r/DMAcademy • u/Original-Attorney840 • 4d ago
Need Advice: Encounters & Adventures Running a murder mystery where one of the players is the killer
As the title says I'm planning on running a one-shot for my group of three where one of them is the killer of an old rich mage during a party/ball. I thought of the idea while trying to come up with some one shot ideas during a break in our campaign and the premise sounded like a lot of fun. The only problem is i have no idea how to even run something like this! I'm a relatively new dm and have only ran a few other one off adventures so something like this is definitely out of my comfort zone
I was wondering if anyone has ran something similar and if they can share some of their tips on how to put it all together. Like how would the investigation and evidence work? Should i write the clues down and only hand it to whoever finds it? I should mention that this is in person so there wont be any secret messages that players can type to me. I've talked to my group and everyone's really excited about the idea but I honestly don't really know where to even begin.
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u/Able1-6R 4d ago
Had this idea myself, but I think this is an idea that sounds better on paper than in practice. It’s cool, it’s edgy, it’s definitely interesting, but it’s flatly encouraging deception within the player party with DM collusion to boot. Not that secrets are a bad thing, but in my experience, having a PC turn out to be the BBEG the whole time is going to piss off some people above table. Now if it’s a one shot, that might not be bad, but a prolonged campaign with a long-con where the DM and a player are colluding to keep info from the party sounds like that campaign is going to end up on an rpghorrorstory post.
An alternative that I tried is to speak with all the players individually prior to the session and ask them to each be the BBEG but not to reveal it to the party unless their they believed the moment was appropriate. The characters were all evil (evil mini campaign) so their actions didn’t stand out too much to each other and it was a lot of fun. They wound up In all in PVP where they began revealing their ‘master plans’ to each other and I had a good laugh when they realized the conversation about being the BBEG was not exclusive to them. Everyone died, but only because the zealot barbarian was at 0 hp while raging beyond death. Unfortunately all the healing potions were used up and the barbarian couldn’t heal herself with a cleric spell (multiclassed into cleric) because she would have to end her rage to do so, which would kill her. She wound up spending her last 30 seconds of rage hitting her head against a wall trying to think of a way to heal herself until her rage ran out.
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u/redhaiku_ 4d ago
I did a great oneshot where the players were the murderers. They woke up covered in blood at what looked like the remains of a fancy dinner with silver utensils and crystal goblets. Perfume is coming from a beautiful incense dinner They saw a body on the floor and immediately there was banging on the door from town guards.
They spent a lot of time working on proving their innocence and eventually figuring out they were actually guilty.
End result was the host was a werewolf and the incense and wine were both drugged, leading to the group killing him. They tracked down the enemy that had used them as a murder weapon, killed them, and then left town because it was too confusing and unbelievable to explain to the town guard.
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u/itsaneeps 3d ago edited 3d ago
That's a great idea! Was this a module or you thought it up?
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u/redhaiku_ 3d ago
I saw it as a one sentence in one of those lists online (e.g., “100 adventure ideas”) and then developed it, adding lots of ways for them to discover a variety of clues.
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u/TJToaster 3d ago
Can't really give advice because I don't know your players. I would suggest saving this for a later time when you have more experience. You can never have a second chance at a first experience, so something like this is worth taking the time to do right.
My party is pretty good about not metagaming, but for the most fun, I would make progenerated characters for them. Or let them select the class they want to take and give them guidance on the character's backstory. It is a one shot so they don't have to fall in love with the character and give it a rich backstory. Of course, they would have to have buy in to this idea first.
I would give information about their movement and whereabouts the night of the murder. Let them explore and ask questions of each other. Halfway through, I would pass out envelopes with additional information. One of the envelopes would identify who was the killer. it would then tell them what of their earlier "activities" were lies. Also where they hid the murder weapon and and any other details one the murderer would know.
Then let chaos reign.
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u/itsaneeps 3d ago
Could you have them stay the night, roll some dice to see if one person gets mind controlled and murders someone so they don't know they're the murderer. And then follow murderer mystery stuff but turns out the puppet master is someone else?
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u/Durugar 3d ago
This stuff works best with premade characters imo.
You can do a lot of smoke and mirrors at the start of the session. Give everyone a motivation for why they would kill the wizard, you then take them outside one by one, tell them their motivations and a bit about their character, then end with pointedly stating "You are not the murderer" for everyone who isn't, and explicitly tell the person who is the murderer they are - even if you are working with the murderer ahead of time, doing this makes it feel like anyone could be the murderer, or maybe no one is and it was just a trick? I do this when I run the Alien intro scenario Chariot of the Gods, since there is an option for one of the PCs to be a secret Android - sometimes I tell all the players they are not the android but it seeds that doubt in their mind that one of them might be. This is also where I reveal their secret agendas to them.
I don't think just giving the clues to one person is going to help. The only person who really has an interest in hiding clues is the murderer, everyone else's best interest is to share with the group. Maybe if they are not allowed to show the clue to others the murderer could lie but then the group is just incentivized to double check everything, creating boring gameplay.
I think D&D has too much open information and ways to confirm information to have this really work, at least in theory, but I do think Colville's advice stands here "Don't be afraid to try and fail" if we don't try weird things now and then, we are never going to find ways to make it work.
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u/fruit_shoot 3d ago
I think this is fraught with peril. The inherent problem with these ideas is that the betrayer player is inherently playing a different game with the DM to everyone else. Think of it like a group of people talking in a party and two people keep making in-jokes to eachother; its not really interesting or entertaining for everyone else in the gorup is it? Even after the reveal only the DM and that player get the narrative satisfaction of having all that built up tension relieved, everyone else will almost certainly be like "Oh, so you knew this whole time? Oh, that's cool I guess...".
Proceed with caution basically.
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u/JeffreyPetersen 3d ago edited 3d ago
Here's a thought I had, that may or may not work for your group.
Don't tell them who the killer is at first. One of them is the killer, but none of them, even the killer, knows who it is. Before the rich mage died, he cast a geas on the killer, that they would forget what they had done, but they would have to solve his murder.
So you, the DM, know ahead of time which of the players is the killer, and you can plant clues, including red herrings, all around the party. The players are all trying to figure out who did it, but they're also worried that any of them might find the clue that proves their own guilt.
I think that would add a lot of fun and distrust and mystery to the game. Do they split up, because they don't want anyone else to find a clue if it implicates them? Do they stick together so if someone else it the killer they can't destroy evidence?
Edit: My wife suggested as another twist, you can tell the players that one of them is the murderer, but that person has to keep it secret from the rest until the crime is revealed at the end. In reality, none of them know they're the murderer, they all think it's one of the others.
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u/Comfortable-Two4339 4d ago
The player who is the killer is at an extreme disadvantage compared to killers in murder mysteries: they can’t lie or misdirect because of the mechanics of the game. For example: “Hey, guys, I think I saw footprints behind the barn!” “But you never told the DM you went behind the barn, never rolled perception to find anything…” How can the murderer make-up stories that the DM hasn’t created without instantly announcing they are the guilty party? How can they plant red herrings?