Who doesn’t love a good whodunit? Murder mysteries are classic story tropes that people love because they get to become detectives, even if they’re just watching a movie or reading a book.

In Dungeons & Dragons, this immersion is taken to the next level because your players are the investigators and will dictate how the mystery is resolved. Don your deerstalker hat and pack your pipe, for the game is afoot, dear Watson—today, we’re talking about running murder mysteries in D&D!

• Tips for Writing Murder Mysteries
• Handling Player Characters in Murder Mysteries
• The Stages of a Murder Mystery

Tips for Writing Murder Mysteries

Artist: Andrew Mar

Start With the Murder and Work Backwards

The easiest way to write a murder mystery to ensure you don’t miss any crucial information is to start with who the murderer is, how they did it, and their motive. Then, you can go back and plant clues to the mystery’s solution.

This is also a good opportunity to put together a schedule of the murder. Usually, events in murder mysteries transpire minute by minute; there’s not much downtime.

To avoid messing up your timing, it’s advisable to understand what NPCs are doing and when. You may even want to have a schedule of what happened leading up to the murder so that you know your NPCs will have their stories straight.

Include Multiple Suspects, But Not Too Many

The classic board game Clue wouldn’t be fun if the only suspect was Colonel Mustard in the hall with the lead pipe. Discovering each NPC’s motive and building cases against them is the entire point of a murder mystery.

To avoid bogging down the investigation, I find that three to four suspects are sufficient. But now, you have to implicate each of them. Whether they’re absent at the time of the murder or were seen arguing with the late victim, the party needs to be able to determine, “This is our pool of suspects.”

Last, even if the other suspects are innocent of the murder, it doesn’t mean they have to be entirely innocent of everything. Perhaps they were planning to steal the victim’s company or were in love with their spouse. Each suspect having a secret can make them interesting and dodgy during the investigation.

Planting Your Clues

Mysteries can be tricky to run in D&D, and murder mysteries are no different. Providing proper clues to your players is the most important thing you can do to prevent the mystery from floundering before its conclusion. Always remember your players will never see the whole picture like you will. So, things that may seem obvious to you can easily go over their heads.

When writing mysteries, I plant clues in a pyramidal shape. The “entry” to the pyramid has a wide assortment of clues, any of which lead to the next level. I fully intend for players to miss a number of the available clues, but catching a couple at each level is all they need to resolve the mystery.

Players might find a small drop of blood away from the crime scene using Intelligence (Investigation), which leads them to check if any NPCs are injured. But they might also discover by making a Charisma-based check how one of the NPCs had to change their attire because they spilled “red wine."

Both clues lead them to the next level, but we’re hedging our bets in case a check is failed, or an opportunity is missed.

As they get closer to the top, they’ll already have a clearer picture of what’s happening, so the clues don’t have to be as plentiful. Also, the clues at the bottom of the pyramid are more vague, while the clues at the top will provide a more direct means to resolving the mystery.

Put Them on the Clock

There has to be some reason that the players are the ones investigating the murder, and that’s usually because there’s a time limit imposed on them.

Maybe they’re at a noble’s ball at a remote castle, and they have to figure out who is murdering the attendees before the subsequent murder takes place. Or, perhaps a politician is murdered at a summit, and the two nations will go to war if the actual murderer is not revealed in time.

There should be consequences every time the party doddles or chases a red herring. Or else, they could take their time and systematically search the entire castle, from the tower to the dungeon, for any clues.

Skip the Legwork

Writing mysteries will require more creative thinking and planning than a typical D&D session. In order to take some of the usual Dungeon Master work off your plate, take a look through the books you own and haven’t run for your players yet (don’t give me that look; I know you’ve got some).

Look for locations that are good stages for a murder mystery. Examples from popular modules include Cassalanter Villa in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Castle Ravenloft from Curse of Strahd, and even the prison of Revel’s End from the free adventure Prisoner 13.

These environments give you maps, prewritten NPCs with backstories that you can shape into motives, and even combat encounters if that’s the kind of murder mystery you want to run.

Handling Player Characters in Murder Mysteries

Artist: LIVIA PRIMA

The big difference between reading a murder mystery in a novel and playing through one in D&D is the characters have autonomy. Here are some tips for handling interactions that are unique to D&D murder mysteries:

Go Low-Level

When players have speak with dead, zone of truth, raise dead, and detect thoughts available to them, how is it possible to keep the secrets of a murder mystery hidden?

Writing mysteries for 1st- to 3rd-level characters is the easiest way to limit magic that can simply negate the mystery. Resurrection spells aren't available till characters hit 5th level, and they'll have at most two spell slots for something like detect thoughts or zone of truth, meaning they'll have to be careful when they use it. 

The lack of hit points and abilities will also make your party of investigators feel the danger if they get into a life-threatening situation.

A Missing Element

If you’re planning a murder mystery for higher-level players, the easiest solution to dealing with potential mystery-killing spells is to have the victim not meet one of the requirements. We go over some ways of impeding resurrection spells in the Navigating Resurrection Spells table.

You could also utilize spells like modify memory to erase the murderer's memory of the crime or mind blank to prevent the usage of mind-reading magic. 

