This is meant to be a little setpiece the GM can drop into almost any universe with minor changes. Its meant to have multiple suspects, and its in the process of creation. Ideas solicited.
You're in a room playing cards with four other people. The lights go off. The lights come back on. One guy is dead.
This can fit into a medieval setting with them being four guards in a guardhouse, or it can be four guys on break in a factory break room, or some guys in a barrack, or some spacemen.
One general rule of thumb in mysteries is to not allow retrocognition or telepathy. It makes the murder too easy. Well, it also makes playing cards too easy so there is a Psionic Disturber in the room that generates high levels of psi static.
There are four people besides the verser.
They are as follows:
1. The Victim.
2. The Gloved Man.
3. The Man with the Wooden Hand. This hand is not obvious, and he is reasonably deft with it, and skilled at keeping it inobvious.
4. Mr. Spearcarrier (he needs something to do in this setting. Okay, he's Resentful and Paranoid usually because he's losing in the game.)
In Version Alpha, The Victim has stolen something of value from The Man with the Wooden Hand. He obliquely flaunts in the poker/Tri-card/Gin Rummy/War/ or Whatever Fits the Setting that he has new found wealth. This angers the Man with the Wooden Hand.
The Man deals.
He is a cheat,a nd he makes sure that the pile of cards sent to The Victim includes the Ace of Spades. This card is coated with a contact poison. The Victim holds his cards, and starts not feeling so good.
The lights go out.
The lights come back on. A dagger is in The Victim's chest. He's dead.
The Man with the Wooden Hand points out that its not a throwing dagger, and he's sitting across the table from The Victim. However, close examination will reveal that the blade is not deep enough or vital enough to have killed so quickly. So, it could have been tossed, and hit poorly, and either freak bad luck, or some other cause killed The Victim.
The Second Red Herring is the Gloved Man. The Man with the Wooden Hand will point out that gloves offer protection against poison if that theory comes up.
Beta:
As above, but Mr. Resentful snags the intended Pile of Doom from his neighbour as it is dealt. He claims that someone is cheating (someone is...The Man rigged the deck to give The Victim Aces and Eights--Dead Man's Hand.) and thats why he's getting low card.
He is dying, and the Man with the Wooden Hand trips his hidden switch, or knocks over the torch, or ....
He ends up with a dagger in his chest. And everyone knows that the Victim really did not like him. And the Victim is sitting right next to him.
Delta:
The Victim has the dagger, and when he realizes that he is dying, with his throat closing, he flails about and turns off the light by accident. He realizes his hope of implicating his killer is gone....except the knife is part of what he stole from the Man with the Wooden Hand. So he knifes himself in the chest,a nd dies, framing his murderer.
Epsilon:
As Delta, but The Man with the Wooden Hand was just trying to frighten The Victim with a temporary sedative. The Victim stabs himself mortally, and croaks out his defiance as the lights come on. A tearful Man says he never meant to actually kill him.
Gamma:
Someone puts a knife in the verser's hand in the dark, and shoves The Victim onto the blade. Lights come back on, and there is blood on the verser's hands. The Victim says as he collapses "I thought you were my friend". The Man with the Wooden Hand leads the outcry for 'justice'.
I'm not certain I followed them all, but it's an interesting collection. Agatha Christie has done a number of players at cards situations, although my favorite was when Hercule Poirot was investigating the supposed Bridge game they had invented as an alibi and found one of the cards still in the box.
Oh, and the order of Greek letters is alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lamda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega, if I remember correctly. In any event, gamma is third.
--M. J. Young
I just finished Murder on the Orient Express.
Also, the Psionic Disturber would only be there in a medium to high psi universe.
I wanted to make a reasonably simple mystery is another part of my goal. Two reasons: 1)Mystery hard, Og's brain hurt. 2) I think MJ at one point said one of my clues in the Pyramid Puzzle mystery made things too easy. I disagree, I think, because to me most players need a relatively simple mystery, and it doesn't hurt to make the first clue easy so as to coax them onto the mystery path instead of having them stare blankly across the table. Some people have greater ability to solve mysteries than they realize: they only need to get started, and get over their misconception about their total lack of skill.