I have between 8 - 14 relatives and friends visiting this summer and we’re discussing holding a murder mystery dinner night. Only one couple has ever attended one in the past and they’re sort of ‘meh’ about their experience (but up for trying another). Most of the family enjoys games of any kind and pretty much everyone is up for anything that involves a night of wine, beer and food, so even if the game itself is a bust, oh well, wine, beer and food.
Has anyone hosted a game before? Did you order a kit online? If so, where from? Any particular game you can suggest?
Keep in mind we’re looking for a family friendly game as my teenage niece will be bringing a friend so even if my family is the Royal Family of Hilarious Sexual Innuendos and Dirty Jokes, and corrupting our own youth is generally acceptable, playing any adult themed games with other people’s kids would be uncomfortable. And wrong. Apparently.
If you’ve not hosted but attended one before and have any advice or tips I’d love to hear them too.
I attended a New Year’s Eve murder mystery party when I was in my mid-twenties. I don’t remember exactly but there were probably about twice as many people guests as you’re planning; about 30.
The number of guests was a huge problem. It was nice of the hostess to try, but I had no idea what was going on and neither did anyone I talked to. There was a butler in a tuxedo who turned out to be a secret agent and that’s about all I know.
I love the idea of hosting one or going to a better organized one someday. I think your attitude about the worst case scenario being a fun night with alcohol, food and friends is a great one. If I ever did, I’d definitely buy some kind of plan but I don’t know of any sources for them.
I’ve hosted pretty much every murder mystery game that Decipher makes, but none of them are child-friendly. I have attended some that were professionally hosted as well, and none of those are child-friendly, either. The topic is murder, after all, and the humor tends to be pretty “adult” because the motives for murder are usually fairly sordid, and the jokes will depend upon dark and/or sexual humor. If you want to do this with kids, you’re almost certainly going to have to write your own mystery (I have done that, too). Also, these parties are way more fun when people have had a few drinks. If I were you, I’d host an adults-only party.
Beyond that, the best ones were parties where the attendees were all:
Into the role-playing, or at least willing to go along with it. All it takes is one person thinking “this is dumb” to kill everyone’s fun. One murder mystery was ruined by a woman who got very upset that her real-life husband’s character was having an affair with a character played by another woman.
Clever enough to follow along. Some of my murder mysteries have been spoiled by clueless players who couldn’t keep track of the characters or the story lines.
When you get the right mix of people, though, it’s a lot of fun.
Thanks, Fuzzy Dunlop. I can see how 30 people would be difficult if it wasn’t very well organized!
I found some online links where you can buy a kit for a game but I have no idea what I’m really looking for or what they actually should include. If worse comes to worse, I’ll just order an age-appropriate, party-goer-number-fitting (I’ve had a whack of Nyquil and apparently words are work to think about) and we’ll see what we get and how it goes.
I wondered about that Q.N. Jones but I found a few that were listed as “teen friendly” so assume the murder is without the other stuff. I will admit though, the ‘other stuff’ would lend some funny to the game. The teens have indicated they’d like to play though and no one minds. Everyone attending has either opted in or out (two would prefer not to play) so those playing will all be into whatever character they need to play (and ‘hardly shy’ would describe most of the family well and most have asked what costume/props they need to get). Glad to hear they can be fun though! Thanks!
! went to a private party hosted by friends, I think the group was around 12-15 people. My friends ordered a kit online. Once they had the rsvps in hand they distributed the general theme, assigned each character an identity and encouraged everyone to show up in costume. Luckily the guests went along it and we had a great time. Things got pretty loose towards the end (we’d been eating and drinking throughout) but everyone was having a rip-roaring time by then.
It sounds like you are not as uptight about the humor as I initially thought, and it sounds like you have teens, not young children. Usually it’s just ribald or dark humor–nothing too filthy. I really like the Decipher murder mystery party kits, which I have been playing since I was a teen. I have tried some other brands, but often found the writing was not as good. Sounds like you have a good crowd for it! Hope you have fun.
Q.N. Jones, our family is about as earthy as they come but given the kids-that-are-not-ours playing, we’ll all play a more PG-13 version and less R-for-funny. I’m off to Google the Decipher kits. Thanks!
That’s me. I’m terrible for that sort of thing. I’ve been in two murder mystery evenings, back when it was still new and had a few teething problems, and I had no idea what was happening most of the time.
