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February 2003, Issue #4

Table of Contents

1 News: Host A Party, a free sample character and a new game

2 Murder Mystery Game Tips: Large Games

3 Featured Murder Mystery Game Reviews: The Auction and Extra Character Packets

4 Your Questions

1 - News

Host A Party

Host-Party.com is a new site offering several murder mystery party games (three so far - more to follow). Host-Party.com's system is unusual and does much of the work for the host by emailing each guest separately with their character details. This should make the games easier to organise.

Some of the games are very customisable - you can even choose the outcome and create your own characters! Click here to visit the Host-Party.com murder mystery games site.

Free Sample Character from Freeform Games

Freeform Games have produced a free sample character (in pdf format) for their games: All at Sea, Curse of the Pharaoh and Death on the Gambia. The free character fits all games and is ideal if you have an extra guest, or if you want to see what an interactive murder mystery character is like.

Click here to download the free sample character pdf file.

Class of '57 - A Killer Reunion

Class of '57 is the latest murder mystery party from Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games, and is an interactive game for 12 to 32 players. Class of '57 is quite unusual and has been written with six couples as the "core" characters, and they work as a team. The additional characters all come from the Extra Character Packets, more of which below.

Click here to find out more (this takes you to the Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games shop - from there you can click through to find more about Class of '57 - A Killer Reunion).

2 - Murder Mystery Game Tips

Large Murder Mystery Games

Running a murder mystery party for a large number of people is very different from one for a dozen or so people. If nothing else, there's a bigger chance of Murphy's Rule ("If something can go wrong, it will.") striking.

So in order to minimise trouble and maximise enjoyment, here are my tips for running a large game:

• Prepare in advance: Everything is going to take longer, so make sure you start well in advance. Don't wait until the last minute before choosing your game - give yourself at least a month. Ideally, give yourself even longer.
• Buffet Meal: The larger murder mystery games are all "interactive" in style, rather than the dinner-party games. So that means a buffet meal, or finger food so that your guests can wander around the room with a drink and a plate in their hand. Make sure you have lots of places for people to leave their plates and glasses as they play.
• Plenty of Help: Don't try to do everything yourself. If possible, recruit some help. You might want someone to help with running the murder mystery, but you might also want someone else in charge of food or drinks. Don't try to do it all yourself.
• Drinks: Make sure you have a good supply of soft drinks. Your guests will be talking throughout the game, and are bound to become very thirsty.
• Lots of Prizes: Rather than hand out one prize, have several. See Guilty Parties #3 for more ideas.
• Don't worry about the murder: Some of the games allow you to play in the game - but if you're organising a large party, you're likely to be too busy to spend much time trying to solve the mystery.
• Play safe: Don't forget to play safe! Props are great - but don't ever use props for weapons.
• You can't please all of the people all of the time: Which is to say that you should expect one or two problems and maybe even a complaint. There's not that much you can do about this - it doesn't seem to matter how well organised an event is, someone finds something to complain about. So be prepared to handle problems.

Of course, even if you follow these points I can't guarantee that your murder mystery party will be a hit, but you have a better chance of success if you do.

Have a good party!

3 - Featured Murder Mystery Game Reviews

The Auction

The Auction is a murder mystery game for 12-40 people from Murder Mystery Games Ltd. Set in the modern day, The Auction follows the suspicious death of Baroness Audrey von Munchen.

The Auction is an interactive murder mystery (much like All at Sea and Cudham Riding Club). In interactive murder mystery games everyone has a complete character with a background and objectives. Each guest decides how he or she will approach the murder - and the murderer must try to avoid detection. There are no "rounds" and the murderer knows who they are from the start.

In The Auction, the fabulous von Munchen relics are being auctioned off. In the absence of a legal heir, the proceeds will go to the Baroness' favourite charity. Unless there a legal claimant steps forward...

The guests play the part of everyone at the auction. They not only have to solve the murder, but they also have their own goals, and several of them may want to bid for the relics. Characters include a cardinal, librarian, drugs-runner, actress, maid, auctioneer, journalist and many more.

The relics include:

• The Crown of Salaar - it once belonged to the Sultan of the Seljuk Turks.
• A Japanese sword - said to belong to an aide of the Emperor of Japan.
• The Cross of Unity - given to the crusaders by Pope Urban II.
• The Brooch of Salaar - this is missing, stolen the night the Baroness was murdered.

At the end of the evening, before the murderer is unmasked, the relics are auctioned off to the highest bidder.

As with other interactive murder mystery games, The Auction suits a buffet meal or finger food (rather than a sit-down meal) so that everyone can talk quietly with each other. (Plus there needs to be somewhere to hold the auction itself!)

Like Cudham Riding Club, the person hosting The Auction (who plays Freddie Farr) must print everything out and "run" the game. However, as the name of the murderer is mentioned only on the murderer's character sheet and in the solution, the host can still join in the fun as long as they don't read the character sheets.

