For her birthday last month I asked my partner how she wanted to celebrate, and without much thought, she enthusiastically replied “Murder Mystery”. Right. I asked her for a guestlist, and then told her to leave the rest to me. The weeks that followed was a frenzy of writing, planning, and sleuthing all the secrets.
I’ve never fully written a script, or DM’ed an RPG, so I sought guidance online straight away. Numerous guides -both free and paid- on how to create or host murder mysteries were found, but the common denominator for the majority of them were preset characters. From the start, with her guestlist, this seemed like a big no-go: I wanted it to be as roleplay as possible with guests devising their own characters instead of being given one they had to play. I created a narrative for the event, Madame of the Manor’s Birthday Soiree, inviting the guests as possible staff or rich, classy, socialite friends. This was a little Downton Abbey, a little Midsomer Murders, but ultimately very Agatha Christie, all reliable familiar tropes. I wrote a bit of general world-building for the guests, then sent character promps out; in character myself as Madame’s trusted aide who was organising the party.
Mechanically, I still wasn’t sure how this was going to work, BUT I knew the kind of things I would require from each guest, for each character. They has to devise a name for themselves, their likes and dislikes, their relation to the host, and then a secret about their character. These seemed like easy enough whims, and from there they were free to dress however they wanted on the night, but again, under the framework of a birthday party set in a village manor.
The characters I got back over the month were something else. There was a private physician, an author cousin, a prvate secretary, a mistress, a local pub landlord, and an art dealer. With the smallest of prompts I was amazed how wild things got, and how imaginative guests were with their secrets. One was actually a witch, there was a master thief, a con-man, a drug dealer, a failed inventor, a half sister to the host, the list went on. Everyone had created a really fun, interesting, sneaky character, and any of them could have been a murderer on the night.
With boxed kits, the murderer is always pre-determined and heavily written into the story, and a victim can be a guest on the night, or a pretend stuffed guy that has been dead from the start of the game. Guests thematically dropping at the party sounded brilliant, and I wanted one of them to be the murderer pulling the strings and poisoning the drinks. Mechanically, I didn’t want to write entire scripts and arcs for the guests to perform, but neither did I want guests to have free reign and be uncomfortable with full improv. In the end I came up with a system of handing out prompts on small cards over two acts, VERY similar to the social challenges of Dont Get Got. Each player had specifically crafted decks based off both the info they had given me and their confidence as an individual, with cards either being an ACTION they had to perform in character, or a SECRET which related to another guest. Both progressed a narrative forward, and some “found evidence” was provided as well to further immerse.
From the secrets and relationships, a motive came together almost accidentally. The private physician’s secret was that he didn’t actually have a medical license, while the mistress had a dodgy past where she had poisoned her uncle. A narrative emerged really quickly, and the doctor character was given authority to kill any guest they were worried about revealing their secret. Some people actually solved the mystery! I set up smaller challenges too about deducing who was the thief, and who was the half sister- I think every guest managed to deduce at least one of the secret identities.
The weeks planning it were pretty bloody stressful, but I think it ultimately landed pretty well! There will be other, easier, quicker ways to plan a murder mystery, but I greatly enjoyed getting to write something, and everyone really did give their characters such fun personalities. It is something I want to run again, perhaps more complicated or extravagant, and with entirely new characters, but it was definitely a great start. Hopefully the above will be useful to anyone planning something similar!
