A Murder Mystery Party

As much as we cringe at real life murders, we seem to enjoy a good murder mystery book, movie, dinner, or party. Our curiosity, sense of adventure, and desire to find solutions draw us to this subject.

The Game

Ideas for a murder mystery party can come from many sources. The board game Clue is one source we could turn to for inspiration, with the different plots we create when we choose the cards.

Following the set up of the game, prepare a plot. Decide who, among your guests, will be the culprit of your murder mystery party. Decide on the murder weapon. Will it be a poison? Or will it be an ice pick?

Once you have chosen your weapon, move on to the location. You can limit choices to the rooms in your house, if that is where you are hosting the party, or the murder can occur at a different location altogether, just to add a little bit more excitement.

Set Up for the Game

Now that you have an outline of the plot, you need to prepare the set up of your murder mystery party. Prepare a card for each attending guest. You may want to make a few extra in case you have a last minute appearance. This card will carry all the information needed to get to know and play the particular character. Make sure that you prepare two sets, one for women and one for men, unless you are sure your guests will get a kick out of representing their opposite gender.

Along with the character's information, you will add on the card an outline of the next step. Keeping the information in an outline format will allow your guests to improvise moves and dialogues, although still keeping within their role. For example, the murderer will be instructed to kill the victim by poison. However, when and where it will happen could be improvised and the way the victim will know is by a card he/she will receive which will represent the death notification.

The next step outlined on the card can be to just go about mingling with other guests, as they would do at regular parties, or to engage in activities you will have prepared in advance.

Playing the Game

At the beginning of the party, after introducing the game, each guest will pick a card you have previously created. When each participant will have picked a card, introduction of the characters will begin. It goes without saying that the guest representing the murderer will have to be totally discreet and not leak any clues as to his/her character's role.

With the introductions completed, you and your guests are ready to continue with the murder mystery party.

If you allow your guests to just go about mingling, although they will be playing the roles as they mingle (you may have an actor, a doctor, a lawyer, ... you get the idea) make sure you have various activities prepared as you would have during a regular party.

If you decide to set up rooms and activities based on your characters, such as a movie room where the most famous film of your actress is shown so she can brag about her movie career, then you will need to make sure to have enough props and hints your guests can use to bring the characters to life.

Sometime during these interactions, your murderer will strike. When, where, how and who is not known. The culprit will deliver the card to the chosen victim. This card will specify the mode of death: "you have just been poisoned." Of course, if your weapon of choice is a candlestick, the card will reflect it: "you have just been bludgeoned with a candlestick."

Nearing Conclusion of the Game

At this point, the victim will move to the main room of the house, which you will have previously disclosed to all guests, and will announce that he/she has been murdered. The rest of the guests will now have to guess how and where the victim died and who did it.

How are they going to find out? They will investigate by asking the victim yes or no questions. For example: did it hurt? Were you in the dining room? So on and so forth.
The victim will not know who gave the card, as the murderer will have been discreet enough to slip the card without being noticed. Having said that, asking "do you know who murdered you?" would be out of the question.

You and the murderer are the only ones to know his/her identity. All guests, including the murderer, will continue asking questions until enough clues have been gathered that an accusation can be made. Such accusations could be played out by the characters. For example, let's say that the movie actress was the victim; perhaps, her husband, after asking a few questions, decides that, based on the clues received, the murderer is her lawyer. He could then accuse the lawyer of the act and the lawyer, playing his/her part, could present arguments as to why he/she is not guilty of the accusation.

The party will continue with sets of questions and accusations and will conclude when the suspect has been identified.

The Organizer Can Play Too

If you want the chance to participate in the party, instead of just being the organizer, then don't choose the murderer or the weapon as you create the characters, but prepare another basket with as many notes as there are guests. These notes will say "I hope you have a great time," or anything else you choose; one note, however, will also read "murderer." Prepare extra notes, but do not add them in the basket unless you do have extra people show up at the party (otherwise you may risk not having a murderer at all).

If you want to make it a yummy discovery, then prepare candies, brownies, or cookies and wrap them up in paper. Inside the paper there will be a mark identifying the murderer. Instruct your guests to choose one and let them know that one of those treats will nominate the murderer.

Hopefully, in either of the two options, the lucky one will not exclaim: "I've got it!"

Tips

You will need to prepare at least five cards per weapon. It would even be better if the number of cards per weapon were to be random. For example, you could have five cards for poison, but only four for candlestick and for knife, and may be seven for another weapon.

By doing so, the killer would have the chance to pick his weapon without being too obvious what it is, as all weapons are still present and no one knows how many cards per weapon were there originally. Also, if you were to play the game as well, you would not know which weapon was chosen either. Surely, you would not spend your time counting how many cards are left of each!

Refreshments

If your characters are modern day characters, then you can choose any refreshments you want to offer. If you choose to have your characters belong to a certain time period, you want to present foods that would have been served during that time period.

Decorations

Aside from the props you will need to create the atmosphere based on your characters, you want to choose decorations in line with the time period you want represented. You will need to search each specific period and location to get ideas you will use.

Conclusion of the Party

The development of this murder mystery party can be as simple or as complicated as you and your guest decide it should be. The most important thing is to make it fun and, above all, safe. Your party will not turn out to be such a smashing hit if headlines in the following day's newspaper read, "Jane Doe murdered at a pretend murder mystery party!"