D&D Story: The Unsolvable Murder Mystery

The video is actually 3 stories, but they won't all fit in the title. The first is from a Dungeons and Dragons game where we couldn't figure out the mystery. The second story is from Call of Cthulhu RPG where the exact opposite happened. The last story is from the board game Scotland Yard
Music and Sound Credits:
Thunderclap SFX, Rain Heavy Loud, and Church Bell Celebration(Sting) from the KZbin audio library
Dark Hallway by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
The Halloween Dawn by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: www.twinmusicom.org/song/248/t...
Artist: www.twinmusicom.org
Down With That by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Artist: www.twinmusicom.org/
Cartoon Bank Heist from the KZbin audio library
Sugar Zone from the KZbin audio library

[@clockworkkid99]

My best friend once said, "DM-ing is weird. You start with your idea of a plan, and watch in horror as the PC's immediately dismantle it." He's never been proven wrong.

[@tsunamiscientist568]

I'm Board i usually use character motivation, a useful tool in a DM toolbox. It helps.

[@lanikafullbuster6154]

lmao they should meet our 3 people team. So, I (the sorc) was about to be executed in like 6 hours and the dm had planned like a massive thing with lots of people, then the new dude (rouge) was sleeping while the ranger brainstorms and then the rouge at last hour or so went hey how about we break in, bust the sorc out and kill everyone?. that happened. that actually happened lol

[@Orois]

I'm Board I prefer having a bunch of events going on in the background that have consequences regardless of whether the PCs interact with them or not. Also helps make the world feel more alive and dynamic.

[@StarshadowMelody]

Playing D&D is weird. You start with the notion you're playing entirely to your DM's plan, and watch in horror as you accidentally and immediately dismantle it instead.

[@Navy735]

I have always have a backup plan and have managed to put my players in a bad position by having multiple layers to a problem. I have even forced a high level party to scavenge by separating them from their equipment.

[@lynxfirenze4994]

They were smiling. In Call of Cthulhu. Naturally there was something up :P

[@troodon1096]

Never trust happy people in Call of Cthulu. They are ALWAYS up to something. (Or possibly just oblivious.)

[@swaghauler8334]

@@troodon1096 Or low on SAN?

[@Sabre_Levitas]

Also, never trust people who wave at you without knowing you. Why so mutch effort. It's so suspicious...

[@icyskelly204]

Hey have you heard the good word of ghffyjvcrjbdsrungfjbg the ythbfdrugsghfdbbgf

[@creditsunknown7974]

*They qere siniling in 1920 chicage and they werent drunk.

[@ShadyDoorags]

A funny thing your DM could've done is had everyone suspect your party because you guys constantly and openly acted like a murder was going to happen.

[@alanzilou2905]

4 years late but unfortunately the swirly glasses dm is a very unfun person according to the videos lol

[@coranbaker6401]

That's only assuming they made all those jokes in-character

[@FormerlyknownasCJTVStation8]

Well I was not expecting @Shady Doorags to be commenting on Ben's video. A nice bonus!

[@warlick752]

The only murder mystery campaign I ever took part in ended with us killing two innocent government officials, allowing the actual murderer to escape, and we also burned down half the city.

[@hugofontes5708]

classic detective D&D campaign

[@beauvillamor621]

.....Care to elaborate on that story?

[@warlick752]

Beau Villamor Sure. Basically it was a L5R game and our party was looking for a serial killer who was killing geishas (hope I spelled that right). The emerald magistrate tasked with helping us pointed us to the city's most powerful political figure who we'll call judge and he in turn pointed us to the brothel were all the dead geishas worked. We talked with one named lily who convinced us that the judge had something to do with this and his sons also favorited this brothel. So we went to confront him and when we arrived it seemed the emerald magistrate was working with him. A fight commenced in which we killed the judge, the magistrate escaped, and we some how set the house on fire. Without putting out the fire we raced after the emerald magistrate and killed him as soon as we saw him. Unfortunately with half the town now destroyed and with lily missing we had no one to back up our story so we fled and on our journeys we learned that lily was the actual murderer, she was possessed by a demon, and that emerald magistrate we killed was a jade magistrate. So in the end we were duped by the actual murderer into killing the people who were onto her and in the process accidentally burned down half the city because the fire we left after the battle with the judge spread rapidly and out of control.

[@Condorito380]

"WE were the murderers this whole time!" "Well, yeah, MurderFornicatros the Bloodied."

[@nobody-pr7fg]

christopher warlick my kinda guys

[@SuperCaleb283]

Dick Tracy figured you out for the same reason you figured the murder mystery out. If the GM significantly increases the level of detail in descriptions, that's a clue that something special is happening. A good way to avoid this is to make a habit of randomly increasing detail. If weather clues people in, have weather be an actually circumstantial thing in your game. If smiles clue people in, you're probably not being very descriptive with your other NPCs and should talk about their behavior and expressions more to mask the special ones.

[@Konpekikaminari]

SuperCaleb283 true I figured out an entire, city wide conspiracy because the DM said the guard captain was "sweaty"

[@thewanderingmistnull2451]

No, sometimes you're just lucky.

[@ToastyMozart]

The Law of Conservation of Detail isn't just for video games and animation, after all.

[@Rose-ew7bv]

SuperCaleb283 it wouldn't give dick tracy too much credit his main skill was talking about America and somehow convenccing people he was great while his partner Justin case robbed them. It's in a collab he did with someone else look it up

[@claudiuspulcher2440]

or he read the module

[@nomis993]

Another way of breaking the investigation happened to my group. We were hunting down a serial killer, who had an habit of carving poems in the alleyways of the town. The madman had already tried to murder one of us. So we would bait him out with the would-be victim (a warrior) while secretly following our man. When he'd trie something we would then step out to arrest him. Our first encounter of the night literally went like this: (Dm): While walking along the roads of the burg, you hear a scratching sound coming from one alley. Wearing a cape, a man is carving a message and appears to b... (The Warrior): I charge him and stab him with my blade ! (Dm): Hum okk... (the Guard who was following) Try to use no lethal damage, we need him alive to interrogate and trial him. (Me Playing a mage) Or at least wrestle the guy so he doesn’t get away. (The Warrior): Hell No ! I stab to kill ! The Warrior use all the buffs he can to make his attack has damaging has possible, rolls a crit, doing around 35 damage in a single strike. (Dm) The young man is cleaved in half by the force of your blow. Upon taking a second glance on his mangled corpse it become evident he’s a young boy carving a graffiti. Not the man you seek. The inscription on the wall reads « Yo mama is fat » (The Warrior) Oh… shit. (The Guard) Uh... well sir you are under arrest. So when trying to solve a murder try not to become a murderer yourself :P In the end we caught the killer, about 2 hours later, though our warrior is still in prison, and it looks like he’s gonna share the gallows.

[@Nyghtking]

Yeah thats sort of thing happened all the time with the group I play with in a star wars game, at some point we would all just become murder hobos and start killing everyone even though we were suppose to be the good guys. Really hard to rationalize catching a rebel leader when you're the guy who lines up all his friends and shoots them all in the back of the head after torturing them for information.

[@Lorgar64]

Everyone told him to take this man he can't even see down non-lethally, and he decided to make bolognese. He deserves a good hanging, and maybe the next character won't be so gung ho! If characters make dumb decisions and you save them, that's how you get a mary sue/gary stu. When you can do whatever you like and it always works out well anyway, that breeds a horrific character. That is why the git must hang.

[@bakaichigo]

This is why we refer to ourselves (in my friends/group) as 'murder-hobos'. Homeless murderers who end up inevitably slaughtering random NPCs in the course of 'do-gooding' and adventuring. :D

[@buttsmcgee50]

Most of you sound like terrible players. Terrible players that my DM would rip to shreds for playing that way.