The Auction is available from Murder Mystery Games and costs £29.99.

For more information, click here to download the free introductory pdf file which includes more details - including background, a full cast list, invitations and how to pay. (The file is 115KB, so may take a few moments to download.)

Extra Character Packets

Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games have produced a number of character packets that can be used with their games (currently Murder at the Four Deuces and The Santa Clause). Each character packet consists of ten stand-alone characters, and costs $10 - but how good are they?

Physically, each character is generally a single side of paper. They consist of a little bit of background, some suggestions for things that character would do at a party, and things they might say.

The first thing to note is that because each character is a stand-alone, they don't tie into any of the "main" plots. The things they have to do are often character quirks - for example, one of the characters in the first character packet is an absent-minded professor, who can't remember where he left his glasses (they're on his head).

The characters all look like they're quite fun to play (and I should point out that I haven't tried them), but I'm not sure that they'd last the entire evening. I could be wrong - and I am certain that it depends on who is playing that character. (Personally, I like to be a little more deeply involved in a plot, but I know some people who are happy just to have a wacky character to play with.)

To be fair, some of the characters do have more depth to them - they're generally in the second character packet.

So far Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games have produced two packets of extra characters. The characters in the first packet are:

• Lou Natic: an actor
• Marie Inhaste: widowed four times.
• Stan Dingproud: an absent-minded professor.
• May Flowers: a psychologist.
• Sally Forth: psychic to the stars.
• Dr Hugh Demann: a world-renowned phsyician.
• Harry Hyde: paranoid.
• Robin Banks: the gentlemen thief.
• Jenna Feline: an eccentric heiress.
• Betty Kant: a forensic entomologist.

As you can see, it's an ecclectic bunch. There's no doubt that some of the characters appeal to me more than the others - they're the ones I'd use first. The second packet are equally diverse:

• Georgio Gigolo: a debonair gigolo.
• Carolyn Monroe: a sex goddess.
• Dr Heckle: a schizophrenic doctor.
• Mr Smith: a businessman.
• Lester Jester: a practical joker.
• Karma Delight: an exotic dancer.
• Jimmy Skinny: an accountant.
• Kikki Kickit: a bodyguard for hire.
• Vera Leigh: a celebrated artist.
• Mrs Smith: no relation to Mr Smith, owner of Soul Reaper, Inc.

Theoretically the characters can be used to add to a game set in any era, but some are more modern than others. You would want to pick and choose.

The other question is whether they can be used in other interactive murder mystery games such as The Auction or All at Sea, which aren't produced by Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games. The answer is a qualified yes - use them, but with caution. I'd certainly be wary about using them in a game with fewer than 20 people (that's because the smaller games tend to be more heavily plotted - and a stand-alone character will stand out more).

There's one thing that's missing that I would like to have seen - and that's some kind of plot linking some of the characters. While it's obvious that the characters can't know anything about the main murder, they could have their own plot. Maybe three or four of the characters could be linked somehow, so that they would have more to do and would fit into the overall game better.

Overall, while some of the characters seem a little too light, you can't go far wrong for $10. If I was only getting one packet, I'd start with the second.

Click here to go to the Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games shop - from there you can find out more information about their Extra Character Packets.

4 Your Questions

Some of your recent questions:

Can you explain how "The Auction" works with more than 8 people? I have spoken to several games stores who say that their games are designed for 8 people only.

Most of the games in the shops are for 6 or 8 people (ie, like the How to Host a Murder... series) and are designed around a sit-down meal. They are very structured; you have round #1, followed by the first course, followed by round #2, followed by the second course, and so on. Quite often, if you're the murderer, you don't know that you did it until the end.

The Auction (and other interactive games) doesn't work like that. Firstly, it doesn't really suit a sit-down meal. You need to be able to talk to just about everyone, and if there's twenty of you that's impossible at a dinner table (and The Auction caters for up to 40 - even more difficult). So it needs to be a buffet meal, or finger food.

Instead of being played in rounds, The Auction is much more interactive. Everyone has their own character, with their own objective (one of which will be "solve the murder", others might be to blackmail someone, or make lots of money, or bid on a particular item in the auction itself). There are clues scattered around as to who the murderer is, and yes - the murderer knows that they did it.

The Auction is for 12-40 people. How this works is that there are 12 "critical" characters who must be used in all cases. Then there 28 are optional characters (the instructions explain exactly which ones to use) which are used when you have more than 12 people.

The information provided in the Acrobat (pdf) files is inconsistent. For example, the information provided in "Murder at the Four Deuces" is more detailed than "The Auction." Why is this?

The pdf files are different because there are different companies producing the games. They each have differing standards in what they like to give out. Murder at the Four Deuces is certainly the most detailed, and even includes a sample character (unlike the others).

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

--steve

Comments? Ideas? Feedback? I'd love to hear from you. Just reply to this zine and tell me what you think!