Step 1 - Be a divination wizard. Step 2 - Solve mystery. Step 3 - Open a film noir-esque detective agency. Step 4 - I knew she was trouble when she walked through my door, because I’m a divination wizard
That's why I ended up juggling multiple single-player-full-party games (in the same setting) at once. One player "owned" the party, and if they wanted to have friends sit in and play some of the characters that was fine with me. But the game would go on even without those other people. Now I only have one left, and she already told me when she comes back from her summer vacation, she wants to try a different game, so I get to try to wrap up my campaign in a meaningful way in two and a half months.
Me: Sits down to start working on the murder mystery his players are doing in the next session. Dungeon Dudes: I'm about to be the most well timed video of this man's career.
I once ran a vampire the masquerade game where the players got drawn into a conspiracy of vampires who were convinced that one of them was betraying the cabal. The players were chasing down leads only to find their prime suspect the next victim. The twist was I only picked who was the next to die by who the players suspected. Each NPC had enough motives and opportunity and could have been the mole so I didn't need to adjust much. The players loved it! Sadly I could only pull that off once with any player group
It was kinda implied that his hat was too, even though we weren't told what it actually did. And Indy's whip has been the basis of more than one custom weapon I've given NPCs for flavor, such as: Whip of Prodding: +2 on attack and damage rolls, and once per turn they can add 1d6 lightning damage to a hit and the target must make a CON save at DC 10+(the lightning damage) or be pushed 5 feet into any free space of the whip wielder's choice. Since whips have Reach, this is useful for reaching over the front rank in combat, and moving the enemies around.
@@mal2ksc i would argue that Indy's hat is, additionally, a legendary item, having been potentially handed down from adventurer to adventurer. it always returns to its owner, AND will grant superhuman dexterity to its owner in order to return to its owner (grabbing the hat beneath massive stone traps)
D&D Buddy Cop comedy idea: An Inquisitive Rogue and a Knowledge Domain Cleric are partners. The Rogue ends up always accidentally killing suspects with their sneak attack damage and the Cleric is forced to Revivify them to question them.
"How are we going to question him now? He's got an arrow in his skull!" "Well, take the arrow out" ... "Wow. Turns out he was the bad guy, and we've unraveled his whole plan. What do we do now?" "Put the arrow back."
Regarding Magic in Mysteries: Depending on who they are, the bad guys also might know that Magic exists and what it could do, and even use it themselves.
Ive got a vampire npc that everyone suspects is a vampire, but he's also a changeling so the physical investigations of him while the party was talking with him all failed to determine he's a vampire. They then went to his house & I included very obvious hints that he's definitely a vampire, but also pretending to be someone else... well at least I thought it was obvious. Completed the mini campaign and no one figured it out. So, I get to reuse the character at another point I guess lol
I try to have at least 2 seperate clues in any mystery item in different places, such as shipping logs that are both in the captains office and the dock that both lead to the same result, to give my players choice of where to go.
For people who are willing to dig up older fiction, Randall Garrett did a number of mystery stories with a detective named Lord D'Arcy set in a Victorian world with magic. Excellent mysteries!
My players were tracking a mysterious duo from early on in their campaign. They went 'off-track' looking for clues out in the woods, which provided the druid with some especially good opportunities to try to speak with animals and plants to find out more about events that had happened through there several months prior. It was a lot of fun helping the players to engage with the 'clues' on their own terms and it's been exciting to see them finally starting to piece together this long-term mystery!
I have a very important question: do you guys talk about what to wear before each video? It's just that your clothes always match and look well together. Not that I pay attention to people's clothes... >.>
I have a mystery idea for ya'll that I'll just explain it here and now (and feel free to use it if you wish to.) A nobleman is awakened by a servant on board a ship when she unlocked and enters the room, and finds the corpse of a dead bard on the floor with a bloody dagger in the nobleman's hand. The bodyguard of the nobleman wasn't anywhere near the room, but rather was asleep at a table in the dining hall. There were two sailors acting as guards nearby who refused to admit that they fell asleep during their shifts. Outside the room was a strange bit of ash, but seemed unrelated to the case. The nobleman's room has a hidden safe provided for them during the trip that, when found, is already unlocked, but nothing stolen. There is, however, a bloody handprint inside. A couple of places hidden around the room also have a bloody handprint... places where a dagger could've been placed. Searching around the ship, the herbalist on board perscribed the bard a special sleeping medicine to help him rest as he wasn't sleeping very well... though she's strangely absent for most of the case, making people think she had something to do with it. It's only after that the floorboard under a rug is removed that A) a tiny bloodstain is under the rug, and B) another bloody dagger is found under the floorboard there. However the VIP room the nobleman was in had a somewhat weak anti-magic field in place, preventing magic from being cast in the room, but not stopping spells already in place, or spells being cast from outside the room and brought inside. Turns out the hidden dagger is a Dagger of Wounding... which the bard used on himself and hid there, prestidigitating most of the blood away, though missing the bit under the rug. The truth of the mystery was that the bard wanted revenge against the nobleman, and did the unthinkable: using his own Dagger of Wounding on himself and bleeding out in front of the nobleman as he was sleeping from the "medicine" that he was made to drink, as were the guards and bodyguard. A lot of red herrings were placed all to throw off the fact that it was a suicide made to look like a locked room murder. It's pretty clever what the cantrips Prestidigitation and Mage Hand can do combined with a scroll of Arcane Lock to help prevent anyone from getting in before the medicine wore off.
I like the first paragraph of your mystery, it has a lot of different things that the players can follow. I do have a slight problem with the second half however. For one, why wouldn't he just kill the nobleman instead of killing himself? To me that just doesn't make a lot of logical sense. Two, I feel like the ending takes away from the "Aha!" moment that the players get when they figure it out. While there's some satisfaction at proving the nobleman's innocence, there's no satisfaction at confronting the evildoer and someone getting their just desserts. So personally, I would change who done it to someone who was still alive and could pay for their actions. That's just my opinion anyway, and I will be using this as an inspiration for a ship bound murder mystery. I just had a thought, if you really wanted to go the 'suicide' route, make it so the bard doesn't actually die. Have the bard steal a herbalism kit from the herbalist to make a potion that when taken, makes the person drop into a close dead state, a feign death potion. His heart rate drops to the point where no pulse is felt, his breathing is slowed so there's no movement, etc, this would also explain why a revivify wouldn't work as he isn't actually dead. After an initial investigation, have the bard's body moved to the lowest deck to preserve the body in a cooler place. The bard wakes up and is hiding on the ship, possibly as another passenger with disguise self. So once they find out it was a suicide, they find that the body of the bard had disappeared and now it's a second mini mystery of finding the bard before the ship makes it to it's location and he gets away. You'll have to tweak earlier parts, but I feel this is a much more satisfying conclusion for the players.
How to Be a Great GM recently did an episode about making plants interesting and using plants and part of that episode involved Speak with Plants, so that might be a good video to somewhat expand on this.
I had 3 skeletons with the password to get past them written on their foreheads, split into 3 parts. The players didn't get it, all they had to do was read them in order but they made it so much more complicated than I could have imagined.
@@noahloftin7705 I got the skeletons + password from Lost Mines of Phandelver, and made it usable for the inhabitants of the area to not be attacked by having them draw the password on the skulls, but still be dangerous to invaders who didn't speak the password!
@@scruffyscruff that's awesome! I only ever got past the goblin cave in Lost Mines, as it was my first ever game of D&D, and we didn't end up going back to it, so I never experienced the rest of it!
I like to setup npc motivations and a corresponding timeline of events that will occur without player interaction. I then throw an array of hooks and see which path they take. This allows me to improvise on a foundation. Sometimes they miss the cool rooftop chase sequence that I had planned but they have fun because they stopped assassins in another way or they failed to stop them and now have to deal with the fallout. Don’t assume the goals of your party. Roll with what they choose.
I literally just thought, "The Dresden Files is a great example of.." and then Monty mentions The Dresden Files. (Get out of my head Monty!!) Such a great series and awesome inspiration. My wife's monk is definitely gonna love the Kenetic rings I homebrewed off of Harry's rings. (I'm only on "Small Favor" /book 10 so no spoilers please!!)
"Don't use red herrings. The players are their own red herrings." Seth Skorkowsky. An awesome early medieval mystery resource are the Brother Cadfael novels by Ellis Peters. Murder was never OK, just that investigative techniques were under developed. A clever party might steer the Shire-Reeve (Sheriff) to the actual guilty party instead of hanging some convenient vagrant.
NPC: Why should I tell you anything? PC bribes NPC a gold piece: Maybe this will jog your memory? NPC: Yeah, I saw a Drow. Why is he important? PC: I can't say. NPC bribes PC a gold piece: Hmm, maybe this might help? PC: Alright...he maybe a mage...
