I ran Murder on the Istanbul Express recently. I ran it at a games convention, and while I knew some players, I didn’t know them that well. Some of the train crew serving the Istanbul Express So I created a Google Form form to help me cast the game. Basic approach My basic approach to a casting form is to list the characters (using the...
After a murder mystery party we like to get feedback from our players. We primarily do this to improve our games, but I’ve started asking for stories. As well as celebrating the party’s success, stories are the only way I get to discover what happened. (As host, I am often the last person to find out what’s going on.) Post-party feedback So after...
In our last post, Mark R told us about Kumospace, a spacial chat app he used to host Death in Venice. So I thought I’d try it out and successfully ran Reunion with Death using Kumospace. Reunion with Death on Kumospace - the pop-out map showing the whole floor is on the right So here are my tips for using Kumospace: Names: Ask everyone to change...
Last weekend I hosted and played Death in Venice, using Discord for video chat. When Mo wrote Death in Venice earlier in the year I deliberately kept away from it because I wanted to play and host simultaneously. Normally our games don’t allow us to do that – the host needs to know too much about what’s going on, but as the games we’ve written...
One of our customers, Peal, got in touch with us recently to share with us a site they had prepared for lockdown Murder at Sea with 20 guests. We’re really impressed - it’s a great way to set the scene for your online murder mystery party. They built their site using Google sites. I’m not sure if they used one of the templates or if they built it...
One of our customers, Kelly from Michigan, has told us of the numerous prizes she uses when she hosts our games. Except where noted, the awards are voted on by the players themselves and tallied at the end of the game. “We usually try to get all the ballots in by mid-game, but since few obey, we accept them until we have votes tallied. You guys...
Recently we were asked a question about having two people play the same character. (It might have been a mixup, and by the sounds of it the game was oversubscribed.) Our answer was that while it was tricky, it was doable - particularly with the character she had chosen. What we recommended was to make the characters twins. To do this: Give each...
(Guest blog post by Jessica Andrews, author of Death on the Rocks.) Death on the Rocks Ok, I’m just going to tell it like it is: hosting a 1930s party, murder mystery or otherwise, is not that easy. Twenties is obvious – just cover everything indiscriminately in feathers and strings of pearls – and for fifties you can just bust out some...
When is the best time to end a murder mystery game? We provide a timetable with all our games, covering the murder mystery party in detail. The timetable typically includes the briefing, key events (such as when clues are released), the point at which characters can die (for those games that involve fighting), and the end of the game. Casino...
Despite the best laid plans, sometimes real life intervenes and a guest or two may turn up late to your murder mystery party. Here are some ideas for how you can deal with latecomers. Unplanned latecomers The worst situation is when you don’t find out that someone will be late until they don’t turn up on time. In this situation I would delay the...