Being a long-time D&D player who is also a huge Agatha Christie fan I was super excited about Murder On The Eberron Express. The adventure was extremely well structured and written but honestly didn't actually play the way I hoped it would.

Let me frame my thoughts by stating what I think the adventure is, and what I think it isn't. In my opinion this is not a D&D or RPG adventure at all, but is in fact a 'How To Host A Murder' game using Eberron as it's setting and D&D as it's mechanical rules. So having said that, if that idea appeals to you then by all means ignore my criticisms as from that point of view I think it's extremely well written and structured.

What I had hoped for when I bought this adventure was an investigative mystery written for a reasonably traditional D&D playstyle. When I think of tradional D&D playstyle I always think of players creating and developing their own characters while the DM crafts the story around fixed events and the player's actions and choices within the context of those settings and events. Eberron Express starts off by laying out ALL of every character's defining traits, back story, motivations, and relationships while leaving the player to simply determine the mechanics of the character. This is further compounded by one of the PCs potentially being randomly determined to be the murderer, if you didn't want to be the murderer? Too bad, the die roll says you're it. Removing this many player choices and a lot of player agency in the process (the murderer has a key piece of evidence they're stuck with) feels very much not in keeping with how I or my group really want to play D&D. The more I think about it the less this feels like a game the players are playing, and it begins to feel more like a play they are staging for their DM. I'm also a huge fan of one-shot adventures but this adventure really forces itself into that position by defining so much of the characters such that it would be difficult to introduce an existing character while working the required narrative elements in, and at least one of the characters is likely to be ruined for potential future use by the end of the adventure.

As I mentioned at the start for groups looking for a certain type of experience this adventure will be highly satisfying, but if that isn't specifically what you had in mind it will probably be an underwhelming experience.

This is really fun, I can't wait to play this with some friends. Best part is, you can play it multiple times, since the murderer likely changes ^^

This adventure was a ton of fun! The tricky thing is that there are so many magical means to thwart a traditional murder mystery. It's worth adding extra clues and hints so the players have a greater chance of success. Also, pre-roll or assign the different roles in the story in advance so people have time to give their character a little though (RPG players want to get into it much more than your average murder mystery player)

Just got done running this module for a Halloween Murder Mystery party. We had a blast and really enjoyed getting together. The module itself... has a lot going for it, but is riddled with a few minor flaws and a few major flaws. We played with the Spouse as the murderer.

Strengths: The character creation element of the document alone is worth purchasing the document. The archetypes and the base information serves as an excellent base to build on top of and the world setting is interesting and fun.

Minor Flaws: Minor flaws include that it is riddled with typos, inconsistent names and terminology, formatting issues, and details that don't have any significance (which is fine usually, but not when there are no actual clues to find). The character sheets are also riddled with typos and inconsistencies. It also would have been nice if there were any plot hooks or introductory/room blurbs for each player to have a reason to be there but that was up to the DM (which is fine, just more prep for me).

Major Flaws: (1) This could be considered a minor flaw, but it doesn't feel formatted for a DM in the slightest, I had to search through the document for pertinent info for the session and feels much more catered to the players, leaving the DM scrambling to figure out all of the evidence and alibis by reading each person's sheet. -> This could be improved by creating a sheet for the DM that has all of the things that might get the murderer caught on a single page, like it did for the things in each person's room.

(2) There was a map, but there weren't any designated rooms where people slept to create an engaging mystery of how Egan was killed. I'm not sure how the map is intended to be used at all, and as such we did not. The 2nd Class car and the cargo hold don't actually contain anything significant to the mystery. -> This could be improved by expanding on the methodology that each character could have taken to murder Egan. E.g. There is an Air Vent above Egan's room leading to the Scholar's room, etc. That way players could trace more clues.

(3) A significant portion of the game is searching people's rooms, luggage, and persons, and almost no one's room convicts them or makes them suspicious, unless they are the murderer (which have special clues). Because there are no clues in anyone else's room except the murderer's, the party got frustrated that they basically didn't learn anything for 3 hours. For example, the only real clue that convicts the Spouse is the blood on her nightgown, which if the party doesn't frisk her, she almost definitely will get away with it. If the Lover or the Scholar aren't the murderer, then they have nothing to hide by coming out with their affair. Their rooms have nothing of significance. -> Add clues in each person's rooms, luggage, and person that look suspicious and related to the murder, but not necessarily the murder weapon (only one combination of clues should make sense).

(4) Nobody had a real alibi. Half the characters went to bed alone, and the other half were sleeping together. It either becomes immediately clear who the murderer is, or is so unclear that there is no way to discern who it is because everyone's alibi either checks out or doesn't have any substance. -> There should be legitimate alibis that are still suspicious but check out under further investigation for each character unless they are the murderer.