Perfect timing Dudes! Plotting a mystery right now where the players are hired to solve a murder that may uncover a hidden kabal of lycans within the village.
One thing to do is to make the mystery personal for the players/PCs; so including the theft of one of the PCs items gets them invested in the investigation. For example, the PCs have taken a miscellaneous magic item to a workshop to get it identified. When the PCs return, the scholars try to put them off, saying that the item is proving difficult to identify. When pushed, the scholars cave in and admit that the item has been stolen. They were scared of telling the heavily armed PCs the truth, and don't want to call in the local law; as they don't want anyone to know that they have been robbed. The scholars refund the PCs cost and give them a free hand with the investigation. They also tell them that the PCs identified the item, and it is [super cool mcguffin the PCs are really going to want to recover].
I haven't (yet) watched the video, but mysteries are currently fresh on my mind since I bough a Traveller (Mongoose publishing 2ed) module recently ( "Solomani adventure 1 - Mysteries on Arcturus station") :D Lenghty post ahead ;) But I think that the module is such a gem that a detailed explanation is worth it, you have been warned Sadly I'm not sure how easy it would be to (partially) convert it into a medieval setting, but it still is an *amazing* resource if nothing else to see how to maybe structure an adventure like that. Why is this one special? I've never seen anything like it in my life. The module is insanely replayable - you get a detailed cast of 10 characters and the murder could be anyone of them. It is "build your own mystery" with different tables and option for every relevant character, with different option both if you choose them as the murderer or if they are innocent (and of course you probably won't be using all of them anyway, but anywhere between 3 and all 10 depending on how "complicated" you want to have the mystery). You could build thousands of different mysteries with the setup provided - of course the DM has to do all the prep before the game, but I still love it (the module even warns that it is NOT meant to be run directly from the book without extensive prep work) Each detailed character has detailed their: - involvement, which is basically public information about them - background, which is secret info about their background - motive, usually connected to the background, but not always - every single character has a motive to be the killer. - Means - two or three different ways they could have done the murder with additional explanation on how them doing it that way would influence the state of the body and the crime scene (the DM chooses this, if they decide they are the murderer) - An alibi they tell the players if questioned, together with multiple options what they have really been up to, even if they were not the murderer, since they might want to hide something else - Different options for the alibi: it could be true or they could still have done something they wish to hide even if they didn't commit the murder, often you have multiple options for each alibi what they could have done instead (again the DM freely decides for each individual) - DCs (to use the D&D term) to get certain information about them (how hard is it to get their background story, how hard is it to punch holes in their alibi if it is false, how hard a confession would be if they are the murderer) - Modifiers for any interrogation rolls depending on how the players approach the NPC - are they hostile? Friendly? Do they try to bribe them? Any unique modifiers given the personality of the NPC (e.g. the PCs tying to take a valued possession form them for the investigation etc.) - Furthermore you also have a table to randomize the relationship between the suspects, so even with the exact same setup in terms of who the DM decides to use, the relationships between them could change drastically (suddenly one of the suspect might collude with the murderer etc. or (unknowingly) falsely accuse a different suspect). - And last but not least a random table to decide the general behaviour of the murderer. Do they want to kill the investigators or are they going to try to blame somebody else actively etc. And just to re-iterate the module is "Murder of Arcturus station", recently re-published and updated in "Solomani adventure 1 - Mysteries on Arcturus station" (it has just been updated and re-released a week ago, with certain improvements over the old version). Found the PDF on DriveThroughRPG for 15$ and I think I might get more out of this 15$ than I've ever gotten out of a D&D adventure (even if I just use it as inspiration)...
The biggest impediment to my mysteries (and many other types of campaigns) is players who forget everything about the previous games between sessions. "Restarting from zero" may be a topic worth a video by itself.
Remove the "in D&D" part of this and you've set up some great GM tips for playing **Monster of the Week**, which I highly recommend! It's my favorite RPG now.
*I find the fact railroading came up in this video .* *I've been in groups where the term railroading & metagaming has be the reason why the game has fallen apart .* *An I'm not talking about the act of being RailRoaded or people metagaming .* *But people being to opposed to these two concepts .* *That people start fights when a game is not a pure sandbox or people being paranoid that the characters knowing how common creatures / concepts work in a world is metagaming .*
How do you keep the whole group engaged when you've got one or two PCs who have investigative skills, but maybe the rest are more fighter types. My last game, our cleric was using speak with dead, and with the limit on number of questions, we spent a lot of time deciding on what questions to ask. This got somewhat tedious, I think, for the fighter types.
Maybe make the process more of a skill challenge, how are the fighter types going to help prep for the ceremony? Maybe every success in the skill challenge gets the cleric time for another question when the spell is cast to speak with the dead. Now the success of the cleric is brought on by the what the rest of the party did before hand and hopefully everyone is invested in the outcome.
I find it handy to make the mystery have stages and penalties for not solving the mystery by the end of each stage. For instance, if the party hasn’t figured it out by the end of day three, the purp claims another victim (usually someone they know and have interacted with). This allows you to give consequences but also drop more clues and get them back on the right path if they have gotten off the right trail. At the end they figure it out, but if they had put it together quicker, so in so would still be alive.
as a DM is easy to see "obvious" clue because you know all the clues so you have take in concideration that teh player have only a few clue at the momen that they encounter your obvious clue
"I cast speak with dead!" "Who killed you?" As funny as this is to imagine, "I don't know, it was too dark, but I know a couple of people who were after me." is a valid answer. Or, you could have the culprit using Dominate Person on others to do his bidding in the night, though, I wouldn't use that as an excuse in the heat of the moment.
Finished Storm Front and Fool Moon. Now I've started Grave Peril. Fool Moon got me hooked. My friend recommended the Dresden Files to me. Being able to incorporate it into D&D at some point is just a nice bonus.
My god this couldn’t have been better timed. I’m planning a campaign with my friends and wanted to add some mystery elements so this was super helpful!
The Dresden Files is why I wish I had a mind wipe device I could use to re-read books. I have read the series through multiple times and enjoyed it immensely, but nothing beats that first read!
When talking about fictional references I'd also recommend the Peter Grant books by Ben Aaronovitch. It's less magical mayhem and more investigation than Dresden Files (being an actual police 'department' than are wizards) but I think they are much better books and we'll worth a read.
Sweet! I'm getting ready to run one of the adventures from Candlekeep Mysteries. I haven't run a mystery adventure yet, so this video has been very helpful! Thank you for the great videos!
My old DM not only had red herrings, but the truth was so obscure in 99% of investigation sections that we just had to go with whatever our hunch was, then suffer the consequences because "you just rushed ahead without verifying if you were right! Look how smart I am as a DM fnar fnar fnar". It got so tedious.
This is my favorite kind of dungeon dudes content. I love the open ended questions to help generate some creative ideas. Keep it up boys looking forward to the next one. You both help make my planning sessions even more creative and fun.
I"m planning a mystery for my Traveller players. There is a science phenomenon that is lethal, yet can be detected and avoided. However, a series of science experiments and trying every possible combination of objects doesn't make an exciting story.
One idea for introducing cosmological lore is to have an NPC fortuneteller or vendor selling cheap horoscope scrolls that are largely identical except for a handful of blank spaces where the vendor has obviously just written in a word. E.G.: "For those born under the Sign of __The Wolf__, take heed as The Ophidian Comet moves in conjunction with The Blood Star this spring for the first time in 7 years, and check for unusual skin conditions. __Old potatoes & salted meats__ may cause indigestion, so look for opportunities to eat fresh foods. Your smile will brighten someone's day. Avoid unnecessary __gambling__. Your lucky star numbers are __3,19,23, and 72__." type of thing. Worst case scenario, if no PCs buy one, you have a handy loot prop to find on an NPC's body. Bonus points for a small hardcopy that players can reference for general astrological lore like the names of the months, seasons, ideal planting times, signs & major constellations, notable celestial bodies, lunar cycles, etc.
A note on physical clues that come with proficiencies or classes, I'm IRL, a locksmith (who plays a LOT of rogues), and while forensic locksmithing is a VERY specialized field, yes, there are plenty of folks who can take apart a lock and tell you if it's very probably been picked recently from the toolmarks on the pins or levers. It DOES take time, expertise, and some special equipment though. A PC would need at minimum the time and tools necessary to take apart the lock, a VERY good light source, and a good magnifying glass, as well as very high wisdom and skill scores (unless otherwise stated that they have this experience). Most rogues won't have this skill because why would they, but a rogue with a background in lockmaking very well might.
