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Xysma
Master of Realmslore
USA
1089 Posts |
 Posted - 05 Dec 2006 : 04:02:03
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I've been wanting for a long time now to run a murder mystery type session and did so this past week. It went fairly well, my players seemed to enjoy it, but I couldn;t help feeling it was a bit of a hamfisted attempt. I basically ceated different clues that could be found with varying degrees of difficulty with search and heal checks to examine the scene of the crime. Once the group had all the clues they could find, they then began trying to figure out who killed the guy. Has anyone run this type of session, and if so, how did you go about it?
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War to slay, not to fight long and glorious.
Aermhar of the Tangletrees
Year of the Hooded Falcon
Xysma's Gallery
Guide to the Tomes and Tales of the Realms download from Candlekeep
Anthologies and Tales Overviews
Check out my custom action figures, hand-painted miniatures, gaming products, and other stuff on eBay.
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 05 Dec 2006 : 19:23:30
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| Did your players get a chance to actually interrogate people, and filter out what information might be true, false, relevant or irrelevant? |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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Wandering_mage
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 05 Dec 2006 : 21:35:36
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I started a murder mystery and the players really liked it. I tied in various detailed NPCs (very hard work), I had events that happened and either the players witnessed the event or heard about it in the tavern, and lastly I had some background on some key suspects. I tried to lean the players towards an obvious suspect, but then there was a twist that lead them to believe it wasn't the initial suspect, but then.... it was the initial suspect but in a webwork of intrigue and outside hirings. You have to keep it simple sometimes though. I game with a bunch of guys so maybe you understand.   I would also suggest that you always keep the clues findable. Never let the game drag on because they didn't catch what you hinted at with a room description. Lisa Smedsman says always leave the key details for the sentence of your description read aloud info.  Good luck, nothing beats a good murder mystery. Role-playing at its best! |
Illum
The Wandering Mage |
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MerrikCale
Senior Scribe
USA
947 Posts |
Posted - 05 Dec 2006 : 23:55:29
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| good for you. Keep us updated. This seems like a very hard campaign from the DMs standpoint. Good luck |
When hinges creak in doorless chambers and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls, whenever candlelights flicker where the air is deathly still, that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight. |
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Xysma
Master of Realmslore
USA
1089 Posts |
Posted - 06 Dec 2006 : 04:57:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Did your players get a chance to actually interrogate people, and filter out what information might be true, false, relevant or irrelevant?
Sort of... that's what made it feel hamfisted to me. They had gathered some information on a silk merchant who wanted to hire them to reclaim his warehouse far outside of Arabel that was still infested with goblins. A natural 20 on the gather information found out all the bits I had put together about this guy.
1. He was a Calishite silk merchant who had been trying for months to get the authorities to help him, but they were too busy rebuilding after the goblin war to help an outsider clear out his remote outpost.
2. There were rumors that he was illegally dealing weapons and
3. He had ties with a clan of Duergar.
The search DCs at the scene of the crime revealed that although the merchandise in the shop was strown about nothing appeared to be missing.
The heal check revealed that although his head was cut open, he actually died from poisoning.
Based on that, a search of the body revealed a small bolt wound hidden beneath his robes and a bit of metal lodged in the floor beneath the head wound.
The group then surmised (correctly) that this was staged to look like a botched robbery, but was actually a murder.
The dwarf in the group analyzed the piece of metal and determined that was probably a sword tip and the metal used came from the underdark.
This led them to believe his dealings with the duergar had somehow gone wrong and they are heading back to the wrehouse they cleaned out for this guy to investigate further. |
War to slay, not to fight long and glorious.
Aermhar of the Tangletrees
Year of the Hooded Falcon
Xysma's Gallery
Guide to the Tomes and Tales of the Realms download from Candlekeep
Anthologies and Tales Overviews
Check out my custom action figures, hand-painted miniatures, gaming products, and other stuff on eBay.
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Murder Mystery