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

Now I'm imagining a serial killer leaving notes saying "ur mom gay"

[@sgste]

I was hosting a murder mystery one shot for a bunch of new players, and struggled to think about the murderer due to the tropes, as you stated... Until I came across the great idea of picking someone the PC's would be the last to suspect... ... ANOTHER PC! My wife was playing in order to help people and be an example of how to play, so I told her the villains scheme and had her join the PC's in order to destroy evidence as they went along. It worked SO WELL! :D

[@bonkman64]

You broke Rule 4. And I quote: "4. The detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It's false pretenses." (S.S. Van Dine)

[@sgste]

Hmm - and yet it worked so well in Heavy Rain. True, my players felt betrayed and hurt, but the clues were all there and when they looked back, they saw how it made sense. They still enjoyed it, and it worked out. So, sorry to Mr Van Dine, but his rules are outdated. In a world filled with every murder mystery trope imaginable, his rule is the only option left (which has already been done to death through the 'unreliable narrator' trope).

[@blarg2429]

It didn't work out that well in Heavy Rain either. I don't have a side in this debate (if it can be called that), but I consider it a hobby of mine to ensure that all and sundry are informed of the following: David Cage, creator of Heavy Rain and a number of other titles, is an *utter hack.* There's no two ways about it. If anyone's interested in hearing my reasoning, I can give it; if not, we can leave it at that.

[@DetectiveNyx]

Okay, it didn't work out well in Heavy Rain, but it *did* work out well in the Danganronpa series. Because everyone has to investigate, everyone has to debate, everyone has to work together to get to the truth - and it's a closed circle, so nobody from the outside world could do it. Besides, the "rule" Bonkman provided is not really a rule - they're tropes, and considering they're over 100 year old tropes, they've become predictable, clichés even. If you break the trope and do have a detective be a culprit, players can no longer rely on it - anybody is a suspect. If your argument is "Okay, but what's the chances of the main character doing it" - they did that too in the first chapter of the third game. The first culprit was determined to be the main character - and it was done in such a way you didn't know it until it was too late.

[@Schregger]

David Cage being a Hack, completely agreed. I feel he is also full of himself. as for the discussion of having a PC (or detective) as the bad guy, I feel its been done before. and done well. Van Dine was writing back in the early 1900s, different time from now. Not everything stands the test of time, and I think more than a few of his rules are extremely outdated. Are they still viable, sure, but one should use them as a general guideline or suggestions, not commandments.

[@Bobvanksy]

We pissed off our GM like this. There was this one quest having us fetch a mace in some old burial ground/ dungeon. We reach a room with said mace resting on a pedestal surrounded by corpses. GM: As you reach out t... US: Oh hoho, hell no. *Proceeds to chop bodies into pieces and soak in lamp oil* Us: You were saying?

[@Choomy8542]

BobvanKay I would be so proud of my players if they did that

[@YouSunkMyFishy]

Seriously, I would kill for players like you. I did everything except put a sign that said "this is a trap" on a huge trap -- even a couple of the players were like "this is a trap, guys!" They then walked into the trap and got destroyed. One player said "we should leave" 3 times before having their (chaotic) character ditch the party, and the barbarian only survived because of some intense saves and quick thinking to survive a collapsing building. They were legitimately let in the front door by the guards, then escorted to an old man who was clearly reading from a script as the guards left the building. The only thing they couldn't have known was that I made an unexpected trigger for the trap. Old man even gave them the options of "leave now, or only death awaits!" Afterwards, one of my players just told me "I'm sorry we're retarded, we really shouldn't have died there." But I guess that's what happens when they themselves have asked me to not flub things for them.

[@eschatological]

That's just good strategy.

[@Ian-bf4yk]

I feel like my Dm got mad because I just summoned a hand to open every chest and door in case it was trapped

[@jabber9594]

Hah. This is why I prefer ghosts. And hate clerics.

[@TheBigBadForumTroll]

I have a feeling you are very easy to read, like telling your PCs they are meeting a totally inocent happy smiling kind person that seem to be up too absolutly nothing while laughing/smirking evily.

[@danielgehring7437]

I've always thought it would be fun to play D&D with Joss Whedon. Just invite the first teenage girl you meet into the party and wait for her to cuisinart the bad guys.

[@Elyanley]

Eh, not necessarily. Sometimes players can just guess mysteries. To other medias, other games or just pure luck. Happened to me as a player a couple of times. Blurt something out as a joke, find out I actually got it right, feel guilty for ruining GMs fun. Certainly made me more cautious afterwards ^^" Though yeah, he could have been very obvious, without being there, we won't ever know xp

[@Lyze]

In the player's defense, this is Call of Cthulhu. Someone smiling is suspicious. If I had been playing I would have turned around and took the two canisters of gasoline I always kept in the trunk and burned the hospital down immediately.

[@alexzander7629]

Nothing solves evil possession like fire and a 6ft deep hole to bury the evidence

[@camerondoyle4337]

A sort-of way to circumvent this is to literally make the criminals/characters known. I was running a campaign and I had the greasiest, slickest dark-elf/tiefling running a jewelry store in the town. The players even made investigation/insight checks to find most of the jewels were overpriced/fake. In the evening, thinking this guy was obviously a bad dude, came back to the store and then proceeded to butcher him while he tried to flee. Afterwards, the town guard came, beat the snot out of the players for killing this "bad-guy" then took them away. Little did the players know, this dark-elf/tiefling was actually a confidential informant for the baroness of the land. In exchange for some criminal leeway, the jeweler would keep an eye on the underbelly of the town and report to the baroness. I also made it that the captain of the guard was totally boning the baroness and nobody knew about it (probably would have ended in blackmail), but the players never got that far. Layers on layers, my dude.

[@Holydragonblade]

Personally, I don't always even come up with the whole mystery before starting a mystery. My players are always very vocal about their thoughts/ideas (and honestly way more "mystery creative" than me), so I provide the scene, listen to their ideas as they try to figure things out, and adjust my plans to incorporate (or specifically not incorporate) parts of their ideas. It actually works out surprisingly well.

[@alexzander7629]

I do a similar thing. 4+ people are way more creative then just 1

[@Konpekikaminari]

Holydragonblade of course it would. They can figure out a plan that doesn't exist. I gotta say, leaving a mystery open and unwtitten like that is a pretty good way of doing mystery

[@owlgal1111]

That's actually the way your supposed to do it. I must say, I don't think I even do it correctly, I do always set out multiple paths though and see which pieces of evidence my PCs Find, then I pick a path and remove unnecessary items.

[@rgthjdrtyjrtyjdrtyjr]

100% agree.

[@grazillx964]

DM (me) "you see a young woman washing washing clothes in a stream". Player "she's a witch" DM "she looks startled as you approach" Player "oh yeah, she is definitely a witch, and she probably has witch sisters back home" like "oh, we would love to have dinner with you and your sisters". So when the witches did change and attack it was like a kid opening Christmas when he already peaked. We had a good laugh about it.

[@kingcole5977]

There's a much easier method of checking for witches: Witches burn because they're made out of wood. Wood floats on water. Ducks also float on water. Therefore, if she weighs the same as a duck... She's a witch!!!

[@TheTommiiTooWss]

Fucking Monty Python

[@kingcole5977]

I can't tell if DND campaigns "devolve" or "evolve" into Monty Python sketches.

[@kemopypes4567]

Samuel, I think you are looking for the word transend

[@Nionivek]

You would think stories of Witches would let people be a LITTLE genre Savvy without metagaming. I mean how many "Woman in the woods is actually EVIL!" stories do we need before people learn?

[@Lorgar64]

Cleric: "I cast zone of truth!" DM: "Well, mystery over I guess."

[@kaldo_kaldo]

"I plead the fifth"

[@BlackValleyRequiem]

Exquisitely thought out and perfectly excited murder mystery in DnD > "I cast Zone of Truth!"

[@hugofontes5708]

"I don't remember" should do

[@BlackValleyRequiem]

Hugo Fontes but unless they legitimately don't remember that's a lie and can't be uttered in zone of Truth provided they fail the Charisma save

[@Darca1n]

BlackValleyRequiem isn't there lie by omission though?

