How to Create Red Herrings for Murder Mysteries

Design effective murder mystery red herrings that mislead without frustrating. Types, quantities, and techniques for balancing misdirection with solvability.

Quick answer: To create murder mystery red herrings that mislead without frustrating, plant 2-3 per game (more breaks trust). Use three types: the false motive (innocent suspect with a real grudge), the misleading evidence (an object that looks incriminating but has innocent explanation), and the partial alibi (suspect who lies about something unrelated to the murder). Every red herring must resolve before the reveal so guests see why it pointed wrong. Skip the "everyone's lying about something" maximalism — it kills solvability.

Last updated: July 2026

How to Create Red Herrings for a Murder Mystery (Without Ruining the Game)

There's a moment in every good mystery where you think you've figured it out, and then one piece of evidence pulls the rug out from under your entire theory. That moment requires red herrings. Without them, the mystery is too linear. The solution becomes obvious the moment you have two or three real clues because there's nothing pointing you in the wrong direction.

But I've also been at mystery parties where the red herrings were so numerous and so convincing that nobody could solve anything. Every lead went nowhere. Every piece of evidence contradicted the last one. The host had to basically explain the solution at the end because the group was completely lost. And that's worse than being too easy, because at least when the mystery is too easy people still feel clever.

So red herring design is really a calibration problem. How much misdirection creates the satisfying experience of solving something difficult versus the frustrating experience of being jerked around?

Global Growth Insights' 2025 report on the immersive murder mystery games market found that 48% of new game kits now feature multi-ending storylines. That suggests designers are building in more complexity and more viable theories, not less. The audience is getting more sophisticated about mystery mechanics, which means the red herrings need to be more sophisticated too.

What a Red Herring Actually Is (and Isn't)

A red herring is a piece of evidence or information that plausibly points toward a wrong conclusion. That word "plausibly" is doing a lot of work. Random irrelevant information isn't a red herring. A receipt from a dry cleaner isn't a red herring unless there's a reason a player would think it's significant.

So a red herring needs three qualities. It needs to be findable (players actually encounter it). It needs to seem relevant (there's a logical reason to think it matters). And it needs to be ultimately disprovable (further investigation reveals it's a dead end, without requiring the host to just announce "that was a red herring").

The disprovability is what separates a good red herring from a bad one. A good red herring falls apart when you look at it closely. A bad red herring can only be dismissed by the host declaring it irrelevant, which breaks the investigative experience.

For example: Suspect A has a strong financial motive and no alibi. That's a good red herring setup. When players investigate further, they discover Suspect A actually received a large insurance payout that week and didn't need the victim's money. The red herring collapses under investigation, and the collapse itself is a satisfying detective moment.

Contrast that with a bad version: Suspect A seems suspicious, but there's no evidence that addresses the suspicion one way or the other. The host just reveals at the end that Suspect A was innocent. That's not a red herring. That's a waste of the players' time.

The Five Types of Red Herrings

After looking at how red herrings function across different mysteries, I think they fall into five distinct categories. Each works differently and serves a different purpose.

The circumstantial red herring is the most common. A suspect was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A character has a visible emotional reaction to the victim's death. A piece of physical evidence physically connects an innocent person to the crime scene. These work because they exploit the human tendency to infer causation from correlation. Innocent explanations emerge through further investigation.

The motive red herring gives an innocent suspect a strong, believable reason to want the victim dead. The business partner who was about to be sued. The ex-spouse who lost the custody battle. The employee who was passed over for promotion. These suspects look guilty because their motives are real. They just didn't act on them. Disproving a motive red herring usually involves demonstrating that the suspect had already resolved their grievance (settled the lawsuit, moved on, found a better job).

The behavioral red herring involves a suspect acting suspiciously for reasons unrelated to the crime. Sneaking out at night to meet a secret lover. Burning documents that are embarrassing but not criminal. Lying to investigators about something that's simply private. Mystery writing expert Jeanne Riedel calls this the misdirection trick, where a character uses a small secret to distract from larger secrets. Every role has a job to do that moves the story forward, and an innocent suspect's job is to look guilty for the wrong reasons.

The timeline red herring creates an apparent impossibility. "Suspect B couldn't have committed the crime because they were seen across town at 9 PM." But what if the time of death was actually 8 PM, and the witness who places Suspect B across town at 9 PM is actually supporting their alibi? These require careful construction because they depend on players tracking specific times.

The physical evidence red herring plants a misleading object at the scene. A dropped earring that belongs to someone who visited earlier in the day. A threatening letter that was written about a different matter entirely. Fingerprints on a weapon that were left during a perfectly innocent earlier interaction. The physical evidence is real. Its connection to the crime is false.

How Many Red Herrings Is Too Many

There's no universal number, but there are some principles I've been able to test.

For a 6-8 player mystery lasting about 2 hours, two to three red herrings per act works. Across a three-act structure, that's 6-9 red herrings total. Each one should be disprovable within the act it's introduced, or by evidence available in the next act. Red herrings that persist for the entire mystery and can only be dismissed at the reveal are frustrating rather than fun.

The ratio of real clues to red herrings matters more than the absolute number. A good target is roughly 2:1. For every two real clues that advance the investigation, one red herring pulls attention sideways. This ratio keeps the forward momentum going. Players feel like they're making progress even when they occasionally chase a false lead.

