Host a Murder Mystery Dinner Party or Party

Step 3 Allocate Guests to Characters

The game's Host Instruction booklet has three pages dedicated to helping you assign the right guest to the right character. To make things easier, the characters are divided into essential female, essential male, essential gender-neutral and optional gender-neutral characters. The character description and the sample dialogue give you a flavour of each character. The Casting Notes section contains a few spoilers of secret relationships that will be revealed within rounds 1-3 but they can be useful to decide who plays opposite whom.

Note: gender neutral suspects are fun to play but will have no flirting involved. They can therefore be good roles to give teenagers and those who may not be happy with flirting.

Note: Some hosts like to arrange the characters so that one half of a couple flirts with the other half of the couple. However, as the suggested dialogue is fairly mild, we find it can be more fun to mix couples up. The choice is yours.

Step 5 Printing and General Party Organisation

5.1 Printing

We suggest that you do the remainder of the printing several days or a week or so in advance of your gathering so that there is less to do on the day.

You will need to print:

• Party Booklets for each major character and for the optional characters (if included)
• Clues

You may also optionally print:

• Name tags
• Award certificates for the best solution, best actor, best costume and for best food (if guests bring a dish); depending on the size of your party, you may want to print two of some awards (for example, best male costume and best female costume).
• Duplicate map and notepad sheet - one per guest. (This serves as rough paper for notes but also lets guests see the map on page 3 of their Party Booklets without having to flip back and forwards to it.)
• Place cards and menu card (for the dinner table).
• Decoration printouts.
• Duplicate Pre-Party Booklets if playing the Initial Mingling - then you are not caught out if someone forgets to bring their booklet.

It is a good idea to check that you know how to play your audio introduction.

5.2 General Party Organisation

You will also wish to consider where to hold your murder mystery. If you run the (optional) Initial Mingling, then this works best in a room where guests have got space to mingle and talk with other guests; if you only have one room, then consider allowing guests to also use your hall and kitchen for the mingling. The main party can be run with guests sitting round a dining table; alternatively, you can play the game in a living area and then eat in the dining area. The choice is yours.

It may be a good idea to allocate an "investigation space" where guests can put clues after they have been read. This can be something simple such as a coffee table or a sideboard. This "investigation space" allows guests to reread the clues should they wish to do so.

Step 7 Greet Guests, Optional Initial Mingling and Group Photo

7.1 Overview

Some hosts ask guests to arive in character and to begin the (optional) Initial Mingling as soon as the first guest arrives. In this case, ensure that everyone has been instructed to arrive promptly and:

ask the character mentioned in the Host Instructions to arrive a few minutes early so that they can hand out name tags, take coats and serve drinks,

have the group photo after the Initial Mingling.

Other hosts prefer to allow everyone to chat and grab a drink before the Initial Mingling. This can be useful if one or more of your guests is likely to arrive slightly late but it can feel slightly forced to suddenly announce that the mingling is beginning. In this case:

hand out name tags, take coats and offer drinks as soon as guests arrive; as an ice breaker, it is a good idea to introduce people as their character. For example, "this is Lady Ivy, your fiancé for the evening!"

have the group photo and then start the Initial Mingling.

7.2 Optional Initial Mingling

This can be a useful way to allow guests to become familiar with the major themes of the evening and with the other characters before the main murder mystery begins. Some people really enjoy mingling and scheming to achieve their personal objectives; others prefer the security of the round-based flexible scripts. If your party is unlikely to enjoy the Initial Mingling, then feel free to skip it as it is a fun introduction that does not advance the main plotlines.

Guest instructions for the Initial Mingling are in their Pre-Party Booklets.

Please do keep an eye on the time - no matter how much fun guests are having, we suggest limiting this part of the evening to 10-20 minutes.

7.3 Group Photo

We suggest you take your group photos at the start of the evening before people start discarding wigs and removing jackets etc.

7.4 Give Guests Their Party Booklets

Give each guest their individual Party Booklet. Where guests have clues to read, you can either give them the clues at this stage or else keep them to one side and give them out as needed to ensure that clues to not get mislaid.

Step 9 Conclude the Party: Accusations, Optional Whodunnit Round, Audio Solution and Awards

9.1 Accusations

At the end of round 6, one character's Party Booklet will prompt them to ask everyone to complete the Accusation Sheet. (The Accusation Sheet is on the next page of the Party Booklet.)

The Accusation Sheet is where guests write down who they think the murderer/s is or are, what the motives are and what the evidence is.

The Accusation Sheet also has a section where guests vote for the best costume, acting and (if relevant) food.

9.2 Optional Whodunnit Round

If you are short of time, you can skip this round. However, it allows each guest to say why they cannot be guilty and to clear up a few red herrings that the final short Audio Solution does not cover. At the same time, guests can ham up their roles one final time. This round is often made more fun by a surprise "proposal" or two, as well as by the odd optional opportunities for song, dance or shootouts.

9.3 Audio Solution

At the end of the Whodunnit round, on page 15 of the Party Booklet, everyone can see the large prompt that the Audio Solution will be played. This means that, if you forget to play the audio, your guests can remind you. Again, if there are issues with playing the audio, a printed backup can be found in the Host Instructions zip.

9.4 Award Certificates

The easiest way to determine who has won an award, is simply to ask for a show of hands.

Some hosts use the Award Certificates supplied with the game; others provide an award trophy or a small present that is theme-appropriate. For example, for the Swinging Sixties, we suggest that hosts might like to offer a box of After Eights to winners as these were launched in 1962.