how different games do investigative mysteries and clues
from worst to best
2025-04-09
Contents
Dungeons & Dragons
D&D, Pathfinder, etc.
First plan a whole mystery with suspects and clues and a correct answer and everything.
Roll Intelligence (Investigation). If you pass, you find a clue. If you fail, then you don’t, and the entire game grinds to a halt.
Conclusion: D&D is a tactical wargame for simulating heroic adventures. Do not use it for mysteries. No amount of three clue rule1 will save you. The classic investigative horror game Call of Cthulhu also falls under this category because of its binary pass / fail investigation roll.
https://www.5esrd.com/using-ability-scores
Gumshoe
Trail of Cthulhu, Essoterrorists, Bubblegumshoe, etc.
First plan a whole mystery with suspects and clues and a correct answer and everything.
Never roll for clues. If you’re in a place that has a clue, and if you can apply an appropriate character skill, then you just get the clue.
Awkwardly, the rules allow you to sometimes ask for a fake roll just to build some suspense, but then instruct you to disregard the result and just provide the clue anyway.
Conclusion: it might feel kind of groundbreaking that the game is about interpreting rules and not finding them. But it doesn’t really do anything with this advancement. You still have to interpret the clues correctly. It doesn’t save the GM any prep time. And once you figure out this One Weird Trick, you can just play D&D with The Gumshoe Rule by handing out clues where they exist instead of rolling for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumshoe_System
https://pelgranepress.com/2013/10/24/the-gumshoe-system-reference-document/
Cthulhu Dark
Trophy Dark / Trophy Gold
First plan a whole mystery with suspects and clues and a correct answer and everything.
Uniquely a horror game and not a mystery game, Dark is included here because of its investigation roll: on the worst rolls possible you get between “the bare minimum needed to proceed” and “everything a competent investigator would find,” so it’s really difficult not to advance the story at every roll. But the central conceit of the game is that the mystery isn’t what it seems, and it practically doesn’t matter: investigating too well is actively harmful to the investigator. And getting to the true heart of the mystery effectively destroys the investigator.
Conclusion: doesn’t really save any prep time. Clues are free but cost you your mind.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/341997/cthulhu-dark
Carved From Brindlewood
Brindlewood Bay, The Between, etc.
Plan a whole mystery with no obvious solution including suspects, locations, and a list of generic clues that don’t implicate anybody in particular.
This is a Powered By The Apocalypse game which means there are Playbooks and an investigation Move (called The Meddling Move) that allows the murder maven to investigate. On a Hit (2d6 + Modifier >= 7) you find a clue. Sometimes with a complication. Like Dark, if you roll too well, you might gain dangerous insight into the bigger occult conspiracy. But you nearly always find a clue when investigating.
Finally there is a Theorize move that effectively ends the game in which the players “have a freewheeling discussion” about their clues and invent a possible solution to the mystery. If they roll well, their solution is correct.
Conclusion: mindblowing upon first encounter, this game puts the solution to the mystery in the hands of the players. Not only is there little to no chance of stalling the game for not finding clues, there is little to no chance of a binary pass / fail when trying to guess the solution. Much less prep needed by the GM: you don’t need to come up with elaborate plots and then conceal and obfuscate them; the players will do that for you with their twisted little minds.
https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/brindlewood-bay.html
We Used To Be Friends
First, do not plan a mystery.
This is another PBTA game with Moves that generate clues. This time though, clues are not predetermined like they are in Brindlewood. They are an abstraction: you make them up on the spot and at the moment they don’t mean anything or implicate anybody. When “Putting It All Together,” a player plays banked clues onto a suspect. Players decide based on feelings when the final clue has been placed, and then narratively resolve the mystery and the aftermath.
Conclusion: probably the least well known game on this list, WUTBF is also the most abstract and also the most pure from a “playing makebelieve with friends” perspective. Instead of the plot being premeditated and predetermined by the GM, the game is much more collaborative and consensus based. Where Brindlewood takes the conclusion of the mystery and leaves it up to wild conjecture and validates it with a dice roll, Friends says YES AND, what if we do that for the whole thing! Crime, suspect, motive, clues, and all!