I can't wait for 12 months and Mirror Mirror coming up in the Dresden Files. Mirror Mirror I think will be the book that lets us put most of the clues together.
YT ate my comment as I was typing it, but basically I've been running a converted Against the Cult of the Reptile God, and a lot of this advice played into it. Clues I thought were obvious were less so, a barkeep being exceptionally generous with two free rounds of drinks after the players told them what they were in town for. The players latched onto a completely incorrect suspect, because the Mayor, while nervous yet innocent, had magic furniture, and beyond that thinking the miniboss is the BBEG due to vagueness in the vocabulary used (using "the Lady" to refer to the BBEG and local demigoddess to keep the cult's cover, and also the middle manager being female) Absurd dice rolls made finding evidence difficult, one cultist rolled like a god and managed to both turn away the party and later alert the boss mid-conversation unsuspected AND take their only evidence. Tying lore into it wasn't that bad, the Storm Cleric praying at the altar of the Nature demigoddess immediately after said cultist encounter was perfect for letting the lady herself tell them they'd been had, and they even asked for knowledge rolls to see if any of the characters know any applicable Greyhawk stuff to make any connections with the clues they had. Magic supremely streamlined the investigation process a little too fast, Detect Magic as a ritual to see if someone's been Enchanted is REALLY GOOD. The players had a lack of leads, so I put in evidence that the module doesn't have to nudge them in the right direction. HOT DAMN, and even with all of that, you'll still get that same Storm Cleric finding themselves facing eight skeleton guards at level 2, and deciding that Turn Undead is not as correct a choice as rushing them as using that same Channel Divinity to maximize Thunderwave damage instead. The party got kicked so hard by the boss that they were at too low HP to loot the rest of the dungeon, but at least they rescued the NPC that's willing and able to spill the beans. They tried to threaten the barkeep that screwed them over, and being a cultist in on the recruitment ring definitely would make for excessive exposition. But obviously it would be horribly suicidal for the party to be given a path straight to the BBEG, so I had the BBEG assume direct control in a way that let the party understand that yes, this is some way deeper shit than a meager kidnapping, as well as to inform the Wizard that trying to take on this sort of power from where they are with the tools at their disposal is beyond their current capabilities and must be dealt with at the source.
We traveled the entire storm coast in SKT, asking everybody about the Spoiler Spoiler spoiler Spoiler Nightstone. We asked the giant about it. We asked about it across Ten Towns. We asked about it in every city on our way back down the sword coast on the side quests. Finally our DM lost his mind, broke immersion, and told us there is no information about it yet and he'll give it to us when it comes up. We never finished the campaign. We just spoke to the Oracle and the campaign fell apart.
28:00 I am sorry but this makes absolutely no sense. You say that investigations would be a foreign concept in a low fantasy setting. In what world would a small village just accept the fishmonger's wife was murdered and shrug their shoulders? Low fantasy settings usually draw from real historical settings, in those times, obviously people not just put up with their fellow citizens being murdered. They would organize, call a meeting, and try figure out the culprit. No they would not have the forensic process that our modern investigation units have, but the idea of just accepting people dying in their houses is ludicrous. Do what you want in your setting, but it doesn't make sense to justify it "because low fantasy"
I set up a mini-mystery that turned out to probably be too complex or maybe just too challenging for my somewhat inexperienced players. It had a way to quickly solve the mystery by simply establishing a timeline if the players wanted to take a very professional approach, but the 'villain' was set to goad them into gathering misleading 'evidence' and opinions. The setup: A man in the city square, clearly set to be executed at first light the next day, attempts to get the adventurers' attention. If successful, he explains he has been falsely accused by several townsfolk of serious crimes and begs them to gather evidence of his innocence. The twist: He *is* guilty of all but some burglary. The real burglar-a fiend-pact warlock tied to the plot of the campaign-was the only person who had directly witnessed the condemned man's crimes and wants the sentence carried out ASAP, so he isn't exposed, too. The method: If the characters take the queues to seek out the warlock, one way or another, they should find that the warlock's goals and methods clearly do *not* line up with anything but the burglaries and that the warlock has partial evidence the condemned man is guilty, which can be corroborated with a city guard schedule. Alternately, the players could attempt to go directly to the scene of the most significant crime and, through some light sleuthing, discover that the guards have had their memories modified and that their accounts don't match their supposed schedule nor the accounts of several locals. All the while, the players are being fed opinions that overtly lack real evidence. For some reason, the players kept taking everyone at their word, second-guessing the facts, and taking only the most cursory look through each location they visited. They did make excellent use of spells like Speak With Animals and Detect magic, which I rewarded with major clues. Even so, I had to prompt them to make insight/perception/investigation/etc checks several times to help them toward a decision. I feel like I might not have laid it out well enough for my players since they were obviously a bit frustrated by the end, but I did at least accomplish my goal of showing my players that not everything will be as it seems nor how they may want it to be.
Worldbuilding is key. Sherlock Holmes works because 19th century London was an incredibly codified and stultified society. Dresden Files only works because the author spends so long presenting the strict rules of magic and of how the magical world interfaces with the mundane world. Mysteries require rules. Make sure to establish the rules that run, and limit, your world.
I'm MAD at Dresden Files. Butcher should have stayed away. He walked up to fixing the shitty thing he did, then said naw and walked away. I'm literally furious that in 2020 we're still getting that fucking trope.
I'm currently writing a mystery campaign for a single player, so if their character fails, there are no other party members to try a different approach, and that's why I'm researching how to run a mystery campaign thoroughly before starting the first session. In my setting, investigations aren't really a thing and the way it's set up is that the PCs are part of a secret organisation whose focus is safeguarding the kingdom. Something has happened, a team is assembled, briefed and sent off to find out what's going on and resolve it. For my current one, I'm giving the player several things to follow up on when they arrive, so it's not as linear as "go to this NPC, get clue, go to next NPC/area/scene". They're also working without the support of the local authorities and they need to come up with their own cover identity as they're basically spies.
When I ran a murder mystery 1-shot for my friends, they almost immediately killed an NPC just because she snuck some wine into her room, and that to them was all the justification they needed. They didn't even talk to all of the other NPCs first. To top it off, she was supposed to be killed next by the murderer as a really important clue for their motive. My players are dumbasses.
I once tried to run a mystery in a D&D game. It was pretty solidly built, but one thing I didn't account for was player stupidity. Not that the players were unable to figure it out. In fact, they figured it out just fine, based on the clues they were given. No, rather, they insisted that they needed to roll too many Investigation checks, despite nobody being proficient or even remotely competent in Investigation. This eventually lead the party to go down the wrong track and chase the wrong suspect, despite the players all knowing it was the wrong course of action. The characters didn't know that. Needless to say, it wasn't a success.
Could you guys do a video on the outer planes please? I find the planes really fascinating and I'd love to play an official or homebrew campaign which encourages travel between all of them, so could you explain things like what 5e books the planes are heavily featured in (so I know what to buy for research) and what ideas you guys might have for a campaign which incorporates the planes. I'm especially interested as I recently started a horizon walker character but now that I'm using it, have realised it isn't really suited to the campaign I'm currently in so I would love to see a campaign where that subclass really shines
So I have a question about conjuration wizards. At level two it says they can conjure a non-magical non-living object they have seen before that weighs no more than 10 pounds and no longer than 3 feet on any side. This could also means spell components that meet the requirements. So could spell components conjured this way actually be used for spells?
Dming for about a year now with very new players. A possibly new member or 2 say they would love to join for a mystery campaign. Probably something 1-3 sessions long. Any advice out there for running a mystery with brand new players?
Unrelated to this video but I just watched the Paladin Tier list videos. I am playing a Conquest Paladin now and I would put it at high A tier but I built it with a less than typical paladin style. He is all charisma and dexterity and his weapon of choice is a whip with shield. This lets him consistently do well on initiative before running into combat, pulling up 10 feet short of his enemies, and blasting them with fear. This allows him to really control the battlefield and sit there at short range, slowly burn damaging his enemies with the aura ability while never quite being in melee. What I sacrifice in weapon dice damage I make up for with slow burn and of course smites. More often than not his concentration is being held by some fear effect so spiritual weapon becomes really useful since it is not concentration. Each turn becomes 2 whip attacks with optional smite, one spiritual weapon attack, and passive psychic damage to anything afraid and in my aura.
Also, if your players end up investigating a random thing/character/building that was not meant to be a clue for like a whole session... give 'em something. Just make up some random stuff on the fly if you need. They usually end up piecing it together for you anyway, even if it was truly random and not related to the plot...