(5) The Luggage room. I have no idea what the purpose of the Blue Shield encounter is, it feels out of place and a waste of time because the Robot doesn't have any pertinent information. If he had a clue that would help. -> Maybe have clues that lead to the murder, that can be placed in any location depending on who the murderer is.

(6) Some details are incredibly unclear. Which room did Egan die in? I figured out later in the session that he actually died in the dining car area as opposed to his bedroom. Where did the gun end up after the Spouse kills him? If she kept it, why wasn't that the risk of being caught if frisked? If the Spouse was estranged from Egan, why were they sharing a bedroom? -> Ensure that every character has the same critical information, or keep it on one page, and correct all the inconsistencies.

Other notes: (1) Handouts would be really cool. If each player got a handout for the clues they know when they start, then additional handouts when they find new clues, that would be great. (2) Eberron Express is catchy, but I'm a Forgotten Realms guy. Some of the details were lore dependent which made putting it in my world setting slightly more tedious. (3) The Murder motives page was way too specific. I couldn't hand it out to every player because each player needs a motive to be the murderer but not actually be the murderer, and some of the motives were assuming that you were the murderer. (4) Breaking down the plot into phases would be helpful as well, maybe directing it through an onboard detective or something.

All in all, we had a great time with the module. I'd rate it 3 stars but it fails at it's core purpose which is creating an engaging murder mystery; there wasn't a mystery, there was simply confusion. My players had fun making baseless accusations without enough evidence to condemn anyone, but that isn't what makes an engaging mystery. Regardless, I don't regret the purchase, there is a lot of great work here. Thank you!

Love murder mysteries and roleplay and need a short, interesting one-shot to give your players a break from the grind of a massive campaign? Murder on the Eberron Express is just that one-shot!

The basic premise is that your players find themselves on the lightning rail in Eberron when a murder occurs. Each of the players is meant to play an archetype who knows the victim – the Spouse, the Heir, the Former Business Partner, etc. – which gives them all a reason why they might have wanted to kill the victim. You also randomly roll to see who the murderer is, so it can either be an NPC or a player, and the game encourages you to do secret conversations, thus ramping up the suspense and suspicion. It’s a pretty darn cool idea, especially for DnD, which is decidedly more combat-based.

My party really enjoyed this game, but they also really enjoy roleplaying. Most of them made up a new character/used the pre-gen characters, but one of them converted an old character into an archetype, and it actually worked really well. With a little bit of game prep, you can make this adventure fit into your larger campaign. The only real problem is if one of your players turns out to be the murderer – how will you resolve that?

Overall, I quite enjoyed this game. It was interesting and had lots of little salacious details, and the format allowed my players to be endlessly suspicious of each other and the NPCs. They didn’t end up catching the killer (she made it to the train station because they were too busy accusing each other), but they still really seemed to enjoy the game.

As a DM, I thought this one-shot was simple and well-written and had everything I needed to effectively run it. I don’t really think I needed anything else, although the 2nd class cabin and the construct ended up being completely superfluous. I would definitely recommend people give it a try – you’ll have a lot of fun!

This was an interesting and fun adventure for our table. I wanted to share some of the challenges we faced and how we tried to overcome them. Some may be on us as players.

• The players were unclear about their motivations and relationships despite the handouts. It might have helped to have a chart that laid out the connections that I (as DM) could give to the different players that included very concise reasons for the way folks would interact. Also, some quotes that the characters might say. A number were used to doing those party mystery games and it may not hurt to have an "easy mode" that gave a bit more guidance to players.
• I had no idea how to deal with insight checks and deception checks when players were lying to each other. We ended up giving up on trying to insight check things and have the players do their best to lie and discern for themselves.
• We had skill checks to find clues but if the players failed their check, I knew I still had to give them clues or they would be stuck. My solution was to penalize failed checks by using up 10 minutes of in-game time. I'd recommend a longer amount of time, 20 minutes to really ratchet up the tension.
• the game ended in PvP combat which was dramatic but a little weird for our table.
• The players decided they had no real reason to go to the back cars and so they missed the encounter with Blue Shield and second class.
• We were forced to play this online (due to the pandemic of 2020- for those of you reading from the future), we did this over two two-hour sessions. The first session was kind of a mess with folks talking over each other and doing too much theorizing and less dialogue with each other. The second one I set up a loose initiative order which helped give players some structure so everyone could speak.
• All of us liked the story and the challenge of trying to get away with murder. We all left the table thinking the D&D rules actually made this harder than if we had run it without them.
• The wife was the murderer after a rolling on the table. As DM, if it had been anyone else, it seemed like the clues were fairly vague and everything would have still pointed to the wife.

I think we could have used a little more perscriptive directions- specifically on how to manage the progress of time, some more detail on how characters relate. It could be that much of the challenge would have been solved if we could have run it in person.

Hopefully this is constructive and useful as you run this adventure. It's a fantastic change of pace from the usual and would recommend it as something new and different.