[@BlackValleyRequiem]

Darca1n There is. Over all its a spell whos mileage will vary wildly from dm to dm

[@rhyzvanic3660]

The DM retaliates by having every NPC who enters the zone of truth explain that they dislike the such vile invasion of their privacy, and the zone of truth lights green confirming that they are all far too uncomfortable to answer in any meaningful manner while under the zone of truth.

[@Jerickjv]

I remember running a game where the players charted passage on a ship and me being the inventive DM I went and decided to do a little murder mystery during the voyage. The players boarded the ship and got to meet the colourful cast of the ship's crew as it sailed. Then during the night, the watchman would get torn to pieces revealing that there was some kind of were-creature aboard. One of the crew (or one of the party) was secretly a monster and everyone was stuck out at sea miles from land. It was to be a tense little adventure as people on the ship were picked off one by one as the players drew closer to finding the creature. Five seconds from them finding the body-"I detect evil! This is a small sloop and there is no way this thing isn't evil," I had forgotten they could do that and the mystery was torn apart by a bunch of well-chosen cleric and wizard spells that let them find the creature contain it and kill it before it could really do anything. I was too used to combat only parties and wasn't prepared for the slew of detection they had wisely brought with them. Still it was fun for the players and chance for them to use some less used abilities.

[@ItsCamille735]

I once ran a modern day vampire campaign but for the first two sessions two out of the three players had no idea and thought it was just a kind of police procedural. The third player was a kind of Van Helsing type character so they knew vampires existed. The moment where the players saw their burst vampire was one of my favourite moments as a Dm and I’ve never been able to pull off a twist like that again.

[@KryssLaBryn]

Ha ha, we did an Airsoft scenario where one player on Team A was secretly working for Team B. The goal was for them to sneak over to a certain part of the multi-room base and hit a button (sounded an alarm, represented blowing up the base) to give Team B the win; Team A's win was to stop them. Team A knew this, but not who the double agent was. So what do they do? SPLIT UP INTO TEAMS OF TWO to defend the base. The double agent ended up in the same area as the button. Waited until his partner's back was turned, shot him, hit the button. Game over in about thirty seconds. XD His partner figured he was safe because he had been deceived into thinking it could not *possibly* be this guy, ha ha. Oh, man. Teams of three, my dudes. ALWAYS teams of three.

[@lj-wp3sf]

One of the genuine Team A's should've shot all of his teammates. Since the only win factor is the button isn't pressed, easy win

[@sceerane8662]

lawson carpenter Simple fix, Intentional friendly fire means you get punished.

[@lj-wp3sf]

@@sceerane8662 Fair enough

[@JackPhoenixCz]

@@lj-wp3sf of course, then he has to face whole team B (minus the traitor) alone. And the moment he starts shooting his teammates, they'll assume HE is the traitor and attack him. It's pretty stupid plan.

[@KyloXsogi]

Because who wouldn’t want a sweet double kill before hitting the button…

[@fhuber7507]

Was being tested on how to deal with shipboard propulsion plant "casualties" (things breaking) Real world Navy testing for power plant operator qualifications. Every time they described where I was standing then the alarm, I said I looked at 1 or 2 indicators, then went straight to the problem. What was supposed to be a 3 hour grilling on how to deal with the most unlikely problems possible I finished in 15 minutes. When I appeared in the sleeping quarters so fast everyone was trying to say sympathetic stuff about "nobody passes the first time." I had "broken" their testing plan.

[@lucapiemonti3584]

Once, during a long D&D game, me and the part had to prove ouselves to a sort of demigod (that particular game had miracles considered as "good magic" more than "divine", thus religion was never actually developed in any way). He had already witnessed the party's combat skill in fighting just about any foe, from ogre warlords to devils that were banished from Hell, and still wasn't satisfied. He told us that one of his paladins had been slain in a nearby temple and, while he already knew who was the killer, demanded us to investigate to evaluate our "brain usage skills". It took almost 10 hours, divided in 4 different sessions, to find the culprit. And i, the warlock, armed with a 20 in charisma and a number of magical social-enhancing items & potios, did all the job. The killer (DM) had excecuted a plan so fucking absurdly convoluted, i actually had to write down testimonies and facts, do detective work, look for footprints, understand how and when the kill happened (the body was moved into a crypt after it was found, and moved before from it's original location by the killer) and a fuckload of other stuff. I then indicted a trial to start and presented my case and evidence, had a priest imprisoned and subsequently executed after he was found guilty. He was the wrong and the demigod didn't want to help us anymore. I was then konwn all across the land as "Vinzent the blasphemous" due to my quite over the top verbal reaction at the revelation. On the plus side, i managed to roll a nat20 to threaten and became the only person ever that had scared a demigod into aiding the party antways. Holy shit isn't this a wall of text. Sorry for any spelling horrors, English isn't my native language.

[@thedemonslayer51]

So basically, you became Phoenix Wright and failed the case. Were you ever told who it was?

[@FurrySupportMain]

lol becomes Phoenix Wright but still loses how is that possible

[@HuskerHornet3145]

If the demigod knew the killer's identity, why did he not stop an innocent priest from being executed, either physically or by saying something? Is he not the kind of demigod who directly interferes with mortal affairs?

[@JackPhoenixCz]

@@HuskerHornet3145 The demigod was the real murderer, duh.

[@chrisschoenthaler5184]

Luca Piemonti If the “demigod” waited until *after* the innocent priest was executed before saying anything, then I definitely wouldn’t trust him at all.

[@synthetic240]

I'm not saying that D&D can't be used to run a murder mystery, because it can, but the system is not really designed for it and it takes a skilled DM to run it effectively. My axiom is "Players are *never* as clever as the DM thinks they are". 1st Corollary: "The DM is never as clever as he thinks he's being; in fact the clever DM is being vague and obtuse". 2nd Corollary: "The axiom holds true even if a DM becomes a Player." I think a big part of the problem is that D&D is, as I'm sure you've pointed out before, a power-fantasy game. Players tend to want to kill baddies and find treasure. The system is specifically designed to do just that. Drop the players in a setting where there is no obvious baddie and a bunch of people they cannot kill without severe consequence and they go batty. Add in social skill checks that all but (maybe) one character did not prioritize (good luck if there's no Bard or Paladin; or even a Sorcerer or Rogue that isn't a murder-machine), and they'll never get a hot clue. I had a DM that introduced a murder mystery and we had this exact problem. None of us were built to be social experts; we killed monsters. In the process of trying to investigate, we fell for every red herring the DM put in front of us because we had no way to tell reliably what information was true and what wasn't. A lot of innocent NPC were killed/severely beaten along the way. In the end, we confronted the wrong BBEG and damn near had a TPK. We were so frustrated as our inability to solve this murder (and having to reroll new characters in a few cases) that it ended up killing the game shortly thereafter. If I DM any sort of mystery or puzzle, I almost never include a red herring. Useless information, sure, but nothing that points specifically to an innocent character. Not unless that's part of the plot in the first place. I also make sure that players are given all the clues they need. Again, keeping my axiom in mind, I try to make the clues two steps towards screaming-the-obvious from how clever I think I'm being.... and still watch them struggle. I know that sounds like a humble-brag, but as DMs we need to be smart / clever to be able to run a game successfully.

[@SinerAthin]

I don't think you can ever build your character wrong for a mystery. You may lack the skills to succeed in most social skill checks or your character might be a fool to miss the obvious right in front of them, but most such barriers can be overcome through just clever play and fitting in-character excuses. For example: your group is separated, having left you alone while they are searching for the seneschal who's using the noble party to escape with the king's crown. Your character is dumb as a rock and a bit of a zealot; a high perception being one of the few good things going for him; and there's no way in hell you're going to beat the seneschal's deception rolls or succeed on any insight checks once he tries to sneak through the party even if you catch him. However, your character, as established earlier in the campaign, is a bit of a religious zealot, and an event/scene from earlier established the seneschal to be very religiously... open minded. This irks your character off to no end, however, so much so that when you see him, your character decides to escape his disastrous attempt at social mingling by religiously denouncing the seneschal on the spot and going on a complete and utter tirade, with the added effect that it completely blows his cover and reveals him to the rest of the party! There's a million and one ways to twist this, of course. The trick is to use disparate elements of the characters and story, some proper in-character justification combined with a touch of coincidence to enable characters to be useful in situations where their skills alone might not suggest they would be! Of course, to balance this, it's important to screw up from time to time in-character as well in order to balance it out :p

[@mega17]

Yeah, D&D isn't built for mystery. Good mysteries hinge are inflexible railroading while D&D is about finding a story with freedom of improv.

