from locations, though, that only sometimes makes sense. It's commonplace for the intersection of a piece of evidence to only be meaningful in a particular context, and sometimes that context is the location in which it's found.
That being said, if you can't move a clue, it becomes more important to make sure there are multiple ways to learn about it. Maybe if the PCs don't see the muddy footprint in the garden, the gardener did.
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@Atlas48 First off, know from the outset whether you want to run a genuine mystery scenario, with an actual truth under the hood where the point is to overcome the challenge of finding that truth, or engage in mystery-*shaped* storytelling where the goal is to end up with a tale that resembles a mystery from the outside while not actually taxing the players' brains. Advice varies wildly depending on which you're doing.
I wonder, in a mystery-shaped storytelling, if starting the adventure by secretely telling a random player "you're the murderer, you killed that person at this time with this weapon at this place" could help you build the mystery part since it would eventually result in having sometimes contradicting information and fake evidence planted by the culprit
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I wonder, in a mystery-shaped storytelling, if starting the adventure by secretely telling a random player "you're the murderer, you killed that person at this time with this weapon at this place" could help you build the mystery part since it would eventually result in having sometimes contradicting information and fake evidence planted by the culprit
Nah, Mafia/Werewolf is actually a third option, and served by games that exist outside "our" roleplaying industry. Look into murder mystery party games for that.
By "mystery-shaped storytelling" I mean more stuff like Brindlewood Bay, InSpectres, Technoir... stuff where even who did it and how just isn't decided at the start.
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Nah, Mafia/Werewolf is actually a third option, and served by games that exist outside "our" roleplaying industry. Look into murder mystery party games for that.
By "mystery-shaped storytelling" I mean more stuff like Brindlewood Bay, InSpectres, Technoir... stuff where even who did it and how just isn't decided at the start.
I know. I played Brindlewood Bay, and we felt that the endings were a little off because of the gameplay rules.
That's why I was wondering about throwing an impostor out there to see what would come of it. -
I know. I played Brindlewood Bay, and we felt that the endings were a little off because of the gameplay rules.
That's why I was wondering about throwing an impostor out there to see what would come of it.@Rhaxapopouetl That doesn't really seem compatible with "roll to see if your theory is correct at the end"...
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@Rhaxapopouetl That doesn't really seem compatible with "roll to see if your theory is correct at the end"...
True, but OP wants to run an impostor/mystery, so i feel i'm not completely out of touch, there.