I'd appreciate anyone's opinions on my situation atm. My players have a notable gap in level of astuteness and ability to sniff out when something is fishy. My campaign is set in what I call a logical high magic world. I do everything possible to make the party feel like the world is less composed of npcs but a bunch of PCs, other adventurers, civilians, etc all with their own goals and many are not stupid or uninformed about how magic works. I told my party at the beginning that there will be secrets to discover in this world and that they don't have to pursue them but they can if they desire. They can poke around and potentially uncover things, getting into adventures along the way or they can let things come to them. If they do pursue it, they might want to be careful, though. If they turn over rocks carelessly, others might not take it so kindly. In any case, I have one player who is considerably better at sniffing out points of interest and actively working on mysteries than the others. Information given that the other players can put together would be figured out instantly by him multiple clues before the others could get it. This is because he's both more astute and because he will hypothesize, identify some possibilities, and go out to figure out how to test his theories or seek out people who might know, skillfully wheeling and dealing with those who might know pieces of information and trading information for information for mutual benefit. These are all wonderful behaviors and things I want to promote. He isn't really a spotlight hogger either (he does get more time because he makes more active use of downtime but I tend to let him pursue at lot of that out of session so as to keep the whole group involved in the session and to not ignore the wizard just because he spends a lot of his downtime making scrolls) as he tries his best to get others involved in the process. Others are interested but they aren't half as good at open world mystery solving and the gap has only grown as this particular player has put a lot of effort (and sacrifice in game) into establishing a strong social network. Those that can be safely shared with the party are shared readily. I do not want to punish a player who has done everything in the right spirit and don't wish to repay his interest and work with a "mystery" that is far too easy for him but just about right for the others. Conversely, my other players would absolutely know if I eased up on everything and started feeding them more information and more blatant clues. They would also know if I asked that player to hold back a bit and doing so would leave no one feeling satisfied. They would not like it very much if I did either. How can I run a mystery for all more effectively instead of a mystery for one with this gap in skill for detective work? Please note that we are all still having lots of fun and I have been working on things to balance this without punishing anyone. I just haven't yet figured out how to get everyone a meaty share of eureka moments and I'm sure my situation is not unique.
The multiple clues for one aspect thing is good advice. Pointy Hat says something similar. Also, the gume-shoe game thing. Yes, that sounds great. The players engage for the basics and skill checks are for extra stuff.
Try this: If the players don't figure out the clue, or find the secret tunnel or have you, then you the DM just reveal it; think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Dad accidentally finds the secret door. Just when you do the player's dont get any xp for doing it.
My party was looking for a gnome who had gone missing. So we went to his house and I, the Ranger, went to his barn and asked his livestock what they knew, when they had last seen him, etc. DM afterwards said “I didn’t think to prep ‘what do the horse and cow know?” Meanwhile, another person in my party went and asked a squirrel.
For making checks I honestly feel like Players should never ask to make a certain check the DM should ask them to make a check when they feel that they need to. That's not to say that the Players shouldn't ask questions and use what they're good at the help them, like saying Would this have been something I learn from my studies or would I know about any of those chemicals from knowing about an alchemist? However players should never say I would like to make an arcana check or something like that.
In the campaing I'm playing right now, there had been some murders near the hospital and some of the people locked up in the psychiatric wing, that had never suffered from hearing voices before, started hearing such voices telling them to do terrible things. Because we asked around in the tavern before going, we knew one of the dudes locked up there wasn't actually crazy, he was there for political reasons, so we knew we could trust him to tell us the truth if we promised to set him free. So i covered his face with a sack so the person responsible for the voices didn't recognize him as a patient from the psychiatric room and demanded the director of the hospital to gather all personeel in the same room and made them read a creepy poem symulating those voices. This way i kinda got us to bypass most of the investigation and find a Hag polymorfed into a half elf nurse to get some thralls and... human ingredients. Yes, I used the B99 I want it that way method.
I have several experiences from one game, where players found the clue, understood it properly (player of stupid barbarian) and he simply did not tell till end of session (or even longer) because he did not want to metagame to use knowledge his character did not have. How to deal with that?
I’m buying a laptop to play from Skype up North of Canada 🇨🇦 while there in the south of Canada I can be there every two weeks but I will always be playing
Ooo, the puzzles in candle hold was fun and the DM did great at presenting the mystery. Through it was rather fun ending up one hitting a suit of amour without meaning too when discovering it was a construct without activating it. Plus the one who did it was a level 1 blood hunter. Lol.
I had a murder mystery going on behind another murder mystery. They solved the first one, but completely missed the second, until they just, directly engaged the situation with no regard for mystery at all. I loved it. There was a werewolf killing people in the woods, and someone else doing so in town. The townsfolk blamed the werewolf for both. The town murderer would break into the inn rooms, and kill them in the night, and dump them close to the edge of the woods. The town murderer tried and failed to break into the party's room one night, and when they tried again after the party had called the murders solved, they just opened the door in the night, and attacked the person.
Ah yes the fun of the unkown where your players will do anything except probally what you want them to do. A lot of great tips here for how to mechancilly engage and reward creativity of your players. If i ever had a perfect example of how to not make things too complex it could possibly be scooby doo. Those mysterious were not complex yet fun and entertaining, so i would have to say pick your style of silly fun all the way to film noir there is a lot inbetween but if you set the tone your players will pick up on it and follow suit.
How dare you suggest that the murder of the fishmonger's wife wouldn't be investigated. Surely, there's a monk in the abbey who can solve it with his knowledge of plants.
One of the best things I ever ran involved a rogue investigator nat 20 like ten times to track someone across town, disguise as a trash bag to watch their house, break in, befriend the dog, kidnap the dog, uncover the culprit and run back home without meeting any guards. Then the rest of the party wrapped it up in the morning
It's also interesting when you have to investigate without giving yourself away. I was playing a gnoll paladin of justice that was under that constraint, and the fact that she was a gnoll in a town already made her more conspicuious, and I had to hide the fact that I was a paladin because the church of the town was very much like the early Catholic church, and I was not a paladin of that church.
DM being too invested in the epic ending that is planned, leads to railroading. Have different endings. Have a great chase thought out or a battle planned, what epic thing happens when they bring in the guard. Instead of oh the guards dont believe you and your on your on. Railroading is largely due to under-preparation by the DM
It seems a contradiction to the “don’t make red herrings” advice to say have a character be be “wrong in their testimony with actually lying”. I get why you would want to add mistaken testimonies in a mystery but this can absolutely be a red herring.
So my first muster mystery is actually going to be a False Hydra. If you don’t know, it signs a song and anyone who hears it will never ever notice it when it comes to the surface to feed. Once it attacks it stop singing and people can see it, but once it disappears and starts singing again, people completely forget that it was ever there. But the people it takes are still missing so everyone around that person creates a reason as to why they are gone. So many ways of creating a great mystery lol
'But Sherlock Holmes didn't have spells.'
That's were Warlock Holmes comes into play.
Sorlock Holmes
You’re forgetting Sherlock Gnomes
Underrated comment tbh
That's it, my next character is going to be Sorlock Gnomes
Step 1 - Be a divination wizard.
Step 2 - Solve mystery.
Step 3 - Open a film noir-esque detective agency.
Step 4 - I knew she was trouble when she walked through my door, because I’m a divination wizard
Plot twist the client is you from the future as a chronurgy wizard.
The only reason this comment has so few likes is that it's too smart for some people. And also the video was uploaded like one hour ago
Of all the arcane laboratories in all of Faerun, she had to walk into mine.
Lol, that's great.
Wizard: You were not as smart as you thought and trust me I know this because I scryed on you the other day.
The greatest dnd mystery is how to work around everyone's schedules to actually pick a time to play
That's why I ended up juggling multiple single-player-full-party games (in the same setting) at once. One player "owned" the party, and if they wanted to have friends sit in and play some of the characters that was fine with me. But the game would go on even without those other people. Now I only have one left, and she already told me when she comes back from her summer vacation, she wants to try a different game, so I get to try to wrap up my campaign in a meaningful way in two and a half months.
We always run a set date first Saturday of the month, or every other Monday and GM+3. As long as we got GM+3 we got an adventure!
Yeesssss
Oof
Ah yes, you're on the true hero's quest now
That feeling when a new dungeon dudes drops right before you start doing boring house chores.
That's the case here too lol
YESSS. i put Dungeon Dudes or Critical Role on when i’m doing house chores
Here here! DnD = Dishes and Dudes 🤓
Truer words have never been spoken
Me IRL
Me: Sits down to start working on the murder mystery his players are doing in the next session.
Dungeon Dudes: I'm about to be the most well timed video of this man's career.
My next session is a mysterious disappearance that will require and investigation :)
This video comes a little bit too late for me.
The three clue rule was also heavily influenced by the classic mystery show “Blues Clues”.