[@VuldarLeveL]

Synthetic I've added in a Indiana Jones style side quest to one of my stories. I figured I'd give them three puzzles, one childish and simple, one with a random element and one for which they needed some logic and a little information. Now they got the information rather quickly, mainly because our druid started to flirt with fledgeling dungeoneer they teamed up with, and they figured out the trick for the last puzzle quite quickly. The puzzle with the random element they managed to avoid the trap I'd set but the first puzzle stumped them for half an hour. The one that I put in to have three puzzles and took from a children's book of puzzles took my party of adults a half hour to solve. I had to have them roll to discover new clues, I had to come up with on the spot, just to have them solve it. Luckily we could all laugh about it but it just proves that puzzles like these can stump players in all different kinds of ways.

[@iyr0317]

Synthetic I

[@katherine2596]

I believe you shouldn't use skill-checks for solving mysteries, unless it's a very specific check to bypass a barrier, or to get extra clues on top of those already given just by careful examination of the environment.

[@MrCaterius]

Once my DM made a real life cipher that he put in areal notebook as an in game prop. My character asks for the notebook so i could look at it and less than two minutes later, I'm reading out the code that he apparently thought would take afew sessions not knowing that I've been interested in codes and code breaking since high school. I felt kinds bad. lol

[@bakaichigo]

See I find this shit hard as a PC. I analyze and figure things out too fast, especially where stories, plots, etc are concerned... It makes me an excellent academic and tutor, but makes trying NOT to meta-game hard. I'm forever reminding myself during games 'not to think/act/be me'. _I_ may have the skills to analyze and understand what's going on, but does my character?

[@BurningDogFace]

A friend of mine did this once, but the coded message in the actual, real-world prop was not, in fact, the in-game message, it was the lyrics to Never Gonna Give You Up. It worked perfectly, and I so, so wish I could have been there. XD

[@chrisschoenthaler5184]

BurningDogFace So, he was RICKROLLED in the real world? Wow. Props to that DM.

[@anex3611]

wait if you heard a scream that means he was killed not by poison so... that's why you could not figure it out because someone up poison even if it was not what he was killed by

[@SirTeepo]

True! Though he didn't specify if the scream was from the victim or someone discovering the body.

[@proto303]

i'm pretty sure that in dnd there are poisons that can burn out someones body from the inside out, which would be scream inducing in the least

[@DatBrasss]

I thought the scream was from whoever found his body

[@Atamosk-bu7zt]

@@proto303 that's called ACID, not poision.

[@returnofthechickentendies2844]

@@Atamosk-bu7zt he said "DnD"

[@Xgckl]

Protip: Don't try to murder someone. You will get caught instantly.

[@danielgehring7437]

That's kind of a lot of the problem with the whole premise. Once the orc barbarian with a glowing axe and his friend the wizard with his own pet dragon walk onto the scene, suddenly a candlestick in the billiards room doesn't seem so optimal. Although on the plus side it's a lot easier to get that dramatic flash of lightning when one of you can literally control the weather.

[@Nextontheline]

Unless you roll really well

[@becknewman2263]

Or if you use there own Eldridge blast against them after donating all 4 million gp to a random church we found and used an arrow to deflect it in an act of luck and money that also starts the rapture at the same time :)

[@kaarpiv375]

Bounty of 1600 gold added to havestfall.

[@barrybend7189]

That's why every game I play with my friends we do a serious but comedic game. As in we joke around as our characters and the GM plays around our comedic banter and actions so none of this happens in game often.

[@remorsefulidiot4326]

Yeah, it became apparent what kind of games we were gunna be playing when our characters tortured a goblin to death, then took its head into town and ended up using it as a weapon

[@barrybend7189]

@@remorsefulidiot4326 we never went that far for no reason.

[@remorsefulidiot4326]

Barry Bend in this case we were really just testing out our GM. As it turned out we did end up using the poor goblins head later in the campaign

[@gamingstupid]

Barry Bend lol my character once thought a sword was a big flying dick

[@l_king6594]

Hey Puffin i just found ya like 3 days ago but i just love your channel!

[@kostakoffe1167]

Me tooooooooooo!!!!!!! :D

[@CedrickTheHun]

Hey Puffin i just found ya like 3 days ago but i just love your channel!

[@amiserable]

Hey Puffin, I found your channel - like uh 3 months ago.but I just LOVE yhour channel. start making a podcast so I can download it and listen to it on the way to work. Seriously, get on that. like right now.

[@juicejumper]

Same here

[@ninjacrobat350]

Same thing happened to me watched all his videos in a few hours

[@ChibiRuah]

Good mysteries are hard to craft because players have such different backgrounds and pick up on different things. So hitting the sweet spot of “aaaa that is interesting” that is between “Omg da just let me move on” and “Omg just spam anything to move forward”. Because of that I try to be forgive if I have a few poor experiences

[@anthonymarte1503]

Talk about ruining a good mystery, I've always want to write one but I fear this may happen to me. Any suggestion on making a good mystery.

[@phill3684]

Anthony Marte Know youre players. If you know them well you can sort of predict what they will do and you can set up things beforehand. Also do not rely on just one plan, always make one or two backups that would make sense to counter situations like the second story in this video.

[@silverhawk1045]

Do something thats not obvious. A good mystery is the one that isnt cliche.

[@danielo.6750]

Anthony Marte make a decoy villain, or two. Several people who benefit from the murder/plot hook. Also. Make the actual villain someone who logically would benefit, but it isn't explicitly stated. Perhaps the janitor just hated the noble, and the son gets an inheritance, but it turns out in the end his wife caught him cheating. Buuuut, that's just my ideas. Never seen if they work since my players usually just stab everyone and leave. *Sigh* letting them be all chaotic was a bad idea. Also don't do that.

[@phill3684]

daniel ortlepp You should pretty much always have a lawfull good party for a murder mystery. If you don't they could just torture the information out of the NPCs whitch is just no fun

[@LetsPlayCrazy]

Dont feed into tropes. The butler might SEEM like hes just too friendly to be true... but hes just a nice guy not the murderer! The guy who helped you, just wanted to help and didnt want to "deceive you from the beginning" Sometimes, making the plot TOO obvious and leading them on the hunt for a non existent ghost because you feed into certain tropes is WAY more fun :D

[@GothMoth__]

The players in my campaign have turned the villains of the game into a mystery even though the villains don't at all hide that their the bad guys. They keep getting involved in the villains plans and then instantly leaving before they can actually even meet the bad guy. When something bad does finally happen they wonder who did it and then don't investigate beyond wondering who did it.

[@patrickwinfield8493]

Similar thing happened in a mates only war session. He had both of his big surprises ruined by our insanely high rolls. One was the fact that a sniper was watching us, which our ratling (copyright friendly halfling) sniper got 7 degrees of success on an awareness check, this lead to the sniper being discovered and before she could react got her head blown off (later we found out the GM doubled her wounds but this was still not enough to keep her alive) the intention was that the sniper was to remain hidden and then insta kill one of our party members (GM enjoys killing players off) with a Tau rail rifle. Next surprise we ruined was that there was this leader of the rebel group we had to put down and he had a bionic arm, our GM always emphasised how big a deal this arm was, we destroyed this guy in shooting, the GM doubled his armour bonus and said that we had killed him almost 8 times before he finally let the poor guy die, by this point the guys face had been melted off several times reducing his fellowship (similar to charisma) stat down to 0, he was blind as his eyes melted from the melting of his face and he was also missing his right kneecap. (Only war crit tables are just the best XD) the worst thing was, we never targeted his right arm, the whole point was after taking a hit to the arm it was meant to fall off and a large black chaos tentacle was meant to take its place and be an absolute beast in close combat, except this never happened! XD

[@davankrueger1725]

So no one had damage spread hit the arm

[@davankrueger1725]

Not blast but on full auto weapons let's say you hit right arm it goes to torso then left arm then chest again

[@patrickwinfield8493]

@@davankrueger1725 none of us had full auto weapons, mostly it was laspistols, long las rifles and that was about it. At regiment creation we thought it’d be cool to make a scouting/recon regiment so we all had long las rifles. If we got into close quarters fighting we just drew pistols and used grenades. We also has a few psykers and an ogryn that spiced things up as well but we had split the group so they weren’t there when it happened.

