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November 2003, Issue #1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 News: Welcome to Guilty Parties - and Costume Guides for Freeform Games

2 Murder Mystery Game Tips - what to do when guests don?t turn up, and a neat printing utility.

3 Featured Murder Mystery Game Review - All at Sea

1 NEWS

WELCOME

Hi, I'm Steve Hatherley. I live in Leeds, a large city in the north of England. During the day I am a civil engineer - but by night I run two murder mystery games website - Great Murder Mystery Games and Run Your Own Murder Mystery Games.

I have also started Freeform Games LLP, a murder mystery company dedicated to the kind of murder mystery game I like to play.

As you can see - I love murder mystery games and I hope you like them too!

In this newsletter I plan to bring news of new murder mystery games and developments as I find them. I hope you find it useful. I hope to issue this newsletter once every two months or so - but that will depend on what?s happening in the world of murder mystery games.

COSTUME GUIDES

Costume Guides are now included in the Freeform Games murder mystery games (Death on the Gambia and All at Sea). (Previously you had to use your own judgement on what to wear.)

The guides have been added to the free introductory pdf files, so if you've already bought a game, all you need to re-download is the introduction.

2 MURDER MYSTERY GAME TIPS

What do you do if one of your guests doesn't turn up?

Well, obviously you spurn them.

Seriously though, if you've cast your murder mystery in advance and one of the critical players (say, the murderer) fails to turn up - you've got a problem. Or if you're playing a game with a set number of guests, then you need everyone to turn up otherwise you can't play the game.

Personally, I think that failing to turn up is rude and can spoil the evening for everyone else. Of course, there are occasions when it can't be helped, and this is what you can do to minimise the damage.

- First, ensure that everyone knows that it's important that they turn up. If you are running a game that doesn't have any flexibility in numbers, then especially emphasise that.

- Second, you might want to think about a "standby" - someone you can call on at the last minute. For example, sometimes I have someone help me run the games - if necessary they can stand in (particularly if they don?t know the details).

- Third, if you are running a game with "core" characters and "additional" characters (such as The Auction, which has 12 core characters and 28 additional ones) then try to ensure that you have at least 13 guests so that if one drops out, the party won't be spoiled.

- Fourth, if you are casting a game like The Auction in advance, you could leave a couple of the additional characters uncast. That way, if someone critical doesn't turn up you have someone who can take over the role. (They might not have the exact costume, but at least you can run your murder mystery game!)

SAVING PAPER

This is a nifty application I recently came across.

Fineprint lets you print multiple pages - it's easy to print two pages at once, and very handy for games like Death on the Gambia where character details are on two pages.

Best of all, the trial version is free - so you can start saving paper straight away. Isn't the Internet wonderful?

FEATURED MURDER MYSTERY GAME REVIEW - ALL AT SEA

All at Sea is a murder mystery game game for 16 to 33 players from Freeform Games. The game is set at the outbreak of the First World War. An American cruise liner, the Libertania, is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean when its Captain is murdered.

The guests, playing the parts of crew and passengers, must uncover the murderer before the Libertania arrives in port and the murderer can escape.

All at Sea is what I call a "freeform" or "interactive" murder mystery (much like Death on the Gambia and The Auction).

In All at Sea everyone has a complete character with background, friends and objectives. Each guest decides how he or she will approach the murder - and the murderer must try to avoid detection.

At the start of All at Sea, the Captain of the Libertania is murdered in front of the other characters. (Don't worry - the player who acts out the role has another character to play. He isn't left for dead while everyone else has a good time!)

The passengers and crew must then try and solve the murderer - but that's not all. In addition, most characters have other goals and objectives. In All at Sea, for example, the acting Captain must take charge, the stewards must carry out their duties and the passengers must decide how to react to the news of impending war.

Plus there are smugglers, diplomats, spies and more.

Instead of a formal dinner party, All at Sea is better suited to a buffet meal or finger food. Everyone needs to be able to talk quietly with each other - the officers may need to discuss what to do with the Libertania and diplomats may want to hold secret discussions about the war.

All at Sea needs a host, someone to organise the game. They will read the entire game and will be available to answer questions. It's lots of fun being the host - you know what's going on and can watch your friends scheme and plot and be devious to one another.

For more information about All at Sea, click here to download the free introductory pdf file which includes more details - including background, a full cast list, invitations and how to pay.

That's it for this time. Have a great party - and tell me all about it!

--steve