What happens when you have too many red herrings is predictable. Players stop trusting any evidence. Once they've been fooled three or four times, they become suspicious of everything, including the real clues. At that point, the investigation stalls because nobody wants to commit to a theory that might be another dead end. The game stops being fun and starts feeling adversarial, like the host is trying to trick them rather than challenge them.

Too few red herrings and the mystery is just a connect-the-dots puzzle. Every piece of evidence matters, so the solution becomes clear as soon as players have assembled a critical mass of clues. No wrong turns means no discovery moments. No dead ends means no sense of triumph when you find the right path.

Making Red Herrings Disprovable

This is the engineering challenge of red herring design, and it's where most amateur mystery writers struggle.

Every red herring should have a "debunking clue" somewhere in the game. Ideally, this debunking clue is available one round after the red herring is introduced. This creates a satisfying rhythm: discover suspicious evidence, investigate, discover it was a false lead, redirect investigation.

One structure that works well: the red herring and its debunking clue are distributed to different players. Player A finds the suspicious bank transaction. Player C, who visited a different suspect station, has the explanation for that transaction. When A and C share information, the red herring collapses. This structure encourages collaboration and rewards communication between players.

Another approach is embedding the debunking information in the red herring itself, visible only to careful readers. The bank statement shows a suspicious payment, but the memo line says "birthday gift, see attached card." A player who reads the entire document catches this. A player who only looks at the dollar amount misses it. Both reactions are valid and both serve the mystery.

For verbal red herrings, the debunking can come from another suspect's testimony. Suspect A claims Suspect B was arguing with the victim at the party. Suspect B says it was a friendly debate and Suspect E confirms B's version. The contradiction between A's account and everyone else's doesn't eliminate A as suspicious (maybe A was lying for their own reasons), but it debunks the specific red herring about B.

Red Herrings and Player Experience

Different players respond to red herrings differently, and a well-designed mystery accounts for this.

Analytical players enjoy red herrings. They like the challenge of testing hypotheses and eliminating incorrect ones. For these players, each debunked red herring feels like progress because it narrows the field.

Social players sometimes find red herrings frustrating because they interrupt the narrative flow. They want the story to move forward, not sideways. For these players, red herrings that involve character drama (discovering someone's embarrassing secret) are more engaging than purely logical dead ends.

Competitive players can become fixated on a red herring and resist abandoning their theory even when the evidence turns against it. The host needs to be aware of this tendency and, if necessary, provide a definitive debunking rather than a suggestive one.

For mixed groups (which is most groups), having a variety of red herring types ensures everyone encounters misdirection in a form they find engaging rather than frustrating.

Red Herring Placement Across the Mystery

Where you place red herrings in the timeline matters as much as how many you use.

Act One should have 1-2 light red herrings. Players are still learning the characters and the scenario. Heavy misdirection at this stage creates confusion rather than intrigue. Early red herrings should be the easiest to debunk, building players' confidence in their investigative abilities.

Act Two is where the serious misdirection happens. The strongest red herring should land here, mid-mystery, when players have enough context to find it compelling. The best Act Two red herring is one that makes a specific suspect look almost certainly guilty. The "almost" collapses in Act Three.

Act Three should have minimal new red herrings. By the final act, players should be narrowing their theories, not expanding them. If you introduce a major new false lead in the final round, players don't have time to debunk it and the investigation ends in confusion.

Building Mysteries With Well-Balanced Red Herrings

Calibrating the right number, type, and placement of red herrings is one of the harder aspects of mystery design. MysteryMaker generates mysteries with red herrings built into the clue structure. Each innocent suspect has planted evidence that seems damning but is disprovable through further investigation, and the debunking clues are distributed so that collaborative groups discover the truth faster than solo investigators.

FAQ

Can a red herring also contain real information?

Yes, and these are the best kind. A bank statement that's a red herring regarding one suspect might also contain a real clue about a different suspect. Multi-purpose evidence creates a richer investigative experience because players can't simply dismiss a debunked piece of evidence. It might still matter in a different context.

Should the host tell players when they've found a red herring?

No. Players should discover that evidence is a false lead through their own investigation. If the host announces "that's a red herring," it removes the detective experience. The one exception: if the group is completely stuck and time is running out, the host can nudge them away from a dead end with a hint.

How do I prevent red herrings from making the game unsolvable?

Build debunking clues into the game structure. Every red herring should be paired with a clue that contradicts or explains it. If players can't debunk a red herring through investigation alone, it's too strong and needs to be weakened or its debunking clue needs to be more accessible.

Can every suspect be a red herring except the killer?

Yes, and this is actually the standard structure for most party mysteries. Each innocent suspect has a combination of motive, suspicious behavior, and circumstantial evidence that makes them look guilty. The investigation eliminates them one by one until the actual killer remains.

What if players never find a red herring I planted?

That's fine. A red herring that goes undiscovered doesn't harm the game. It just means the players had one fewer false lead to contend with. Only unfound real clues cause problems. Unfound red herrings simply make the mystery slightly easier.

How do I make sure the real killer doesn't have too many red herrings pointing away from them?

The killer should have exactly as many suspicious indicators as the innocent suspects. If everyone else has 2-3 suspicious things and the killer has zero, the absence of suspicion becomes suspicious. Give the killer their own set of apparent alibis and minor secrets that make them look just as complicated as everyone else.

Can red herrings be physical objects or are they always informational?

Both. Physical red herrings (a weapon that turns out not to be the murder weapon, a dropped item that has an innocent explanation) are just as effective as informational ones. Physical red herrings have the advantage of being tangible, which makes the discovery moment more dramatic and the debunking more satisfying.