New GM trying to figure out a good way of doing a sort of murder mystery campaign for some friends, was wondering what were some good ways to sow distrust in the party and to make them appear conspicuous to each other.
Also just general GM tips and tricks would be nice.
Have them not know each other in character if you can.
When a player finds a clue, hand them an index card describing what the clue is and who it potentially points to.
The corpse was indeed pummelled before it died, but the wound that did it in was a slice to the throat. Who has slashing weapons? Who has bludgeoning weapons? What could be used to cause the damage nearby? Who could lift it? Who could reach it?
Think it all through well and of course, the most important thing is to have them all be in separate areas when the murder happens or have been away from the group at some point for some reason before the body is discovered and none of the players should find the body.
>>47708059
Don't, try listening to Friday night quests season 5 and their aftermath episode for how to make a mystery adventure.
Hell, just listen to FNQ for pointers on being a better GM
I do an investigation check
>Nat 20
That guy did it
I would tell them that for some winning condition would be to keep certain secret concealed and have a conversation in private with every one of them. Wouldn't actually tell anyone any secrets to keep.
>>47708059
Give them a secret in an envelope, or a goal which they must complete without the knowledge of the other players.
>>47708147
basically this
Watch Scooby-Doo.
>>47708059
I have a hopeless obsession with mysteries, even in games that don't call for it. In my experience, this is the sort of thing that rewards heavy preparation. Work with players one-on-one to flesh out backstories, motivations, personality, etc. That way you can tinker with the story under the hood and ensure that there's some sort of tension, even when they're not wholly aware it's there. Preparing descriptions on index cards like >>47708093 said will help keep the game going at a smooth pace (sharing notes/texts is fun in its own way, but much slower).
If you've never tried Paranoia, now could be an opportunity. It's practically tailor-made to have the players distrust and slaughter one another with minimal information. Check theREDACTED-class section of the rulebooks for info on that sort of thing.
Hand out some note cards and tell them that whoever draws the card with "Murderer" on it is the murder.
Plot twist: all the cards are blank
>>47710121
I once had an idea similar to this though i never went through with it.The basic idea was that they'd all tried to murder the victim by switching out a prop gun
>>47708059
Play minis and one-offs with just part of the party, leaving the rest oblivious to the events of it.
Works brilliantly, because you create a pretty real distrust between them, both in and out of character that can be easily resolved with no hard feelings, but will affect incoming game considerably anyway.
>>47708059
If you're writing anything with any sort of mystery of investigation element at all, you have to use the Three Clue Rule:
"for any conclusion you want your players to make, include at least three clues pointing to it. your players will miss the first, ignore the second, and misinterpret the third before making a wild leap of logic that lands them where you want them to be."
Always have backups for how your players can figure out the mystery, and what will happen if they mess up. A good one that came along with the three clue rule is having the murderer get nervous at just how much the players are poking around, even if they're not finding anything significant, and try to do something to hamper the investigation or kill the players.
>>47709232
>Watch Scooby-Doo.
Like Zoinks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDFouH2v8UM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5mZBZ3txvk
>>47708059
Give them all secret agendas.They shouldn't be actively opposed to each other; just have some hidden goal that's something they might not prefer to talk about. Maybe one of them is after some hidden information; maybe another is looking to discredit a rival (NPC) for political reasons, maybe another is investigating the deceased for organized crime connections.
This does a couple of things. First, it makes the players do shady things that can be misinterpreted as guilt. Second, it makes others players highly aware of the possibility of hidden agendas, or even that the killer could be among them. After all, each will reason, if *I* have a hidden agenda, then everyone else could have one too. And they're right - you *could* have made one of them the killer or otherwise guilty, you just didn't.
