Tag Archives: Secrets and Clues

Telling lies in our murder mystery games

2 Replies

In some murder mystery party games you are instructed not to lie about the details in your background. This is because to solve the murder everyone needs all the clues – but unfortunately my experience is that some people can’t just help themselves, and they don’t always tell the truth.

We, on the other hand, are absolutely fine with people lying and fibbing in a Freeform Games murder mystery party. We tell our players up front what awful deeds their characters have committed and we don’t expect them to tell the complete truth in front of the other players.

Of course we do realize that if everyone lied all the time, that would cause problems for other people trying to fulfill their goals. That’s why we include in the game Information/Clues and Secrets. These can’t be lied about, because they’re printed. If another player uses an Ability to make you reveal your Information/Clue or Secret, then you must do so. Then the other player can see written down in black and white something that you might otherwise have wanted to lie about.

A Secret
Secrets – not lies!

The other balancing mechanism we use is that each player has incentives to be honest and open with at least some of the other players, if they’re to try and get their own goals achieved. So in general, you’ll tell the truth to your friends and allies, but might be dishonest to your enemies. Then by making connections, third-party characters will be able to piece the clues together.

Note that there’s a difference between your character telling a lie (which is fine) and you as a player lying (which absolutely isn’t). So for example, if someone asks you “Did you murder so-and-so?”, you’re quite free to say “No I didn’t.” But if they use an Ability to make you show your Secret, you mustn’t lie and say that you don’t have a Secret to show. It might sound like a subtle distinction when written down like this, but in practice players are able to understand that they must be honest ‘as players’ even if their characters aren’t always honest.

Clarifying “Information”

4 Replies

We’ve had a couple of questions about “Information” lately, in particular what do we mean when an ability says something like “After talking briefly with another player, you realize that they revealed more than they intended. They must show you their Information.”

Of course it’s obvious to us – but that doesn’t mean it’s obvious to everyone.

So to be clear, when we say “Information” we mean the small nugget of information on page 6 of the character booklet (or on that character’s information card on our older games).

However, with our new game (Lord and Lady Westing’s Will) we’re going to try using the word “Clue” instead. If that’s successful, then we’ll slowly move our old games over to the new terminology.

(That means that the ability will say: “After talking briefly with another player, you realize that they revealed more than they intended. They must show you their Clue.”)

As for what Information/Clues actually are, they’re really just a clue to a plot. It’s something that the character knows that, in game terms, we’d like to see deliberately circulated around the game. (Sometimes they pertain directly to the murder, often they don’t. And sometimes they are red herrings. We’ve made that clearer in the new game.)

We created the Information/Clue mechanic because our experience is that some players like to hoard information. This can cause problems because for our games to work best, the players need to share information. That way when a player learns a key piece of information that they need for one of their character’s goals, they can act on it. If everyone hoards their information then plots can fail and our games aren’t as much fun as they should be.

We have found that the more you play our games the more likely you are to share information, so the Information/Clue mechanic becomes less critical the more experienced your group is.