An excellent and well thought out one-shot that is easy to pickup and prepare. It fits perfectly into the Eberron setting and can be used as either a stand-alone adventure or part of a broader plot. Would definitely recommend this to anyone running a campign in Eberron.

I stumbled on this while looking for an adventure with something different and I was not disappointed. I've now run it once and played it once and found it delightful both times. Both sessions were full of hilarious chaotic energy on the part of the players, which was exactly what I was looking for. The concept of randomly determining the killer is great.

If I have one negative it's that the pre-gen characters are really just NPC stat blocks - not as fleshed out as you might want for a player character. I had a couple of people new to D&D playing so I ended up expanding some of the pre-gens for them myself and it turned out great.

So as I expected on a first read when I picked it up, this is pretty great. The cool thing about it is not just how clever the underlying conception and structure is -- and it definitely is -- but how easy it is to adapt and massage for other purposes.

For example, I actually didn't run this in 5e. I adapted the concept and archetypes, built a luxury cruiser starship setting for them, layered a dose of spy intrigue on top and ran it for my Starfinder group. In so doing, I removed the potential for PvP (the archetypes all manifested as separate NPCs, and the party in general was tasked with unravelling their various schemes and mysteries), fleshed out some of the characters on the "lower decks," and adjusted the mechanics for the system specifics and the higher-level party running through it. Even with all of these transformations, the conceptual strength of the module and the genuine sense of investigating a meaty mystery with believably-motivated actors, shone through. It provided superb bones on which to build.

We got six solid sessions of play out of what resulted, and my group loved it. I recommend checking this out not just to D&D players but to any fan of elegant ttrpg adventure design. I can promise you'll find useful ideas in here even if you don't just run the adventure as-is.

Finally had a chance to run this adventure for my group and they loved it! Most were unfamiliar with Eberron and one was completely new to D&D so we ran a zero session to get them up to speed. Like a lot of mystery plots, it matters how much your group puts into it. The handouts for each archetype were very useful to help my players get into character. I love that there are multiple versions of the document so I can read it on my phone for prep and print it out for use at the table. The only thing I found myself scrambling for was a DM 'cheat sheet' for running the unused archetypes. Just a single page with a line or two for each so I don't have to flip pages while at the table. Can't recommend this adventure enough!

I have never had greater pleasure than when I ran this module. It was such a fascinating and intriguing adventure, and tension was being built higher and higher during the game.

This is the best module ever, although character sheets could have been done more thorougly.

If you're the kind of person that just reads the first line or two of a review let me do you a favor and let you know that this was one of my top 5 favorite gaming sessions of D&D I've ran!

Honestly, when I ran this I was super nervous. Nervous because for this adventure to work you have to truly trust your players. I played this with a few of our patrons on Twitch so I prefaced it with saying something along the lines of "This very well may be a trainwreck, we'll see!" but wow was I wrong. The players absolutely crushed it and it was some of the easiest DMing I've ever done. To DM this adventure you really just need to do a quick read over it once and then you actually get to sit back quite a bit. I ended up playing three of the NPCs and the players all took up one of the others each. It worked out super well and I don't want to spoiler my runthrough but everyone had a ton of fun!

I'm the DM for an actual-play podcast that plays one shots from dmsguild and I also stream on Twitch with some of our patrons. We streamed this one and you can find the full length video below.

https://youtu.be/ofOiJBAvfW8

Great Job! What an awesome concept. I am new to the Eberron setting but this was an awesome introduction into such a cool place of steampunk/noir/magic and more. The murderer mechanic is ingenius and leaves everyone guessing until the very end.

The module is very flexible and I was able to make it into my own. It's also very replayable as the murderer can change everytime.

Pick this one up for sure!

You know the adventure is good when players ask if they can play it again as you're cleaning up. I ran it with a large group of friends and family. It fit my group really well meeting the interests of friends who regularly play D&D and friends who love murder mystery games but hadn't played D&D before.

I loved how each of the roles were well fleshed out. Even though we barely dived into all the details the players really liked having interconnecting backstories. No one in my group wanted to play the spouse role, so I quickly made up an assistant to the conductor borrowing bits of the spouse background. The module is really flexable that swapping out a character still works the same, and doesn't put too much work on the DM.

Holy moly, this module is AWESOME. 10/10 would run again. My friends asked for a murder mystery one-shot, and so I picked up this one to run alongside Eberron - rising from the last war. The Setup of the module is impeccable, the character motivations are great, and I like everything about it. I talked a lot with the characters before hand and they came up with their motivations and such and such a web of deceit and lies as you've never seen before was weaved before my very eyes. I ran this twice and both times the results were completely interesting and unique.

I tweaked a few things (better for 3rd level then 6th level characters, put it on an airship instead of a train), but that's just DM discretion stuff. The core of this module is some really good material and fodder for making an amazing story.