Designing Better RPG Mysteries: a guide to the series

Gustave Doré, L'Énigme, 1871, Musée d'Orsay. Public domain

A trail of clues is not enough to make a good RPG mystery. In these articles, I look at how to design horror and crime mysteries, how to make investigations engaging, and how to keep the game dramatic even when the players get things wrong.

1. Part 1: Crime mysteries vs. horror mysteries — Why a crime mystery is a puzzle to solve, while a horror mystery is a terrible truth to uncover and confront, and why the distinction matters for RPG design.
2. Part 2: Designing horror mysteries — Building dread through progressive revelations, clues that offer both hope and despair, and a countdown to doom that keeps the threat moving.
3. Part 3: Designing enclosed crime mysteries — A step-by-step method for creating a whodunit, starting with the victim and the web of relationships, then introducing motives, secrets, plausible suspects and false assumptions.
4. Part 4: Designing clues for murder mysteries — Making clues interact and challenge the players' interpretations, rather than merely pointing to the next location, while keeping the mystery fair and playable.
5. Part 5: Pacing, drama and resolution — Using delayed clues and forcing functions to break investigative deadlock, and making wrong accusations, failures and their consequences part of the drama.

Further articles and worked examples

• Who cares about who did it? — Why a mystery can be enjoyable even for players who dislike deduction, provided the characters, relationships and opportunities for roleplaying are compelling.
• The Fall of the Maestro: a worked crime mystery — Applying the method to a conductor murdered on stage, with convincing suspects, misleading evidence, emotional conflicts and opportunities for action.
• A worked horror mystery: Operation STILLWATER — Building a Delta Green scenario around a forgotten massacre, an apparent angel that erases painful memories, escalating danger and choices without easy answers.

Related reading: The Mystery Box High: improvising mysteries in RPGs — The pleasure and the danger of inventing mysteries during play, and why the GM must settle on an explanation before piling on more enigmatic clues.