Murder mystery party hints and tips

This page contains hints and tips for running one of our murder mystery parties. These murder mystery game hints and tips have been written both by our customers and by us.

If you would like to send us your murder mystery game hints and tips you can contact us via our contact form, or via our Facebook page, or by posting in the Facebook Comments at the bottom of the page.

Our customers enjoying our Murder at Sea murder mystery game

Top ten murder mystery party tips from an experienced host: Jollirog shares ten great murder mystery party hints and tips.

Tips for hosting our games online: Here is our advice for hosting our murder mystery games online, using video chat.

Using Discord for online murder mystery games: Our guide to setting up your own Discord server for an online murder mystery game.

Casting: Tips for casting your murder mystery party.

Getting the best from your venue: Tips for arranging your room – including room layout and lighting suggestions.

Murder mystery party guest attendance tips: Tips for encouraging your guests to attend – and what you can do if they are early or late.

Organizing murder mystery party materials: Organising murder mystery party materials – tips and ideas from our customers for organising item cards, money, character sheets and so on.

Tips for food at your murder mystery game: Hints and tips about food and drink, including ideas for hosting our games around a sit-down meal.

Being the host and playing a character: Here’s our advice if you want to host a game and play a character.

Dealing with absent characters: What happens when characters need to interact with a character who isn’t present (due to numbers).

Twins: Adding an extra player to your murder mystery party by casting the same character twice and calling them twins.

Adding lots of characters: Expanding our games for lots of additional guests – using Casino Fatale as an example.

Adding 20 players to Hollywood Lies: And here's how we would add lots of extra players to Hollywood Lies.

Murder mystery endings: Tips for ending your murder mystery party.

Tips for hosting a 1930s murder mystery party: Particularly aimed at Death on the Rocks.

Help with hosting: Get an assistant host to help you run your game.

Late guests: Ideas and tips for dealing with late guests.

Alternative rules: Some ideas for real-world alternative mechanics to our rules.

Using props: Tips for using props in your murder mystery game.

Reporting the news: Optional rules for reporter characters.

Big Money: Our money graphics files so that you can easily print game money at life(ish) size.

Murder mystery prizes: Kelly from Michigan tells us all about the prizes she uses when she hosts one of our murder mystery games.

Rewarding great play: An idea for rewarding players for coming up with great ideas and costumes.

Two more golden rules: Two more golden rules - directing questions to other players, and deciding outcomes before you play rock-paper-scissors.

Post-party feedback: Celebrate your party's success by asking for feedback and stories afterwards.

Other tips

Using egg timers: Mechanicalme suggests: Dollar Store egg timers are incredibly useful in battle situations where a character has to wait 20 minutes to die. The host only needs to buy about three or four to set when someone gets stabbed or shot.

Not for the faint of heart!

These are some ideas that we’ve not thoroughly tested but you might want to try in your murder mystery party.

Investigating pickpocket crimes: Some rules for investigating pickpocket crimes.

Alternative pickpocket rules: using stickers instead of our normal pickpocket rules.

Playing two characters: It’s entirely possible to play two characters at once in one of our games. Here’s how Steve did it.

Using those unused characters: An idea for using those unused characters when you haven’t filled all the spaces.

Ideas for different combat systems: Several customers have given us their ideas for alternative combat systems.

Our customers enjoying our Way out West murder mystery game

Playing without abilities: Here’s an idea for playing our games without using abilities.

Overnight murder mystery games: Here’s an idea for playing one of our games (Way out West in this case) overnight.

Keeping Score: We don't have a system for letting players keep score, but if we did it would look like this…

Customising our murder mystery games: Our games aren't always perfectly suited to your needs – this is how you can customise them.

Tips for specific games

The Spy Who Killed Me: Adding Skype and Cryptography: An amazing story from a host who used Skype to create a controller for each spy.

Pirate Party Tips: Tips for Davy Jones Locker and A Dead Man’s Chest.

Share your own murder mystery game hints and tips

If you would like to send us your murder mystery game hints and tips you can contact usvia our contact form, or via our Facebook page, or by posting in the Facebook Comments below.