These ways of covering your tracks would be common in a world with access to divination and resurrection spells, so as long as the murder was premeditated, it stands to reason they would be thought of.

Hostile Environment

If a group of people is suspicious that a murderer is amongst them, NPCs likely wouldn't be okay with the party using blatant intimidation tactics or trying to cast spells. Especially if the NPCs don't have the means to identify the spells that are being cast.

Unless the caster has something like the sorcerer’s Subtle Spell Metamagic option, it would be difficult to cast spells in a crowd—while waving around a wand and muttering magic words—without other parties noticing.

Go With the Flow

Perhaps you know the party's cleric has access to raise dead, and you don't want to nullify their ability. This could mean you allow them to resurrect the victim. Murder solved, right? Not necessarily. The victim might not know the identity of the murderer, which begs the question: Why was the crime committed in the first place?

Or maybe the party is able to learn the murderer's identity through using detect thoughts. Now, the difficult part is proving it! Especially if the murderer is actually in charge of the investigation in which the party is the prime suspect.

I prefer using this option in long-term campaigns or if the party sends me their character sheets ahead of time, so I know what abilities I will have to work the story around. 

The Stages of a Murder Mystery

Artist: Sidharth Chaturvedi

While murder mysteries may be more challenging to write than traditional adventures, the good thing is they follow a formulaic structure:

1. The Setup
2. The Murder
3. The Investigation
4. The Twist
5. The Resolution

The Setup

The setting of a murder mystery is probably the most crucial aspect. You must consider where this location is, why there’s a murder, and what about the setting will place the party in charge of solving the murder.

Take, for example, the classic murder mystery setting of a locomotive stuck in the snow. The confined space and limited number of suspects make it an ideal setting for a tense investigation.

The table below contains some quintessentially D&D, setting-agnostic murder mystery setups to get your juices flowing:

Murder Mystery Setups

The Murder

While D&D is made better by player agency, murder mysteries kind of need a murder to occur.

That’s why whenever I run murder mysteries, the party has no chance of stopping the initial murder. Either they are indisposed at the time of the murder, or they get involved in the investigation after the murder has already taken place.

Here are the situations where I like to use each of these murder scenarios:

• Indisposed: I find that having the party indisposed during the time of the murder is suitable for murder mysteries when the players have to solve the mystery to avoid persecution. This setup can also be used when there will be significant fallout before law enforcement can step in, so the mystery is up to the party to solve.
• Called in After: Getting the party involved after the murder is good for situations when the party has a personal connection or stands to gain something from getting to the bottom of who the killer is.

Seeing as most D&D worlds have some availability to resurrection magic, it’s also prudent to think of a reason that the victim will stay dead. Some ways could include:

Navigating Resurrection Spells

The Investigation

The investigation phase is the heart of the mystery. Players must look for clues to determine the murderer and find a way to pin the killing on them.

One thing that I would consider when running mysteries is having characters automatically succeed in their task as long as they describe a specific action that would succeed. Specificity is key here because that means the player has followed the chain of logic enough to be confident something will give them an answer. For example, let's say there’s a hidden safe behind a mirror in the late victim's study:

• If a player says they’re inspecting the mirror but fails their Intelligence (Investigation) check, it could hinder their investigation, even though they were on the right track. So, instead of asking for an ability check, I’d just tell them they see the mirror has thumbprints at the top right and left, meaning it was lifted recently.
• If a player says they investigate the whole room, I wouldn't consider that specific enough, and I’d make them roll an Intelligence (Investigation) check to determine if they noticed the thumbprints.

You’ll also want to ensure every party member can contribute to the investigation. The table below includes inspiration for ways of hiding clues behind each ability.

Using Different Ability Scores During an Investigation

It’s also worth mentioning tools and other proficiencies. If you’re running a murder mystery in your long-term campaign and know the proficiencies your party is sporting, look to see which you can work into the murder mystery for revealing clues.

I’m sure that mountain dwarf in your party will love it when their Stonecunning ability finally comes in handy and allows them to determine that the statue of the murdered victim was, in fact, the petrified victim all along!

The Twist

Not every D&D murder mystery needs a twist. In books and movies, these twists are used to throw the audience off. But, for players, having to flex their detective skills and actually lead the investigation can be enough.

I usually have an optional twist at the ready if the party progresses at a pace that will get them to the solution too fast.

Sample Twists

The Resolution

Once all the evidence is collected, it’s time to confront the murderer and gloat by walking them through the steps you took to solve the mystery. This is usually where the players get the satisfaction of a final “Take ‘em away, boys” before the murderer is led off in handcuffs.

But if you’re looking for alternatives to a conventional resolution to your D&D murder mystery, here are some options:

Ways to Shake Up a Murder Mystery Resolution

Go Make Some Mysteries

You're now armed with a quiver full of ideas to orchestrate a murder mystery that would make even the great Sherlock Holmes raise an eyebrow in intrigue. These deductive adventures are a fresh departure from dragon battling and dungeon crawling and allow your players to flex their brains instead of brawn.

The best part is that you get to watch with a satisfied smirk as your players fumble around, trying to untangle the web of deceit and mystery you've spun!

Mike Bernier (@arcane_eye) is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his girlfriend, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.