I once ran a vampire the masquerade game where the players got drawn into a conspiracy of vampires who were convinced that one of them was betraying the cabal. The players were chasing down leads only to find their prime suspect the next victim. The twist was I only picked who was the next to die by who the players suspected. Each NPC had enough motives and opportunity and could have been the mole so I didn't need to adjust much. The players loved it! Sadly I could only pull that off once with any player group
I’ve been needing this. Can’t wait to not accidentally name drop, give too much info, and do literally everything involved in a mystery wrong.
Me, having failed to run a mystery mere weeks ago:
Huh good to know
Okay lets be honest though, Indiana Jones' Notebook was basically a magic item.
It was kinda implied that his hat was too, even though we weren't told what it actually did. And Indy's whip has been the basis of more than one custom weapon I've given NPCs for flavor, such as:
Whip of Prodding: +2 on attack and damage rolls, and once per turn they can add 1d6 lightning damage to a hit and the target must make a CON save at DC 10+(the lightning damage) or be pushed 5 feet into any free space of the whip wielder's choice. Since whips have Reach, this is useful for reaching over the front rank in combat, and moving the enemies around.
@@mal2ksc i would argue that Indy's hat is, additionally, a legendary item, having been potentially handed down from adventurer to adventurer. it always returns to its owner, AND will grant superhuman dexterity to its owner in order to return to its owner (grabbing the hat beneath massive stone traps)
D&D Buddy Cop comedy idea: An Inquisitive Rogue and a Knowledge Domain Cleric are partners. The Rogue ends up always accidentally killing suspects with their sneak attack damage and the Cleric is forced to Revivify them to question them.
I love that!
"How are we going to question him now? He's got an arrow in his skull!"
"Well, take the arrow out"
...
"Wow. Turns out he was the bad guy, and we've unraveled his whole plan. What do we do now?"
"Put the arrow back."
@@ChristnThms - Excellent.
"James, please, be careful. Our investigations became too expensive"
This video popped up literally 5 min after I bought The Candlekeep Mysteries on D&D Beyond. How did you guys know? *cue X-Files intro theme*
I'd like to think the guys are smart enough to tailor some of their content with what's trending with WotC ;-)
Regarding Magic in Mysteries: Depending on who they are, the bad guys also might know that Magic exists and what it could do, and even use it themselves.
It always tricks my eyes a bit when Kelly’s the one wearing the Roots hoodie instead of Monty
Ive got a vampire npc that everyone suspects is a vampire, but he's also a changeling so the physical investigations of him while the party was talking with him all failed to determine he's a vampire. They then went to his house & I included very obvious hints that he's definitely a vampire, but also pretending to be someone else... well at least I thought it was obvious. Completed the mini campaign and no one figured it out. So, I get to reuse the character at another point I guess lol
I try to have at least 2 seperate clues in any mystery item in different places, such as shipping logs that are both in the captains office and the dock that both lead to the same result, to give my players choice of where to go.
For people who are willing to dig up older fiction, Randall Garrett did a number of mystery stories with a detective named Lord D'Arcy set in a Victorian world with magic. Excellent mysteries!
Dresden Files are the freaking best. The new books that came out last year were such a boon to the pandemic blues.
I freaking lost it for Battle Ground... absolutely magnificent
@@euchiron it was definitely the infinity war/end game of books and it was SO GOOD
The DM really has to narrate alot of these things and give players some lore drops for the clues to make sense.
My players were tracking a mysterious duo from early on in their campaign. They went 'off-track' looking for clues out in the woods, which provided the druid with some especially good opportunities to try to speak with animals and plants to find out more about events that had happened through there several months prior. It was a lot of fun helping the players to engage with the 'clues' on their own terms and it's been exciting to see them finally starting to piece together this long-term mystery!
I have a very important question: do you guys talk about what to wear before each video? It's just that your clothes always match and look well together.
Not that I pay attention to people's clothes... >.>
I have a mystery idea for ya'll that I'll just explain it here and now (and feel free to use it if you wish to.)
A nobleman is awakened by a servant on board a ship when she unlocked and enters the room, and finds the corpse of a dead bard on the floor with a bloody dagger in the nobleman's hand. The bodyguard of the nobleman wasn't anywhere near the room, but rather was asleep at a table in the dining hall. There were two sailors acting as guards nearby who refused to admit that they fell asleep during their shifts. Outside the room was a strange bit of ash, but seemed unrelated to the case. The nobleman's room has a hidden safe provided for them during the trip that, when found, is already unlocked, but nothing stolen. There is, however, a bloody handprint inside. A couple of places hidden around the room also have a bloody handprint... places where a dagger could've been placed. Searching around the ship, the herbalist on board perscribed the bard a special sleeping medicine to help him rest as he wasn't sleeping very well... though she's strangely absent for most of the case, making people think she had something to do with it.
It's only after that the floorboard under a rug is removed that A) a tiny bloodstain is under the rug, and B) another bloody dagger is found under the floorboard there. However the VIP room the nobleman was in had a somewhat weak anti-magic field in place, preventing magic from being cast in the room, but not stopping spells already in place, or spells being cast from outside the room and brought inside. Turns out the hidden dagger is a Dagger of Wounding... which the bard used on himself and hid there, prestidigitating most of the blood away, though missing the bit under the rug. The truth of the mystery was that the bard wanted revenge against the nobleman, and did the unthinkable: using his own Dagger of Wounding on himself and bleeding out in front of the nobleman as he was sleeping from the "medicine" that he was made to drink, as were the guards and bodyguard. A lot of red herrings were placed all to throw off the fact that it was a suicide made to look like a locked room murder. It's pretty clever what the cantrips Prestidigitation and Mage Hand can do combined with a scroll of Arcane Lock to help prevent anyone from getting in before the medicine wore off.
I like the first paragraph of your mystery, it has a lot of different things that the players can follow. I do have a slight problem with the second half however. For one, why wouldn't he just kill the nobleman instead of killing himself? To me that just doesn't make a lot of logical sense. Two, I feel like the ending takes away from the "Aha!" moment that the players get when they figure it out. While there's some satisfaction at proving the nobleman's innocence, there's no satisfaction at confronting the evildoer and someone getting their just desserts. So personally, I would change who done it to someone who was still alive and could pay for their actions. That's just my opinion anyway, and I will be using this as an inspiration for a ship bound murder mystery.
I just had a thought, if you really wanted to go the 'suicide' route, make it so the bard doesn't actually die. Have the bard steal a herbalism kit from the herbalist to make a potion that when taken, makes the person drop into a close dead state, a feign death potion. His heart rate drops to the point where no pulse is felt, his breathing is slowed so there's no movement, etc, this would also explain why a revivify wouldn't work as he isn't actually dead. After an initial investigation, have the bard's body moved to the lowest deck to preserve the body in a cooler place. The bard wakes up and is hiding on the ship, possibly as another passenger with disguise self. So once they find out it was a suicide, they find that the body of the bard had disappeared and now it's a second mini mystery of finding the bard before the ship makes it to it's location and he gets away. You'll have to tweak earlier parts, but I feel this is a much more satisfying conclusion for the players.
How to Be a Great GM recently did an episode about making plants interesting and using plants and part of that episode involved Speak with Plants, so that might be a good video to somewhat expand on this.
I had 3 skeletons with the password to get past them written on their foreheads, split into 3 parts. The players didn't get it, all they had to do was read them in order but they made it so much more complicated than I could have imagined.
that's genius! I am going to use this and I will reference you
@@noahloftin7705 I got the skeletons + password from Lost Mines of Phandelver, and made it usable for the inhabitants of the area to not be attacked by having them draw the password on the skulls, but still be dangerous to invaders who didn't speak the password!
@@scruffyscruff that's awesome! I only ever got past the goblin cave in Lost Mines, as it was my first ever game of D&D, and we didn't end up going back to it, so I never experienced the rest of it!
I like to setup npc motivations and a corresponding timeline of events that will occur without player interaction. I then throw an array of hooks and see which path they take. This allows me to improvise on a foundation.
Sometimes they miss the cool rooftop chase sequence that I had planned but they have fun because they stopped assassins in another way or they failed to stop them and now have to deal with the fallout.
Don’t assume the goals of your party. Roll with what they choose.
My favorite element is the element of
surprise!
I literally just thought, "The Dresden Files is a great example of.." and then Monty mentions The Dresden Files. (Get out of my head Monty!!) Such a great series and awesome inspiration. My wife's monk is definitely gonna love the Kenetic rings I homebrewed off of Harry's rings. (I'm only on "Small Favor" /book 10 so no spoilers please!!)
Thumbs up for The Dresden Files. Best series ever
"Don't use red herrings. The players are their own red herrings." Seth Skorkowsky.
