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November 2004, Issue #20

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1 News

2 Murder Mystery Tips - Solving a Murder Mystery Game

3 Article - Party Games that make you laugh

4 Book Review: Full Dark House

5 Your Questions

1 News

The Night Before Christmas

Freeform Games have released their latest murder mystery party - and this time it's a Christmas themed party. The Night before Christmas is set at a glamourous 1948 American cocktail party on Christmas Eve, and one of the valet's has been murdered!

The Night before Christmas is for 12 to 15 guest, plus one host. It costs £20, and at the moment can only be bought via Paypal. (Freeform Games are in the process of changing to a different payment provider, and until that is sorted out -- hopefully soon -- The Night before Christmas is only available by Paypal. Their other games are available as normal, however.)

Click here to learn more about The Night Before Christmas.

Email tips to your guests before you play...

While I've created a number of tips especially for guests (giving them general tips on what to do and how to act), unless they actually come to this site (or you print them out) they won't read them.

So I have created an easy way in which you can email the tips to your guests.

All you have to do is complete the form below - completing the form sends an email to you (containing the tips) that you can then modify and forward to your guests. (The email explains how to modify it so that you can send it to your guests.)

If you like you could also attach more information about your party - such as the free introductory pdf file which provides the background to the game and the full cast list.

Click here to go to the form.

2 Murder Mystery Tips - Solving the murder at a murder mystery party

If you are invited to a murder mystery party you have the chance to act out the role of your favourite detective - whether it's Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Morse.

While many murder mystery parties have a role specifically for the detective, everyone can join in the hunt for the murderer. Sometimes the games are written so that even the murderer doesn't know that they have committed the crime - so they can join in the fun as well.

So while these tips are particularly useful for anyone taking on the role of the detective, they will also help anyone else trying to solve the murder. (They may also help the murderer cover their trail...)

The secret to solving murder mysteries is in determining three things, the "Holy Trinity" of detection: Means, motive and opportunity.

"Means" is probably the easiest of the three to determine. By "means", I mean how the murder was carried out and usually an examination of the body will tell you this. Typical examples include stabbing, shooting, poisoning, drowning and so on.

In the case of something like poison, you might need to find out how it was administered. Was it something the victim ate or drank? Was the poison injected?

Sometimes it's not always easy to work out how the victim died - particularly if there are other wounds or marks. Also, the murder might be disguised as an accident.

Once you have determined the means, you should have more avenues of investigation. For example, if the victim was shot, who has access to a gun? This line of questioning brings us to the next in the Holy Trinity: opportunity.

"Opportunity" refers to the timing and planning of the murder, rather than the actual method of killing. In the case of a poisoning, for example, it means having the appropriate access to deliver the poison - such as in a bedtime drink, a favourite chocolate or whatever.

Opportunity also means being in the right place and time to commit the murder. Once you know where and when the dirty deed was committed, you can eliminate from your questioning anyone with a concrete alibi.

Which brings us to motive.

"Motive" answers the "why" question. Why was the victim killed?

Motive can be both the easiest and hardest of the Holy Trinity to solve. Sometimes there are lots of people with a good motive to kill, and sometimes it can be hard to find anyone with any kind of motive at all.

So, the first thing you should ask is "Who benefits?" Who has the most to gain from the victim's death? And if it's not immediately obvious, the you are going to have to talk to everyone.

(And even if it is immediately obvious, you may still have to talk to everyone as the murderer isn't always the person with the most obvious motive. Things are rarely as straight-forward as that!)

If nothing else, whenever you talk to one of the other guests at a murder mystery party, you should ask them who they think killed the victim. Someone will have a clue as to the identity of the murderer, but without asking absolutely everyone, you might never find them.

You need to watch for the various tricks and twists that can confuse things further. These can include the misdirected murder (where the victim wasn't the intended victim at all but just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) and murder-by-proxy (where the murderer isn't the one with most to gain, but is a misguided friend or servant).

Here, then, are my tips on solving a murder mystery:

• Find a piece of paper and write down three headings: Motive, Means and Opportunity. As the party progresses and you learn more about the murder, write down what you learn on the paper under the appropriate heading.
• Keep a checklist of everyone present and work through them, one by one. Most murder mystery parties have a list of characters who are present, so you can use that to make sure that you don't miss anyone.

3 Article - Party games that make you laugh

A couple of years ago as one of our family parties wound down, one of my mother's friends said, "What a wonderful party - it's so wonderful to laugh. We don't laugh enough these days, don't you think? "

Our family parties are, well, different than most other parties. The main difference between our parties and other parties is - party games. We have a large repetoire of partty games that make us laugh. Here are some of my favourites.

Plum plum plum

Plum plum plum is noisy and boistrous - the way a party game should be. You need about ten people for this, sitting in a circle with one person in the middle.

Starting with the youngest player, each player in the circle chooses a different fruit. The object of the game is for the person in the middle to point at one of the people sitting down and say the name of their fruit three times before that person says the name of their fruit just once. It doesn't matter who is being looked at - it's who is being pointed at that has to answer with their fruit.

If the person in the middle wins, they and the person they beat swap places - but the name of the fruit stays attached to that position. (So after a while nobody will be in their original positions and everyone will have to remember new fruit.)

Note - you might want to ban really long (over three syllable) names; my father once chose "pomegranite" and we never managed to shift him.

The name game

This one is a little more sedate than Plm Plum Plum...

To start this game ask everyone to think of a character or person - it could be someone famous, it could even be someone in the room. Then you should go outside, and each person should come to you one at a time and tell you the names they have chosen.