[@davankrueger1725]

@@patrickwinfield8493 fair enough

[@lynxdosage8303]

I love watching these videos. Even though I don't play D&D

[@danielgehring7437]

You should give it a try, it's fun.

[@lynxdosage8303]

Daniel Gehring I play Warhammer 40k which is already an expensive hobby

[@danielgehring7437]

Harryninja69 Wizards of the Coast (wizards.com) has a version available for free, as well as other goodies geared specifically for new players; ask for it from your local hobby shop. It's pretty sparse and will soon have it's intended effect of making you want more, but you can spend as little as you like. Or try one of the freeware rules sets out there as print on demand, there's dozens and might cost $2 or so at most. It's cool if you don't want to do it, but cost isn't much of a factor at all if that's the only thing holding you back. Even if you bought every supplement they're good for life.

[@Tigercup9]

I love watching these videos _because_ I don’t play D&D, I’m thinking about getting into it but I know that if I try to get into it by playing a game I’ll get bored with character creation and all the explaining. Trying to learn it through KZbin beforehand.

[@lynxdosage8303]

thanks but I'm busy with school at the moment so I don't have much free time as I am mostly studying

[@MrLordDarlington]

NEVER plan for your characters to figure something out, or not figure something out, when you do a mystery like this, be prepared to roll with the punches, and improvise. If they figure it out unexpectedly early, have a change of pace, have the villain summon a demon, or signal assassins that he had hired and hidden while he tries to make his escape. DMing a tabletop game is not some super concrete thing, you need to be able to adapt to the actions of the players, because they will literally always surprise you.

[@dynamicworlds1]

There's a very simple answer to this: don't plan. Make a world where conflict (the thing that drives plot), drop the players in, control the pacing with narration, and watch the story make itself.

[@santiagogs15]

has any of your players ever made an army of exploding kamikaze donkeys?, if not, you've been not surprised enough, and yes the feats were legal, lesson learned narrow it down to only a few sourcebooks, if ay sourcebooks at all and be clear about it from the start, no more Book of the nine swords nor book of exalted deeds anti-climatic broken shenanigans, although the donkeys came from other darker place -.-.

[@SilvrSavior]

santiagogs15 if you talk about 3.5 then you can just have core and have a variety of busted magic spells.

[@kharnthebetrayer8251]

Best way to avoid players getting everything from the tropes. Show them the tropes, make it seem super obvious, then never go to the conclusion. Spooky manor, during a thunderstorm, lots of servants, party, a lot of the guests seem disgruntled. It's a lovely party, you spend the night, and go home in the morning. Have a super helpful character at the beginning, and have them always be helpful. Have a guy called Trusty McCoolGuy, and have him be an actually really helpful and trustworthy character, etc.

[@Tyrranis]

On that vein, the "Distressed woman on the street" doesn't have to lead to a kidnapped son. She could just be a melodramatic kind of person, upset over the fact that the bakery just ran out of her favourite snack, or she just ate and/or drank something hallucinogenic and she's tripping balls.

[@benholley4621]

+tyrranis or do what I did and have her an assassin hired to get your group killed. I nearly caused a TPK with that one

[@christianali5431]

You are boring.

[@martijnbouman8874]

A friend told me that the Paladin in his party once solved a murder mystery by simply casting Detect Evil.

[@APoetByAnyOtherName]

Yeah detect alignment was a broke ass spell, that's why they changed it to detect undead/infernal/celestial in 5th edition. Alignment in general is a kinda old relic of an idea that honestly you don't need to bother with.

[@almightyk11]

Good characters can do bad things, and not every evil character is a murderer

[@MonkeyJedi99]

@@APoetByAnyOtherName I run in Rolemaster, where paladins get "Detect Enemies" instead of (old) D&D's Detect Evil. This also ties in to how all religions, even the evil ones, can have paladins.

[@djsyntic]

For the Murder Mystery style plot where the players might say within 2 seconds 'Oh it was so and so' just because they know troupes, one of the things you can do without cheating is simply remind them that while they might suspect that person of doing it they still need evidence if they themselves don't want to come off as the bad guys. IE: DM: You encounter a young women... Player: She's the witch that drained the life of the count. DM: That may or may not be true, but I would like to remind you even if you are right and you run her through now nobody else suspects her so you would just be a murderer in their eyes. You need proof. And if you just start roughing her up to get her to confess, people will just see it as a forced confession and not believe it. You need to actually have some convincing evidence. And if they complain about that, just remind them that they are playing a Roleplaying game and that sure they could try to skip right to the end of a storyline, all they really are doing is hurting the game you guys are suppose to be playing. It's perfectly fine to have a suspect early on and be entirely sure of yourself the entire time. But trying to force the confrontation at the start of the game does nobody a service.

[@joahnaut]

Happened in a Shadow Run game. We figured out the Police had set up the entire thing to start a gang war within the first hour of playing.

[@johnlocke9108]

Ever since you popped up in my recommended feed a few days ago I've been addicted to your content. The RPG stories are so relatable.

[@Veloceipro]

Your videos are unbelievably accurate, absolutely love them. Keep it up.

[@danielbutler5093]

You're animation is so good man, the facial expressions just kill me. Thanks for the content!

[@charlesdexterward7781]

I've been following Puffin for months and he had about 300 followers. Now a month later he's got (a well-deserved) 25K. Who gave him a shout-out?

[@Error0101]

Charles Dexter Ward The KZbin algorithm.

[@bobcatgaze]

Utoobz did the thing again.

[@merrickmiller1224]

It was in my suggested videos feed

[@Atheismo9760]

I think the critical role animation did it. That's how i found him about a month ago.

[@TtheWriter]

He did a "Channel Invasion" with me (10k subs) and then he was mentioned in a popular video by another lady that has around 68k subs... and the clip was of his "Critical Roll" animation, which was already very popular. His subs exploded in the meantime over the course of about two weeks. :)

[@Nechrostriker4]

Gotta say, since hearing your Call of Cthulhu stories from here and Dingo, you've inspired me to start playing the game 😁 thank you for the great content as always, man!

[@gaiarailink]

I had a similar reveal thing happen during my campaign where after a narrative party wipe (kinda), I let the players resurrect a single fallen ally. what I didn't tell them was that the bodies were just synthetic duplicates of their characters and not even the resurrected character would know. everyone was in the dark as planned and I was setting up for the reveal a few sessions later until the party's wizard fumbled a fireball and killed the replica, revealing him to be a robot... before I could... my job as a DM got a lot harder after that.

[@kloviskaroshi931]

That Dick Tracey dude is probably related to Harry Dresden in some way, shape or form.

[@machinaledon1043]

Klovis Karoshi Love that series.

[@river7874]

POLKA WILL NEVER DIE!

[@seb24789]

"Worlds Greatest Detective" eh? He´s Batman!

[@42ndguardian]

So you're saying he just used the Sight? But that would cause him some serious sanity damage from looking at an eldritch horror like that.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Atleast he is not related to Detective Detective Savage "Savage Rage" Rage.

[@Davefacestation]

but.. but.. who killed the noble?!

[@justiciar1964]

You did it!

[@yodasgirl4280]

Dramatic music

[@lukesick1]

David Macarthur Cthulhu did it

[@MrDUneven]

And with a chicken!