An awesome early medieval mystery resource are the Brother Cadfael novels by Ellis Peters.
Murder was never OK, just that investigative techniques were under developed. A clever party might steer the Shire-Reeve (Sheriff) to the actual guilty party instead of hanging some convenient vagrant.
NPC: Why should I tell you anything?
PC bribes NPC a gold piece: Maybe this will jog your memory?
NPC: Yeah, I saw a Drow. Why is he important?
PC: I can't say.
NPC bribes PC a gold piece: Hmm, maybe this might help?
PC: Alright...he maybe a mage...
"I understood that reference"
Perfect timing Dudes! Plotting a mystery right now where the players are hired to solve a murder that may uncover a hidden kabal of lycans within the village.
One thing to do is to make the mystery personal for the players/PCs; so including the theft of one of the PCs items gets them invested in the investigation.
For example, the PCs have taken a miscellaneous magic item to a workshop to get it identified. When the PCs return, the scholars try to put them off, saying that the item is proving difficult to identify.
When pushed, the scholars cave in and admit that the item has been stolen. They were scared of telling the heavily armed PCs the truth, and don't want to call in the local law; as they don't want anyone to know that they have been robbed.
The scholars refund the PCs cost and give them a free hand with the investigation. They also tell them that the PCs identified the item, and it is [super cool mcguffin the PCs are really going to want to recover].
I haven't (yet) watched the video, but mysteries are currently fresh on my mind since I bough a Traveller (Mongoose publishing 2ed) module recently ( "Solomani adventure 1 - Mysteries on Arcturus station") :D Lenghty post ahead ;) But I think that the module is such a gem that a detailed explanation is worth it, you have been warned
Sadly I'm not sure how easy it would be to (partially) convert it into a medieval setting, but it still is an *amazing* resource if nothing else to see how to maybe structure an adventure like that.
Why is this one special? I've never seen anything like it in my life. The module is insanely replayable - you get a detailed cast of 10 characters and the murder could be anyone of them. It is "build your own mystery" with different tables and option for every relevant character, with different option both if you choose them as the murderer or if they are innocent (and of course you probably won't be using all of them anyway, but anywhere between 3 and all 10 depending on how "complicated" you want to have the mystery).
You could build thousands of different mysteries with the setup provided - of course the DM has to do all the prep before the game, but I still love it (the module even warns that it is NOT meant to be run directly from the book without extensive prep work)
Each detailed character has detailed their:
- involvement, which is basically public information about them
- background, which is secret info about their background
- motive, usually connected to the background, but not always - every single character has a motive to be the killer.
- Means - two or three different ways they could have done the murder with additional explanation on how them doing it that way would influence the state of the body and the crime scene (the DM chooses this, if they decide they are the murderer)
- An alibi they tell the players if questioned, together with multiple options what they have really been up to, even if they were not the murderer, since they might want to hide something else
- Different options for the alibi: it could be true or they could still have done something they wish to hide even if they didn't commit the murder, often you have multiple options for each alibi what they could have done instead (again the DM freely decides for each individual)
- DCs (to use the D&D term) to get certain information about them (how hard is it to get their background story, how hard is it to punch holes in their alibi if it is false, how hard a confession would be if they are the murderer)
- Modifiers for any interrogation rolls depending on how the players approach the NPC - are they hostile? Friendly? Do they try to bribe them? Any unique modifiers given the personality of the NPC (e.g. the PCs tying to take a valued possession form them for the investigation etc.)
- Furthermore you also have a table to randomize the relationship between the suspects, so even with the exact same setup in terms of who the DM decides to use, the relationships between them could change drastically (suddenly one of the suspect might collude with the murderer etc. or (unknowingly) falsely accuse a different suspect).
- And last but not least a random table to decide the general behaviour of the murderer. Do they want to kill the investigators or are they going to try to blame somebody else actively etc.
And just to re-iterate the module is "Murder of Arcturus station", recently re-published and updated in "Solomani adventure 1 - Mysteries on Arcturus station" (it has just been updated and re-released a week ago, with certain improvements over the old version).
Found the PDF on DriveThroughRPG for 15$ and I think I might get more out of this 15$ than I've ever gotten out of a D&D adventure (even if I just use it as inspiration)...
The biggest impediment to my mysteries (and many other types of campaigns) is players who forget everything about the previous games between sessions. "Restarting from zero" may be a topic worth a video by itself.
Remove the "in D&D" part of this and you've set up some great GM tips for playing **Monster of the Week**, which I highly recommend!
It's my favorite RPG now.
*I find the fact railroading came up in this video .*
*I've been in groups where the term railroading & metagaming has be the reason why the game has fallen apart .*
*An I'm not talking about the act of being RailRoaded or people metagaming .*
*But people being to opposed to these two concepts .*
*That people start fights when a game is not a pure sandbox or people being paranoid that the characters knowing how common creatures / concepts work in a world is metagaming .*
How do you keep the whole group engaged when you've got one or two PCs who have investigative skills, but maybe the rest are more fighter types. My last game, our cleric was using speak with dead, and with the limit on number of questions, we spent a lot of time deciding on what questions to ask. This got somewhat tedious, I think, for the fighter types.
Maybe make the process more of a skill challenge, how are the fighter types going to help prep for the ceremony? Maybe every success in the skill challenge gets the cleric time for another question when the spell is cast to speak with the dead. Now the success of the cleric is brought on by the what the rest of the party did before hand and hopefully everyone is invested in the outcome.
@@davidrose7938 great idea!
I find it handy to make the mystery have stages and penalties for not solving the mystery by the end of each stage. For instance, if the party hasn’t figured it out by the end of day three, the purp claims another victim (usually someone they know and have interacted with). This allows you to give consequences but also drop more clues and get them back on the right path if they have gotten off the right trail. At the end they figure it out, but if they had put it together quicker, so in so would still be alive.
as a DM is easy to see "obvious" clue because you know all the clues so you have take in concideration that teh player have only a few clue at the momen that they encounter your obvious clue
I hope to have a beard that is as majestic as Monty's one day. Kelly's beard is pretty damn spiffy too.
I though the next vid was hexblade part 2... Oops i mean warlock, sad
Scooby-Dooby-Doo
Lmao I thought the Thumbnail said "How to Ruin a Mystery in D&D"
I mean that would also be a useful vid...
"I cast speak with dead!"
"Who killed you?"
As funny as this is to imagine, "I don't know, it was too dark, but I know a couple of people who were after me." is a valid answer. Or, you could have the culprit using Dominate Person on others to do his bidding in the night, though, I wouldn't use that as an excuse in the heat of the moment.
Finished Storm Front and Fool Moon. Now I've started Grave Peril. Fool Moon got me hooked. My friend recommended the Dresden Files to me. Being able to incorporate it into D&D at some point is just a nice bonus.
Oh boy, another awesome video full of actually important guidelines.
Nicely done, magnificent stuff.
Keep it up, dudes!
My god this couldn’t have been better timed. I’m planning a campaign with my friends and wanted to add some mystery elements so this was super helpful!
The Dresden Files is why I wish I had a mind wipe device I could use to re-read books. I have read the series through multiple times and enjoyed it immensely, but nothing beats that first read!
You guys always get a like but double this time for the Dresden Files recommendation!!
Right on time! I'm planning on running a mystery arc in my campaign!
Always looking forward to Thursdays
A good mystery always begins by presenting a scenario and sprinkling into it doubt while creating lure to its unraveling
When talking about fictional references I'd also recommend the Peter Grant books by Ben Aaronovitch. It's less magical mayhem and more investigation than Dresden Files (being an actual police 'department' than are wizards) but I think they are much better books and we'll worth a read.
This would have been useful at the start of my second arc for my campaign but I’m nearly done with it XD
Sweet! I'm getting ready to run one of the adventures from Candlekeep Mysteries. I haven't run a mystery adventure yet, so this video has been very helpful! Thank you for the great videos!
Good timing with Candlekeep coming out, definitely looking to drop a mystery in my campaign coming up
My old DM not only had red herrings, but the truth was so obscure in 99% of investigation sections that we just had to go with whatever our hunch was, then suffer the consequences because "you just rushed ahead without verifying if you were right! Look how smart I am as a DM fnar fnar fnar". It got so tedious.
I could do a great video on How To Ruin A Mystery.
The Alexandrian is a great source for running D&D adventures. I used his tips extensively when I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.
This is my favorite kind of dungeon dudes content. I love the open ended questions to help generate some creative ideas. Keep it up boys looking forward to the next one. You both help make my planning sessions even more creative and fun.
I"m planning a mystery for my Traveller players. There is a science phenomenon that is lethal, yet can be detected and avoided. However, a series of science experiments and trying every possible combination of objects doesn't make an exciting story.
