Rachael Foreman’s Murder on the Istanbul Express party (and tips)

Rachael has two great tips for hosting Murder on the Istanbul Express: using suitcases and having a separate room for the boxcar.

We just had our party last Friday, it was a huge success and everyone had a great time!

I made some changes to the suitcases system: no locks and we kept the suitcases unzipped so they could easily be opened and closed. We turned the garage into the boxcar and stowed the luggage throughout the room with enough things to hide around. If anyone wanted to break into a suitcase they had to Rock-Paper-Scissors the host. A lot of it was honor system, but it worked out great. I had to be careful to assign bigger luggage to players who might steal the [redacted] (we used a foam prop), so it could actually fit inside. One person didn’t get it in all the way and another player saw it hanging out from their suitcase and there was an amazing confrontation.

If we weren’t using props, cardboard shoeboxes would’ve also worked. I tried to put in some clothes/shoes into everyone’s luggage that I thought might match their character (I also gave long jackets to anyone who might need to conceal a prop, but no one used them) overall, having a separate boxcar worked fantastically and that room was the main one for scheming and confrontation

Feel free to use any of this as tips 🙂

Rachael Foreman

Click here to learn more about Murder on the Istanbul Express.

Murder on the Istanbul Express is also available in French (as Istanbul Express)