[@DetectiveNyx]

the maid did it, no post on sundays

[@Elyanley]

Murder Mysteries, currently my GM-Bane. In my Persona Game the Players have a Detective Agency, so I started a mystery about a Murderer targetting children. It was actually very easy, very straightforward, what you see is what you get. For one though, one player was not even doing the basic investigating. Kinda like Bens character here, just he didn't even ask any NPC around the Murdersite a question. He went off the side, basically asked a random dude about it, I felt nice and still give a bit of a few clues and told the other characters: No, found nothing out. ... >.> We had during the time some player changes too.. so that made it extra difficult. I basically gave them a new starting point once the newest and last new Player came in.. Later on she told me they talked out of character, got the solution and dismissed it for being to simple. Instead one player went off on a goose chase that could not work in Universe logic (Shadow did it, they had too. Except they can't physical murder anyone but you know.. They just eat Souls.) The other player tried to spread herself thin on wanting to do to much at onces and the last one.. decided to investigate more and more and deciding the solution in front of her was still to simple ^^" I worked it out in kinda spelling the solution out in a Dungeon to them, so they still had to trap the Murder and later in the court was a Phoenix Wright kinda showdown with the Lawyer they hired, and of course people being attacked by the murder. I remember it both fondly and full with annoyance ^^" We made it work in the end, but the way till then was painful and hard and awkward from both sides, GM and Player.

[@ipsonfromkijetstudios]

This is my first time watching your channel... ITS HILARIOUS! Great job!

[@qsquared8833]

So, Ben, I have got to know... when you later pressed the GM for the answer to the murder mystery, what did he say was the real solution to the question? Who had killed the lord?

[@Grizzdrop]

I would love to know this too! Right off though had I run that particular session I would have killed the butler or maid first to confuse the trope lovers 😊

[@therealjoshT]

My first time as a DM I had a murder mystery involving lycanthropes. It actually went really well, and they had no idea who the killer was until the end. "Murder mysteries" can work, but you need some red herrings, and you need to really sell them! I actually had a PC convinced that he was the killer.

[@fredericodargel7391]

Hey, i'm new here. As a newb GM i'm running a shadowrun campaing... Things were just like yours CoC. For a few games The news was broadcasting a warning because some serial killer which kills only virgin girl, at night on a full moon - cliche, i know, but we dig this kind of stuff. I was preparing them for something real special. Then they get a job from this big coorp guy that was worried about his little girl, 16 yeas old Elise, relationship with this Boy, Brandon - who is a 18 wageslave. So, of course, as soon as they get to meet Elise, one player interrupts my description and start saying: - Hey little girl, have you ever had a D in your C? - ... N... Nope. Then the decker: - GM, I bring my commlink online and ask for the calendar app to see when is the next full moon. - *Pissed off* it is tomorrow Brandon is the serial killer from the news, protect her, we're going to kill his little ass. But the real shit begins now. I wasn't worried. Brandon's scene is awsome - I spoke on my mind. They were after him, trying their best on how to track this guy. I was secretly running them on a timmer. I made a chart with some actions that Brandon would do based on my roll on the dice, each hour Brandon prepare according to the chart. They took a awhile to get to Brandon, wich was nice, cuz they gave time make Brandon stronger and eviler. While players were looking clues, Brandon got another girl to murder, had time to lay some traps, summon spirit, create barriers. He was prepared. And so were players. They finally finds the place. They spent a lot of resources to get to Brandon's room, and them they saw, beyond the physical barrier, Brandon holding a knife, behind a girl that's tied to a chair, under the moonlight, with a terrible Lovecraftian beast in front of her. As he starts to stab her the blood spills at the beast who as getting stronger and stronger. They've rolled the initiatives, they we're all pump'd and hyped, and... 3 combat turns, they've killed everything and didn't took a single hit.

[@hugofontes5708]

that's the problem with living things they are much easier to kill than constructs and the undead but, hey, great planning there! you managed to do your stuff even when they figured everything out right away

[@greedow]

"So, of course, as soon as they get to meet Elise, one player interrupts my description and start saying: - Hey little girl, have you ever had a D in your C? - ... N... Nope. - GM, I bring my commlink online and ask for the calendar app to see when is the next full moon. - *Pissed off* it is tomorrow Brandon is the serial killer from the news, protect her, we're going to kill his little ass." that fortunately didn't went where I was expecting... If she wasn't a virgin the next day she wouldn't be in danger anymore, but maybe a little traumatized :p The end feels like you underestimated the power of your party (imo, better than overestimating it)

[@dasirrlicht5415]

Never make 'Virgin' a key part in anything. It is easyly to get ruined, whenever anything required a Virgin, i had at least one player who tryed to make sure there are non... By Seduction, I mean. Don't get wrong impressions of my players, not even the Evil ones.

[@persadies]

Ahhhh... Shadowrun Never trust an elf and never ever make a deal with a dragon. Now grab your cyberdeck and I'll see you in the matrix. We got some ICE to crack.

[@fredericodargel7391]

Sure, but Shadowrun is not popular in Brazil... yet. I wish I could have more players.

[@elikempema2858]

Loved the video! The art style has come really far since the beginning

[@mr_meow7627]

I actually want to know who murdered the guy

[@Harpold]

One of my players once called out a traitor, they didnt even interact with him, I just mentioned they saw him walk past and he said: hey I think he will betray us. Half a year later in episode 15, he did and now my players dont trust any NPC anymore.

[@rorymcentyre8066]

Alright man, I've been watching these vids for the better part of my day. Subbed. You had me at the Aboleth that was 5.

[@rockets-dont-makegood-toas7728]

I literally just got into your channel yesterday, good job

[@TheZeroUndead]

At least your players figured out the secret behind the plot. Mine ignored all side quests, complained there was no "main quest" to follow, and blatantly overlooked or missed every single plot hook or reveal no matter how obvious. This includes: Invasion by an orcish army, creatures from the Plane of Fire ripping their way into the elven kingdom (of which two players hailed from), a rebellion tearing apart a kingdom from the shadows by a shifty group known as the League of None, and an invasion by human supremacists (and culling of any and all non-humans in the areas affected) from the south. Ignored each and every one. Never looked into. I would have loved for them to see any of those coming from my numerous clues. Count your blessings that at least your plot got to move on.

[@jamesworthington009]

Not a mystery per se, but I had one of situations where my entire plan could have been destroyed with one use of Devine Sense by the paladin. He went to a place where people go to trade for, as Grog put it, "Lady Favors." In all fairness, he was going there for information, but the succubus running the place had other plans. All in all, that was the most intense hour of roleplaying I had done in a looooong time trying to make sure this guy didn't suspect a thing. Thankfully, it paid off.

[@Drabit642]

I stumbled across a copy of the Scotland Yard boardgame at a yard sale and grabbed it entirely because of your story, have only had the chance to play it once but we all had fun.

[@wolfenstein652]

I honestly love running mystery DnD sessions. They usually go pretty well, due to the fact that there's usually several mysteries going on at once which have some kind of connection. The players kinda figure it out at first, but not the layer underneath that's really going on.

[@sunsetsynth]

The ruined big reveal physically hurts me 😂😂😂

[@gambent6853]

Mysteries are fun, but they definitely can be challenging to run, especially if you have more people in your group. It definitely takes some forethought to plan these as a DM.

[@antidisestablishmentariani8730]

I recently subscribed and DEFINATELY do not regret it

[@PhageMika]

I absolutely love these videos. I get so much joy out of them :)

[@MarvelX42]

It happens. You just have to have alot of stuff planned and roll with it.....or have nothing planned and roll with it.....or have some things planned and make up the rest and just roll with it....I guess what I am saying is that there is alot of rolling involved here.....

[@Potatoes85858]

but who actually killed the noble/lord guy?

[@mikesands4681]

I love this episode. I keep coming back to it.

[@DonniesBoStaff]

I just found you recently but you got me back into D&D

[@ClearPearlProductions]

I am fortunate enough to have players that metagame TOO often, meaning whenever they guess something correctly from nothing but conjecture, that guess was always preceded by a ton of wrong guesses, so I could just say nothing with my straight GM face and they'd move on to more false guesses. It actually makes the reveal more fun for them because it's always like I KNEW IT as if they hadn't theorized a hundred different outcomes.