Can I ask how this works? I’ve only seen the concept on tv shows (Saved by the Bell, the Golden Girls). Is it like one guest is the murderer and everyone slowly figures out who? Does the murderer know they’re the murderer? Is it like half the dinner party is in on it and playing roles, while the other half experiences everything as a surprise?
We used to host a games night and did Decipher kits quite frequently - not dinners, but snacks and drinks.
Though it has been a while, each player gets a character and a packet of information about that character. You get clues which you open in rounds, and have to work your clues into the conversation. The murderer knows.
We’ve also done two murder mystery weekends, at resorts, and some professional dinners. At the first you interacted with the cast in character. The guest did not get identities, and much of the important stuff was staged at dinners or parties with all present. The last dinner we went to was incompetently done in all respects, but most have been great.
ETA:
None of the Decipher ones were risque in the least. There were some people having affairs with other people, but nothing explicit. It could be if the players played it that way, but you could tone it down if kids were present. We had kids, and while they were not invited since it was an adult activity, we never worried about them overhearing us.
We hosted one many (many!) years ago, I don’t remember the name of the publisher, but it was a lot of fun. We invited close friends, and the setting was 1920s so we asked people to come in costume (or reasonably close), told each in advance what character they’d be playing, and it was great fun. (We served a dinner that was also realted to the mystery story.)
We attended a mystery dinner at a restaraunt, and it was disappointing. Various characters came to our table so that we could question them, but not every character got to every table, and we never saw the murderer or got anythingl like a clue.
My in-laws enjoy these a lot, I went to the first one they hosted. It was fun, and the fact that everyone present is naturally into that sort of party game helped a lot (I was probably the least enthusiastic there, at least at first. I started off faking it for the sake of family harmony, but found myself enjoying it).
One thing I thought was key is that my MIL was really committed to hosting this, and spent a bit a time before the party really reviewing the game inside out and backwards so that she was prepared to jump in and keep things progressing. Being that it was a bunch of first-time players, there were some moments where it seemed like things could have turned from “fun confusion” to “frustrating, this sucks” but that didn’t happen because MIL was at the ready to get things back on track.
I remember being really annoyed that I didn’t turn out to be the murderer. And I also remember feeling like I should have been able to figure out before the reveal how my character’s attempt to kill the victim was flawed.
I will say it’s good to have someone acting as the ‘host’ outside of the game that knows everything that’s supposed to happen, so they can encourage people along. It’s easy to get stuck in a “well, that’s nice, but I have this unrelated thing to say now!” rut when trying to get all the information out in the chapters.
I will also say that, for being a “murder mystery dinner”, it’s often good to either have a ton of courses (and do the talky talky between the courses) or a quick meal and then retire to another room for the story. Otherwise you have someone trying to choke down their penne because they have something to say or someone else spills their drink all over their character book.
As far as kid-friendly, the precipitating event is a murder, half the participants are usually having affairs, the other half are in the mob or doing something else illegal, one or two is a drunk or on drugs, scammers/shysters/shady schemes abound. I wouldn’t be upset putting a 16 year old in a game, but 12 might be a bit early.
we did one for a joint birthday which was hosted at a hotel. It was pretty big with around maybe 70-80 people total. I remember having a good bit of fun, but we were one small group among a bunch of strangers. Not sure how it would play out if it was all people we knew.
We do MM dinners on a regular basis. But a couple of years ago, we hosted one in the house. Specifically, The Immortal Murders.
It was a blast. The game gives you a standard set of characters plus some alternates, so that if you get murdered in the course of the game, you can come back in as one of the alts and continue playing.
Had a blast, nobody figured it out. We all missed one key clue early. Admittedly, at this point more than a few bottles of wine had been consumed…
I always thought that if I did it again, one person would read the whole kit in advance and be a narrator and host to help things along. That is based on our experience, n=1
I’ve attended a murder mystery with about that many people. It went well, largely because there were two very organized people in charge to keep things running smoothly even when people moved to different rooms and got off-track. It went poorly because there were a few people who joined the party but had not been invited to play roles, and they got out of hand and murdered someone (me) who wasn’t supposed to die.
For the same number of participants, you might also try a generic LARP (Live Action Role Playing event) which is quite similar but doesn’t require participants’ deaths and doesn’t necessarily involve the red herrings of affairs and other shenanigans. That might be easier to coordinate and manage if the kids you have present will be particularly young – they simply get ancilliary roles and are told, “Today at the party you should pretend ____.”
Another one I attended was a combination Murder Mystery & Cthulu LARP.
Boy did that one get strange!