Once you have made a note of all the names, read them out to everyone. Then read them out again - and then the game begins. (By the way, you don't play the game as you know who everyone is.)

Pick someone to start. That person choose a player and says, "Shirley, I think you are Darth Vader" (or whichever name they think that Shirley has chosen). If that player is wrong and Shirley isn't Darth Vader, then it's Shirley's turn to try and guess who someone is.

When someone is correctly guessed, that person is out, and the person who guessed correctly gets another go. The game ends when there is only one person left - the winner!

The trick to playing this game is first choosing an unexpected name (one that isn't normally associated with you) and then remembering the names on the list (as it is easy to forget after you've been playing for a few minutes).

Catalogue Charades

I'm sure you have played traditional charades, the game where you mime out the title of a book, movie or television programme. Well, we find that they're a little too easy...

We play this with one person setting the charades for two teams to work their way through. We normally use the same list, jumbled up so that they aren't miming the same thing at the same time.

As for what we get our willing volunteers to mime - we pick item from a hardware catalogue. So instead of trying to mime "Wind in the Willows", they are miming "Cordless power screwdriver" or "Claw hammer with non-slip handle".

For a more sedate version of this game, you can play this with pen and paper instead of miming.

Who am I?

We quite often play this one as an icebreaker.

This game requires a little bit of preparation. First, get some stickers (Post-It notes aren't really robust enough but sticky address labels are ideal) and write the name of someone famous on each. The game is played with you putting a sticker on each player's back (or their forehad, if they are up for it). That player then tries to guess who they are by only asking yes/no questions of the other players (for example, "Am I male?" "Am I a politician?" "Am I Bill Clinton?").

Lots of people can play this, and they can all play it at once, with players taking it in turns to ask questions. Each time someone is successful, they come to you for another sticker.

If you are playing this competitively, the person who guesses the most is the winner. It is easy to theme this game by choosing 1950's movie stars, or characters from The Lord of the Rings, for example.

Chinese Mimes

Chinese Mimes is a more energetic version of Chinese whispers. It can be played as a team, or just for fun.

In Chinese whispers, the players line up all facing away from player #1. Player #1 then taps player #2 on the shoulder, and player #2 turns around. Player #1 mimes out an action to player #2. When they are finished, player #2 taps player #3 on the shoulder, and then mimes out the actions. And so the mime carries on down the line until at the end the last player as to try and figure out what the action was.

If you are playing in teams, the first players in each team should agree to do the same mime.

The mimes should be slightly off-beat. For example: Filling a steam iron with water, trying on a wedding dress, carrying out the safety instructions on an aeroplane...

As I hope you can see, you can drop these games into almost any party - so let your hair down, play a game and have a laugh!

4 Book Review - Full Dark House

Arthur Bryant, idiosynchratic elderly member of London Metropolitan Police Force's Peculiar Crimes Unit is killed in a bomb blast that also destroys their offices. To find out who and why, his partner John May must cast his mind back to their first case together - during the London Blitz of 1940.

To most people, "Bryant and May" is a brand of matchess. To Christopher Fowler's readers, however, the names Bryant and May have a different meaning. Arthur Bryant is the more alternative of the two detectives - and uses mediums and spiritualism to solve their very peculiar cases. John May is the straight man, and counterbalances Arthur's eccentricities.

I've been a fan of Bryant and May for a long time. Fowler's previous novels (such as Full Dark House, Rune and Soho Black) have tended to err on the horror side. Certainly, that's usually the section you find them in the bookstores. Full Dark House is different - there are a couple of grisly deaths, yes, but the story is definitely more "dark mystery" than "horror."

So what of the story?

Most of the novel takes place in 1940 London, during the Blitz. John May is the newly assigned member of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. The Unit is are assigned to unravel the suitably peculiar murders taking place at the Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus. It's a trail that eventually leads back to the modern day and Arthur Bryant's unfortunate demise.

Two things have always drawn me to the Bryant and May novels. The first are the characters themselves. While May is straightforward and regular, Bryant is arcane and erudite. Their endless bickering is a delight and I do enjoy spending time in their company.

The other thing I've always enjoyed is the picture of London that Christopher Fowler paints. Bryant and May's London is a giant, brooding beast full of labyrinthine buildings and outlandish characters. In Full Dark House the Palace Theatre is a claustrophobic space, full of catwalks and passageways.

Unfortunately, the earlier novels are all set in the modern day and I've grown used to the elderly couple - particularly the crabby, erratic Bryant. Somehow, it took me longer to get used to him in his youth - but once I had settled in I couldn't put Full Dark House down.

I never did guess whodunnit before the detectives - but they I'm always along for the story than trying to second-guess the plot.

Click here to read aboutFull Dark House on Amazon.com.

(Full Dark House is only available in hardback in the US at present - here in the UK it's been available as a paperback since early September 2004.)

5 Your Questions

A recent question.

I am hosting my first murder mystery party, and while the interactive games sound fun, they do sound more complex than the boxed sets. Which do you recommend?

You're right, the boxed kits are simpler than the freeform games, but like a lot of things in life, the more you put in the more you get out. I certainly prefer the freeform games - but you presumably worked that out from the site!

Certainly, you will need to do some preparation to run the games on this site. I typically allow a couple of hours to print out everything to run the party itself (including printing copies for all the guests and putting them in envelopes). Of course, that doesn't include time for reading the instructions, sending invitations, decorating, catering and so on.

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

See you in the new year!

--steve

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

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