[@SuperMcmonster]

I had a similar experience to your scotland yard game, but in Betrayal on the House on the Haunted Hill. We roll for omen and I fail the roll so i look in the book and find that i am the traitor but no one knows who it is. We go through the process and start the game up again. FIRST FUCKING TURN, my buddy who sat next to me uses the bell item to move all allies one space. So i was outed as the traitor immediately

[@tonzillaye]

I love your stories puffin. Wish I played games with people that made stories like this but my three attempts were so boring.

[@exe_]

Subscribed with bell and everything, this Chanel is awesome :3

[@cage5577]

Use speak with the dead spell. Also if in window on a rainy night look for clothes that are wet. Even if they ditched them. Also they to find magic users who can change their structure to fit the clothes. And see who would even fit it the window without being noticed. And if all else fail have someone invest in zone of truth.

[@goncalocarneiro3043]

Also use mind-read or what about Revivify?!

[@Choomy8542]

Speak with Dead is so easy for a murderer in a D&D universe to get around, just remove your victim's lower jaw, if they don't have a mouth then it doesn't work. Take an essential organ and they can't be revived by most spells either.

[@goncalocarneiro3043]

Choomy I thought reviving spells only required things like the head or torso to not be missing, the rest would create itself, and if anything else fails there's True Revivify or what not, is it worth the gold? Probably not, but you can always use the money of the dead person.

[@Choomy8542]

Revivify and Raise Dead can't restore any missing body parts, so that would include organs. Resurrection restores missing body part but if my characters are willing to blow a 7th level spell and a diamond worth 1,000gp then I'm totally fine with that. Reincarnate and True Resurrection create entire new bodies, which I'm also fine with. I would love a character to use Reincarnate on a murder victim actually, that's hilarious. But yeah if clerics keep consuming diamonds on Revivify, then diamonds would be pretty hard to come by for those higher level spells. On the other hand, a much smaller diamond would be worth a lot more if they become that rare.

[@goncalocarneiro3043]

I guess using zone of truth is the way to go.

[@masamoon1887]

You see, that's my rule when I go about clues for a mystery : consider anyone as a fucking mentalist. You can have a good mystery prepared but habits and tropes can be extern factors that can give away the solution quicker than expected.

[@ActionCow69]

So, i watched your short video on open legend about a week and a half ago, and within a couple of days I'm in a game with two developers. Dope.

[@madzapple]

Love this channel and then you Scotland Yard...exactly what I did once.

[@noisemaker432]

I really want to know who the murderer was from the first story.

[@Brainstrain]

Me, sorry

[@Vile_Oreo]

I ran a murder mystery once in d&d. I was going for a town of salem spinoff sort of thing. We had a sorcerer who was relatively new and it turned out that she messed up her spell list (she had 1 less spell than she should've) a few sessions ago unbeknownst to us. I had set up this session before we knew there was a problem and it got unintentionally cut into several sessions because the party spent an entire session just having fun with some magic beans I gave them. Just as they were walking into this town the sorc realizes she doesn't have enough spells so we correct it before I start the mystery (mind you they have no idea what's about to happen) and as her new spell she picks detect thoughts. I didn't tip off what was going to happen at all, she had been eyeing that spell for some time. After the premise is set up, she then proceeds to use detect thoughts and completely destroys the mystery I set up because she just looks at everyone and realizes who was the murderer and who was the werewolf I put in.

[@grinnylein]

When you plan on including mysteries into your story, use your DM power and ban some spells. Detect Thoughts is the first on the list

[@Draeckon]

President Waldo Alternatively, just keep the spells in mind and know how they work: range, limitations, whether the target gets saving throws and how they work. In D&D 5E, Detect Thoughts is a 2nd level spell, concentration for up to 1 minute. So unless your sorceress is high level, that’s not a spell slot to be wasted willy-nilly. Secondly, one minute is not a lot of time to learn much unless you’re directly questioning the target to steer their thoughts. And even then, they get a saving throw to deny giving you anything. And /even then/ they /know/ when you’re probing into their mind, meaning they can react and take necessary action: create some kind of distraction, initiate a backup plan, or even hurl accusations at the sorceress for using questionable magic. Just because the sorceress is now privy to the murderer’s identity, doesn’t mean they can convince everyone it’s true. The murderer could accuse them of lying, or shift the blame on them in some way, especially if they were present when the murder(s) happened. If there’s not much (or any) evidence to make the murderer’s guilt a certainty other than what a sorceress supposedly says is true, people might not believe her. Or worse, might think she’s lying. Alternatively, the murderers are under the protection of spells that block divination spells, in which case, the spell would simply act as if the target made their saving throw. Don’t just ban spells, look closely at them and see how they work. More than that, think of how those spells would affect the world around them. Is detect thoughts even a legal spell to use in any kind of legal proceedings, considering only the user is actually privy to the information it provides and therefore can lie, or is the spell flat out illegal due to infringing on some law (possibly passed by conniving nobles for obvious reasons). Those are just my immediate thoughts on the subject, but there’s surely ways to work divination spells into a mystery without it ruining it.

[@santiagogs15]

you just make a cheese addicted werewolf that's almost always thinking of cheese except during the full moon wwhen he's thinking aobut werewolf things and cheese.

[@reverendgaddy2435]

Great stories, well done!

[@cobonthecob1542]

Thank you for getting me back into D&D, I haven't played it in an year, and just played a game to day and... Got my HP taken down to 2 while fighting wolves, also is it always so hard to hit all your enimies because I missed them almost every single role

[@adamsuniverse]

I recommend Red Herrings. Have them think they discovered it

[@geoffreypeterson8903]

“You enter the ritual chamber and see three bodies on the ground. They are the kidnapped villagers. They are alive but unresponsive.” “I start slitting their throats. These guys are going to get up soon and attack us.” O ___________ O And thus the meta gaming Ranger ruined the reveal that they were wererats. *sigh*

[@BlackOctoberFox]

And this is why red herrings are important for any DM whose play group is overly suspicious. It should never be the first guy, or the last guy you meet who is helpful at first but later revealed to be the traitor. If they guess wrong the first time, they won't be so quick to judge every single character after that point.

[@eliasaho3]

just wna say keep on doing these awesome videos and keep on being awesome at d&d and because of you im doing my first charecter right now !!!

[@michaelm8852]

D&D Mystery Tips: Purposely leave half of the solution out of the final plans. Leave generic clues and improvise.

[@yurisonovab3892]

The rule of three. Three clues, three paths, three options to solve the riddle. One of the servants witnessed something suspicious that when investigated moves you on to the next phase. Alternatively, stealth character could spy on a servant attempting to do their duty, but secretly they are trying to dispose of the evidence. Or maybe the dead noble has a hidden note in his personal journal detailing where he keeps his secret stash of scotch, since his wife has been on him about drinking too much. But when you get there, the stash has been cleaned out! Though in their haste, the thief chipped a nail. Find the one with the broken nail, and they crack under suspicion, revealing they stole the scotch to sell on the side since the wife didn't know it existed! But she's innocent! She swears! It was the Butler! It must have been him! He's always complaining about how much he hates the master! And all suspects turn on each other, revealing dirty secrets and narrowly avoid murdering each other in plain sight to keep their secrets hidden. In the tumult, the villain screws up something and is revealed! And what's a good mystery without at least one red herring? But make sure the false lead becomes glaringly obvious in hindsight. Extra points if while the party is distracted on the wrong path, the villain gets away with another sneaky trick.

[@Axisbal]

Love this channel

[@thealchemist8514]

You know, considering the DM was going with the tropes. The best thing to do there would be screaming that "THE BUTLER DID IT!"