One idea for introducing cosmological lore is to have an NPC fortuneteller or vendor selling cheap horoscope scrolls that are largely identical except for a handful of blank spaces where the vendor has obviously just written in a word. E.G.: "For those born under the Sign of __The Wolf__, take heed as The Ophidian Comet moves in conjunction with The Blood Star this spring for the first time in 7 years, and check for unusual skin conditions. __Old potatoes & salted meats__ may cause indigestion, so look for opportunities to eat fresh foods. Your smile will brighten someone's day. Avoid unnecessary __gambling__. Your lucky star numbers are __3,19,23, and 72__." type of thing. Worst case scenario, if no PCs buy one, you have a handy loot prop to find on an NPC's body.
Bonus points for a small hardcopy that players can reference for general astrological lore like the names of the months, seasons, ideal planting times, signs & major constellations, notable celestial bodies, lunar cycles, etc.
A note on physical clues that come with proficiencies or classes, I'm IRL, a locksmith (who plays a LOT of rogues), and while forensic locksmithing is a VERY specialized field, yes, there are plenty of folks who can take apart a lock and tell you if it's very probably been picked recently from the toolmarks on the pins or levers. It DOES take time, expertise, and some special equipment though.
A PC would need at minimum the time and tools necessary to take apart the lock, a VERY good light source, and a good magnifying glass, as well as very high wisdom and skill scores (unless otherwise stated that they have this experience). Most rogues won't have this skill because why would they, but a rogue with a background in lockmaking very well might.
I can't wait for 12 months and Mirror Mirror coming up in the Dresden Files. Mirror Mirror I think will be the book that lets us put most of the clues together.
I plan for opportunities for everyone to use their chosen abilities, and then they don't show up. Honestly I wonder what the point is.
YT ate my comment as I was typing it, but basically I've been running a converted Against the Cult of the Reptile God, and a lot of this advice played into it.
Clues I thought were obvious were less so, a barkeep being exceptionally generous with two free rounds of drinks after the players told them what they were in town for.
The players latched onto a completely incorrect suspect, because the Mayor, while nervous yet innocent, had magic furniture, and beyond that thinking the miniboss is the BBEG due to vagueness in the vocabulary used (using "the Lady" to refer to the BBEG and local demigoddess to keep the cult's cover, and also the middle manager being female)
Absurd dice rolls made finding evidence difficult, one cultist rolled like a god and managed to both turn away the party and later alert the boss mid-conversation unsuspected AND take their only evidence.
Tying lore into it wasn't that bad, the Storm Cleric praying at the altar of the Nature demigoddess immediately after said cultist encounter was perfect for letting the lady herself tell them they'd been had, and they even asked for knowledge rolls to see if any of the characters know any applicable Greyhawk stuff to make any connections with the clues they had.
Magic supremely streamlined the investigation process a little too fast, Detect Magic as a ritual to see if someone's been Enchanted is REALLY GOOD.
The players had a lack of leads, so I put in evidence that the module doesn't have to nudge them in the right direction.
HOT DAMN, and even with all of that, you'll still get that same Storm Cleric finding themselves facing eight skeleton guards at level 2, and deciding that Turn Undead is not as correct a choice as rushing them as using that same Channel Divinity to maximize Thunderwave damage instead. The party got kicked so hard by the boss that they were at too low HP to loot the rest of the dungeon, but at least they rescued the NPC that's willing and able to spill the beans. They tried to threaten the barkeep that screwed them over, and being a cultist in on the recruitment ring definitely would make for excessive exposition. But obviously it would be horribly suicidal for the party to be given a path straight to the BBEG, so I had the BBEG assume direct control in a way that let the party understand that yes, this is some way deeper shit than a meager kidnapping, as well as to inform the Wizard that trying to take on this sort of power from where they are with the tools at their disposal is beyond their current capabilities and must be dealt with at the source.
We traveled the entire storm coast in SKT, asking everybody about the
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Nightstone.
We asked the giant about it. We asked about it across Ten Towns. We asked about it in every city on our way back down the sword coast on the side quests. Finally our DM lost his mind, broke immersion, and told us there is no information about it yet and he'll give it to us when it comes up.
We never finished the campaign. We just spoke to the Oracle and the campaign fell apart.
28:00 I am sorry but this makes absolutely no sense. You say that investigations would be a foreign concept in a low fantasy setting. In what world would a small village just accept the fishmonger's wife was murdered and shrug their shoulders? Low fantasy settings usually draw from real historical settings, in those times, obviously people not just put up with their fellow citizens being murdered. They would organize, call a meeting, and try figure out the culprit. No they would not have the forensic process that our modern investigation units have, but the idea of just accepting people dying in their houses is ludicrous. Do what you want in your setting, but it doesn't make sense to justify it "because low fantasy"
I set up a mini-mystery that turned out to probably be too complex or maybe just too challenging for my somewhat inexperienced players. It had a way to quickly solve the mystery by simply establishing a timeline if the players wanted to take a very professional approach, but the 'villain' was set to goad them into gathering misleading 'evidence' and opinions.
The setup: A man in the city square, clearly set to be executed at first light the next day, attempts to get the adventurers' attention. If successful, he explains he has been falsely accused by several townsfolk of serious crimes and begs them to gather evidence of his innocence. The twist: He *is* guilty of all but some burglary. The real burglar-a fiend-pact warlock tied to the plot of the campaign-was the only person who had directly witnessed the condemned man's crimes and wants the sentence carried out ASAP, so he isn't exposed, too.
The method: If the characters take the queues to seek out the warlock, one way or another, they should find that the warlock's goals and methods clearly do *not* line up with anything but the burglaries and that the warlock has partial evidence the condemned man is guilty, which can be corroborated with a city guard schedule. Alternately, the players could attempt to go directly to the scene of the most significant crime and, through some light sleuthing, discover that the guards have had their memories modified and that their accounts don't match their supposed schedule nor the accounts of several locals. All the while, the players are being fed opinions that overtly lack real evidence.
For some reason, the players kept taking everyone at their word, second-guessing the facts, and taking only the most cursory look through each location they visited. They did make excellent use of spells like Speak With Animals and Detect magic, which I rewarded with major clues. Even so, I had to prompt them to make insight/perception/investigation/etc checks several times to help them toward a decision. I feel like I might not have laid it out well enough for my players since they were obviously a bit frustrated by the end, but I did at least accomplish my goal of showing my players that not everything will be as it seems nor how they may want it to be.
Worldbuilding is key. Sherlock Holmes works because 19th century London was an incredibly codified and stultified society. Dresden Files only works because the author spends so long presenting the strict rules of magic and of how the magical world interfaces with the mundane world. Mysteries require rules. Make sure to establish the rules that run, and limit, your world.
I'm MAD at Dresden Files. Butcher should have stayed away. He walked up to fixing the shitty thing he did, then said naw and walked away. I'm literally furious that in 2020 we're still getting that fucking trope.
I'm currently writing a mystery campaign for a single player, so if their character fails, there are no other party members to try a different approach, and that's why I'm researching how to run a mystery campaign thoroughly before starting the first session.
In my setting, investigations aren't really a thing and the way it's set up is that the PCs are part of a secret organisation whose focus is safeguarding the kingdom. Something has happened, a team is assembled, briefed and sent off to find out what's going on and resolve it. For my current one, I'm giving the player several things to follow up on when they arrive, so it's not as linear as "go to this NPC, get clue, go to next NPC/area/scene". They're also working without the support of the local authorities and they need to come up with their own cover identity as they're basically spies.
When I ran a murder mystery 1-shot for my friends, they almost immediately killed an NPC just because she snuck some wine into her room, and that to them was all the justification they needed. They didn't even talk to all of the other NPCs first. To top it off, she was supposed to be killed next by the murderer as a really important clue for their motive.
My players are dumbasses.
...Bags of Holding don't have to be empty when you purchase them from a shady merchant.
I once tried to run a mystery in a D&D game. It was pretty solidly built, but one thing I didn't account for was player stupidity. Not that the players were unable to figure it out. In fact, they figured it out just fine, based on the clues they were given. No, rather, they insisted that they needed to roll too many Investigation checks, despite nobody being proficient or even remotely competent in Investigation. This eventually lead the party to go down the wrong track and chase the wrong suspect, despite the players all knowing it was the wrong course of action. The characters didn't know that. Needless to say, it wasn't a success.
Could you guys do a video on the outer planes please?
