Murder Mystery Party - Murder at Red Manor

I have always enjoyed a good murder mystery. Meeting all the characters, the finding of the body, and the detective connecting the clues to solve it. I wanted to make a game that could combine a bit of role-playing and solving puzzles that would lead to clues. This murder mystery has a host that will be the detective knowing who the killer is and giving out the puzzles and clues to the guests. With the help from funding I can make more characters, more puzzles (with a difficulty system), and have an option so the host can be included in the mystery.

Before the night begins all of the guests will be sent a player card with their characters name, occupation, talking points, their motive for murder, some rumors they've heard of others, and a secret number that will decide if they are the murderer. 

As your guests arrive the host will gather everyone together to go over the rules and to start with socializing groups. This will break everyone into groups to go over each others talking points, and maybe spread some rumors of other party guests that aren't in their group. 

After socializing, the body of Mr. Red will be found poisoned in his study and a strange number laying by the body that relates to the player's secret number. This will lead to 3 rounds of puzzles that will give clues or misdirection to the guests depending on how they answer. 

Once all the clues are out the players will then make their accusation. Finally, the detective can deliver a great speech revealing who the murderer is.

Role-Playing

For the role-playing part of it, I know that some people can find it difficult acting out scenes and getting into character. With this game the characters that they take on will have specific talking points. These talking points will be some backstory, misdirection, and clues that can lead to them being the murderer. The player can add more to their character's story this can help be more misdirection information that the other players want to remember.

Puzzle Solving

The players will be given 3 puzzles throughout the night. When the player gives an answer they will be given a clue that will be different depending on if they answered right or wrong or if they are an innocent or a murderer. The player won't be told if they were right or wrong. For the innocent players if it's the right answer it will be a clue that leads to the correct murderer. For the innocent players if it's the wrong answer it will be a misdirect clue. For the murderer they get both on the correct answer if wrong they just get the clue leading to them. Each clue narrows down who the murderer is.

I did my first murder mystery night using this as a demo and it had some great results for people who have never done one of these before. I want this to be a replayable murder mystery that people can do again and again even with the same group. With having solo, duo (that helped each other), and multiple killer (that don't know others tried to kill) scenarios.  My goal is to make more characters, making more logic puzzles with a difficulty system, and try to make it so the host can be included in the mystery as well. So if you like murder mysteries, solving puzzles, role-playing, and hosting dinner parties than Murder at Red Manor is for you!

This started with my Fiancé and I wanting to do a murder mystery night with a masquerade dinner party. I looked at a couple murder mysteries because I've never done one before. The ones I saw were heavy on role-playing with acting out scripted scenes, and just seemed like one story that gets told when purchasing the game. So I wanted to work on one that had a little bit of role-playing giving the guests a small background with a few talking points. Then having puzzles that will give clues to hint to things that were said from the talking points.

I emailed everyone their character cards a week before the party so they could read their talking points and ask any questions. I decided to do a multiple killer scenario where everyone is given numbers to keep secret, but multiple people got the same number making 4 separate groups of killers. These killers don't know that there are other killers at the party.

Everyone arrived and were given their mask and character cards. After going through the rules and different steps of the game we broke into groups for socializing. It took about an hour and half for 13 people to break up into groups rotate around and go through their talking points.

After socializing Mr. Red the host (me) of the event is found dead. The detective (also me) then shows up and starts the investigation by revealing a number tonight it was 10. This had 3 people find out that they are the killers. This goes into the first puzzle.

The first puzzle of the night is find the match. One of the Nine smaller fingerprints matches a section of the partial fingerprint on the left.

While everyone answered the puzzle they are given a clue card that gives them a clue. We did the 2nd and 3rd puzzle. I made a scoring system for puzzles being answered correct and for who the innocent voted for and if the murderers didn't get voted. Add a little competition to also solving the mystery.