[@SapphireCrook]

Now I'm curious about that mystery though. Who dun it! D:

[@amiserable]

I had a group of players. wow. good good friends. still talk to the one with tweets. but as a party - they did not want to adventure. they would come to town, and look for jobs. like, regular jobs. Painting. carpentry. construction. wtf. and then I would put out rumors, some evil spirit thing was kidnapping children in the dead of night. and the town would talk out food and goods sacrificies (not ppl) to a mound thing outside of town. And they would be like, "wow, thats terrible. Hey, lets be sure and stay AWAY from there. that sounds dangerous" MFs I had to say, "guys. guys. the ADVENTURE IS OUT AT THE MOUND. if you want to play the game, you have to go there." Jesus fking christ. thank you. it -- it had to be said. god.

[@Jake007123]

To be fair, it looks like they would rather be leaders or builders than adventurers. It's a way of playing too.

[@eightbait06]

Yeah, some people (like myself) enjoy the more mediocre sorts of games. Merely content with doing normal stuff.

[@JamesJNothingIsTooSensitive]

You... need to learn to adapt to the players? Not everyone cares about fighting. Let them build up a town or something.

[@eightbait06]

There need to be more Cleaning Simulators in the world.

[@herculejoestar5809]

You make DnD sound thousands of times better then I thought it could be

[@lordruxlinhogie5912]

I have a similar experience with the board game story. Once me and my friends were playing pandemic and we somehow managed to lose after the first players very first turn. One player took one turn, no one else got to do anything.

[@1000drman]

For that second one you should just tell him to stop meta gaming or ask him why a detective would think that at all in this situation

[@DustyFrigg]

Yes it really sound like he saw your notes or cheated somehow......

[@Adu767]

What's the problem with a player guessing someone is evil? If they've never met and they have no evidence, it doesn't matter. Unless you give up your poker face immediately. Otherwise have them act as normal. Make your player feel retarded for jumping to conclusions. Then once they've hopped off that trail, HIT EM WHERE IT HURTS

[@wildrook]

It's like revealing spoilers. Are you a spoiler hound?

[@Adu767]

@@wildrook It's not spoilers when a player says it because they genuinely don't know what's going to happen, it's just guessing.

[@Lustvig]

OMG the organ music. Spewed my drink everywhere!

[@Popsculpture]

I've been following your channel for a while and it seems like you might have a history of playing with meta gamer.

[@MyNameIsHayden]

I just got D&D because I finally turned twelve.

[@azau2457]

Retz happy birthday!

[@MyNameIsHayden]

Yoshi x2 5th

[@1simo93521]

Welcome to the club buddy!! Hope you find a group soon. Also word of advise from an old timer, don't worry about getting the rules right 100% all of the time just do the most fun thing. Your players will think your a genius then.

[@MyNameIsHayden]

Simo thanks!

[@laceflower_]

Retz congratulations and happy birthday!

[@odysii7104]

Wait but who did it??

[@pinkpirate5]

Your story about your Cthulu game reminds me of my 7th sea game where my player managed to figure out by a missing hairbrush that the queen had kidnapped herself. It was supposed to be this big thing... and he figured it out in 2 minutes. FML

[@gabrielrussell5531]

In 5E Clerics and Devotion Paladins have a bit of a mystery solving sledgehammer in the form of Zone of Truth. Assuming there's a pretext of innocence, everyone has to step in and say "I did not commit the murder, nor did I in any way assist with the planning or execution.

[@tristan3978]

Brilliant this is my favourite series on KZbin you are so amusing. Please don't that us for watching because we should be thanking you for watching. Keep the good content coming our way and I'll keep the likes coming your way. And thanks again for entertaining me in this dumb "real" world 🌎

[@melchid8448]

DnD oynuyomusun

[@youcansuckmyweewee975]

Has anyone here played atomic highway i heard it was good

[@1simo93521]

Lucas Mcfetridge Yes! I ran a campaign in Atomic Highway my players loved it. The custom vehicle rules were great. My campaign ended with my players facing down a huge raider army in a salvaged battle tank while defending the scraptown from being destroyed. It was epic!

[@youcansuckmyweewee975]

Simo im about to run a campaign of atomic highway myself with a few of my good friends so i was wondering if you could give me some advice

[@youcansuckmyweewee975]

Simo also my friends and i made a fuel source of creating ethanol fuel and how a car not modified for ethanol cant use the moonshine fuel and a car modified for ethanol runs out on a 1 or 2 rather than 1. And a difficulty 2 tech roll modifies a car to run on ethanol, but all tech rolls relating to the engine increases by 1 due to corrosion

[@1simo93521]

Lucas Mcfetridge Good idea. Fuel really wasn't a thing in my game, they were on a large map I drew out with various unknown but named locations (such as observatory, mall, radio tower, truckstop) dotted about linked by a main highway and side roads with a main busy scrap city/town at the centre of the map. They had to refuel at each 'stop' as the locations where far apart from one another to feel like they were roaming a wasteland. Some locations were walled town supply truck stops and other areas were pre nukewar landmarks like out of town malls for scavenging in. I really took inspiration from mad max and fallout with having weird twists on locations like pristine pre war town run by secret crazy cult or long abandoned government labs with strange mutant creatures inside or mall full of crazy people dressed as shop dummies (really creepy!) My advise would be don't fully stat out enemies and their vehicles fully, just have an enemy be say level 2 so he has 2 in all stats and relevant skills. Saves a ton of prep that players don't notice! Also avoid the pilot class and air vehicles it will break your game. Also just level up the players as you see fit not how the rules say. I had the players start as hired out of area mercenaries, hired to protect supply convoys, so the players would be outsiders with no knowledge of the area. I gave the players C4 and they loved blowing stuff up and walls open swat style. I used hot wheels cars as models for the road battles! (The players became very attached too their particular hot wheels cars, even painting them and modifying them!

[@youcansuckmyweewee975]

Simo thanks for the info i may have to try out the hot wheels car thing and the big map because i too am drawing inspiration from mad max and fallout as if it were a road trip across the usa involving going to certain states and perticular landmarks in them like the cheers pub in boston or fenway and use that as a masive gladiator pit like the thunder dome or diamond city in fallout

[@Urben911]

Only ever ran 1 murder Mystery Campaign set in the Enderal Universe. The two PC's were related and part of a Dragon Marked house and there were several NPCs all with motive. One of these NPC's was the characters Uncle who was uninterested in the events unfolding so the PCs kinda took charge of the investigation. One PC immediately figured out it was his uncle. Like as soon as the body was found he said immediately accused his uncle which was correct. Luckily the other two PCs didnt think so so the campaign progressed as normal until he finally convinced them it was infact their own Relative. Then in order to protect the family they all agreed to frame an NPC they were suspecting and got an innocent man thrown in jail. Good times

[@owlgal1111]

The first trope of "Helpful one is evil" is exactly why I'm doing it opposite. Here's the characters and what they are in the campaign I'm currently running: Wife, Rose Enderfé: She's the victim in the beginning, head trauma and stab wounds. She's also rich and owns a large estate. Husband, Stephan Enderfé: He was cheating on his wife and inherited the estate after her death. 3 in game days later, he is also killed in a somewhat similar manner, in the exact same place. (My PCs were absolutely shocked by this. Both in and out of game.) Librarian, Maria Forret: Friend of the victim, not it, has literally nothing pointing to her. Though there were some letters to and from a strange man in her room...(And my PCs haven't thought of checking it for fingerprints, then looking in the police files for this guy. Which, they will perhaps regret if they don't think of it in my next campaign...) The Maid, Cecilia Cobbale: Having an affair with Stephan, Helps the PCs by giving them access to everyone's bedrooms and the basement and the attic, she's not the killer but is actually being framed as the killer by the killers. (This is going to be great since I bet everyone is going to be suspicious of her.) Nurse, Tori McKenna: Called in second time, Taking care of the kids now, actually one of the killers as well as being the Mastermind and the one constantly trying to frame Cecilia. Butler Robin Crowe: Helps out a lot, has inherited the estate after Stephan died, Actually has a bloody knife in his room (PCs haven't found it. It's been 4 in game days. They still haven't found this.), But, it has his blood on it. (It's going to be hilarious when and if they actually find this.), He's not one of the killers. Chef Marco Olie: Literally nobody has even considered talking to him. I think my PCs forgot he existed. He's actually guilty so... this means either I'm really good at my job or they're really bad at covering everything.