I find the planes really fascinating and I'd love to play an official or homebrew campaign which encourages travel between all of them, so could you explain things like what 5e books the planes are heavily featured in (so I know what to buy for research) and what ideas you guys might have for a campaign which incorporates the planes. I'm especially interested as I recently started a horizon walker character but now that I'm using it, have realised it isn't really suited to the campaign I'm currently in so I would love to see a campaign where that subclass really shines
So I have a question about conjuration wizards. At level two it says they can conjure a non-magical non-living object they have seen before that weighs no more than 10 pounds and no longer than 3 feet on any side. This could also means spell components that meet the requirements. So could spell components conjured this way actually be used for spells?
Dming for about a year now with very new players. A possibly new member or 2 say they would love to join for a mystery campaign. Probably something 1-3 sessions long. Any advice out there for running a mystery with brand new players?
Unrelated to this video but I just watched the Paladin Tier list videos. I am playing a Conquest Paladin now and I would put it at high A tier but I built it with a less than typical paladin style. He is all charisma and dexterity and his weapon of choice is a whip with shield. This lets him consistently do well on initiative before running into combat, pulling up 10 feet short of his enemies, and blasting them with fear. This allows him to really control the battlefield and sit there at short range, slowly burn damaging his enemies with the aura ability while never quite being in melee. What I sacrifice in weapon dice damage I make up for with slow burn and of course smites. More often than not his concentration is being held by some fear effect so spiritual weapon becomes really useful since it is not concentration. Each turn becomes 2 whip attacks with optional smite, one spiritual weapon attack, and passive psychic damage to anything afraid and in my aura.
Also, if your players end up investigating a random thing/character/building that was not meant to be a clue for like a whole session... give 'em something. Just make up some random stuff on the fly if you need. They usually end up piecing it together for you anyway, even if it was truly random and not related to the plot...
I'd appreciate anyone's opinions on my situation atm. My players have a notable gap in level of astuteness and ability to sniff out when something is fishy. My campaign is set in what I call a logical high magic world. I do everything possible to make the party feel like the world is less composed of npcs but a bunch of PCs, other adventurers, civilians, etc all with their own goals and many are not stupid or uninformed about how magic works. I told my party at the beginning that there will be secrets to discover in this world and that they don't have to pursue them but they can if they desire. They can poke around and potentially uncover things, getting into adventures along the way or they can let things come to them. If they do pursue it, they might want to be careful, though. If they turn over rocks carelessly, others might not take it so kindly. In any case, I have one player who is considerably better at sniffing out points of interest and actively working on mysteries than the others. Information given that the other players can put together would be figured out instantly by him multiple clues before the others could get it. This is because he's both more astute and because he will hypothesize, identify some possibilities, and go out to figure out how to test his theories or seek out people who might know, skillfully wheeling and dealing with those who might know pieces of information and trading information for information for mutual benefit.
These are all wonderful behaviors and things I want to promote. He isn't really a spotlight hogger either (he does get more time because he makes more active use of downtime but I tend to let him pursue at lot of that out of session so as to keep the whole group involved in the session and to not ignore the wizard just because he spends a lot of his downtime making scrolls) as he tries his best to get others involved in the process. Others are interested but they aren't half as good at open world mystery solving and the gap has only grown as this particular player has put a lot of effort (and sacrifice in game) into establishing a strong social network. Those that can be safely shared with the party are shared readily. I do not want to punish a player who has done everything in the right spirit and don't wish to repay his interest and work with a "mystery" that is far too easy for him but just about right for the others. Conversely, my other players would absolutely know if I eased up on everything and started feeding them more information and more blatant clues. They would also know if I asked that player to hold back a bit and doing so would leave no one feeling satisfied. They would not like it very much if I did either. How can I run a mystery for all more effectively instead of a mystery for one with this gap in skill for detective work?
Please note that we are all still having lots of fun and I have been working on things to balance this without punishing anyone. I just haven't yet figured out how to get everyone a meaty share of eureka moments and I'm sure my situation is not unique.
The multiple clues for one aspect thing is good advice. Pointy Hat says something similar.
Also, the gume-shoe game thing. Yes, that sounds great. The players engage for the basics and skill checks are for extra stuff.
Try this: If the players don't figure out the clue, or find the secret tunnel or have you, then you the DM just reveal it; think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Dad accidentally finds the secret door. Just when you do the player's dont get any xp for doing it.
My party was looking for a gnome who had gone missing. So we went to his house and I, the Ranger, went to his barn and asked his livestock what they knew, when they had last seen him, etc. DM afterwards said “I didn’t think to prep ‘what do the horse and cow know?” Meanwhile, another person in my party went and asked a squirrel.
For making checks I honestly feel like Players should never ask to make a certain check the DM should ask them to make a check when they feel that they need to. That's not to say that the Players shouldn't ask questions and use what they're good at the help them, like saying Would this have been something I learn from my studies or would I know about any of those chemicals from knowing about an alchemist? However players should never say I would like to make an arcana check or something like that.
In the campaing I'm playing right now, there had been some murders near the hospital and some of the people locked up in the psychiatric wing, that had never suffered from hearing voices before, started hearing such voices telling them to do terrible things. Because we asked around in the tavern before going, we knew one of the dudes locked up there wasn't actually crazy, he was there for political reasons, so we knew we could trust him to tell us the truth if we promised to set him free. So i covered his face with a sack so the person responsible for the voices didn't recognize him as a patient from the psychiatric room and demanded the director of the hospital to gather all personeel in the same room and made them read a creepy poem symulating those voices. This way i kinda got us to bypass most of the investigation and find a Hag polymorfed into a half elf nurse to get some thralls and... human ingredients. Yes, I used the B99 I want it that way method.
Miss the Shadow of Drakenhiem campaign!! Can't wait to have it back 😊
Timestamp 14:45: THIS! The DM is eyes and ears of the players' characters.
I have several experiences from one game, where players found the clue, understood it properly (player of stupid barbarian) and he simply did not tell till end of session (or even longer) because he did not want to metagame to use knowledge his character did not have. How to deal with that?
I’m buying a laptop to play from Skype up North of Canada 🇨🇦 while there in the south of Canada I can be there every two weeks but I will always be playing
Thank you for doing these videos, Dudes, they are fun, informative and well made :D
Ooo, the puzzles in candle hold was fun and the DM did great at presenting the mystery. Through it was rather fun ending up one hitting a suit of amour without meaning too when discovering it was a construct without activating it. Plus the one who did it was a level 1 blood hunter. Lol.
I had a murder mystery going on behind another murder mystery. They solved the first one, but completely missed the second, until they just, directly engaged the situation with no regard for mystery at all. I loved it. There was a werewolf killing people in the woods, and someone else doing so in town. The townsfolk blamed the werewolf for both. The town murderer would break into the inn rooms, and kill them in the night, and dump them close to the edge of the woods. The town murderer tried and failed to break into the party's room one night, and when they tried again after the party had called the murders solved, they just opened the door in the night, and attacked the person.
Ah yes the fun of the unkown where your players will do anything except probally what you want them to do.
A lot of great tips here for how to mechancilly engage and reward creativity of your players.
If i ever had a perfect example of how to not make things too complex it could possibly be scooby doo.
Those mysterious were not complex yet fun and entertaining, so i would have to say pick your style of silly fun all the way to film noir there is a lot inbetween but if you set the tone your players will pick up on it and follow suit.
How dare you suggest that the murder of the fishmonger's wife wouldn't be investigated. Surely, there's a monk in the abbey who can solve it with his knowledge of plants.
One of the best things I ever ran involved a rogue investigator nat 20 like ten times to track someone across town, disguise as a trash bag to watch their house, break in, befriend the dog, kidnap the dog, uncover the culprit and run back home without meeting any guards. Then the rest of the party wrapped it up in the morning
It's also interesting when you have to investigate without giving yourself away. I was playing a gnoll paladin of justice that was under that constraint, and the fact that she was a gnoll in a town already made her more conspicuious, and I had to hide the fact that I was a paladin because the church of the town was very much like the early Catholic church, and I was not a paladin of that church.
DM being too invested in the epic ending that is planned, leads to railroading. Have different endings. Have a great chase thought out or a battle planned, what epic thing happens when they bring in the guard. Instead of oh the guards dont believe you and your on your on. Railroading is largely due to under-preparation by the DM
It seems a contradiction to the “don’t make red herrings” advice to say have a character be be “wrong in their testimony with actually lying”. I get why you would want to add mistaken testimonies in a mystery but this can absolutely be a red herring.
So my first muster mystery is actually going to be a False Hydra. If you don’t know, it signs a song and anyone who hears it will never ever notice it when it comes to the surface to feed. Once it attacks it stop singing and people can see it, but once it disappears and starts singing again, people completely forget that it was ever there. But the people it takes are still missing so everyone around that person creates a reason as to why they are gone. So many ways of creating a great mystery lol