Our flexible murder mystery party scripts are ideal for both beginners and those who wish to have the freedom to ad-lib and chime in as they wish.
The script format blends the excitement of not knowing what will happen next with the security of having dialogue suggestions that can be read as they are - or changed as the player prefers.
The important information that a player needs to give - or questions that a player needs to ask - is highlighted in bold in all scripts. Optional dialogue suggestions are in non-bold.
Providing players get across this key information, they can ad-lib or change the words to their hearts' content.
This use of bold text helps those players who wish to ad-lib as they can easily pick out the important points.
As a bonus, if you have guests who struggle with reading, then they can - if they wish - just read the bold information and the game will work just fine. (Some of our friends and family have Dyslexia and they found this helped them.)
The example is taken from Murder in a 1920s' Speakeasy and shows a segment of Jimmy Joe's booklet.
Players are NOT given a complete script of all the other player's dialogue. Boring! That would make the game like a play and would take away the excitement of all the twists and turns that each of our murder mystery games are famed for.
Instead, each player is given everything that they themselves need to say for that round and there is a list of essential speakers given in order within each section of the round. This list of speakers is shown in the left-hand column.
Players are also given an indication of what the previous player will say in grey italics above their dialogue; often the previous player will mention their character name or at least address the statement to a certain character.
As each player's Party Booklet has the same list of essential speakers in the left-hand column of each round, everyone can keep track of who is speaking when. If someone does miss their cue, everyone can gently nudge them!
The example is from Murder in the Naughty Nineties and shows the first round of Kit Cathoosen's booklet.
Within each round, the sections help players to keep track of whereabouts in the round they are.
In the three Motives rounds, the section headers provide a useful quick reference for who each section is about.
In the three Opportunites rounds, the section headers provide a useful timeline of events leading up to the murder. This saves players having to keep flicking back and forward to a timeline on a different page.
Sections are shown by light shaded grey lines. (These are not ink-heavy but they are dark enough to provide an easy visual guide.)
The example is from Murder in the Swinging Sixties and shows one of the Opportunities rounds from Starlight's booklet.
We have now changed all of our murder mystery party and dinner party scripts to ensure that the two optional characters are fully integrated.
Optional players are indicated in light-grey italics in the left-hand column of the party booklets of all players.
If one or both of the optional characters are present, they have dialogue that they can say and the whole party or dinner party can see when they are meant to speak. To make life easier for the optional players, the important parts of the dialogue are given in bold.
If an optional player is not present, the party can easily skip over their input and the game will play just fine.
The example, taken from our Murder at Horror Castle game, shows part of the Party Booklet for one optional character (Bo GeyMan). Bo's name is in light grey italics - as is the name of the other optional character: Shady.
Many of the Party Booklets will have optional suggested chime-ins; players are also free to ad-lib and invent their own.
Chime-ins and ad-libs can greatly add to the fun and spontaneity of our murder mystery games. They can create further repartee between players.
Other players won't be told how to react to these chime-ins - but the general rule of our games is: if in doubt, deny everything!
As chime-ins are totally optional, they do not contain bold text.
Some parties prefer to exclude all chime-ins and ad-libs and that is perfectly fine - the game will easily work without them.
The example shows a vampire offering to conduct another player's execution in our Murder at Horror Castle game.
Each player is given their own suggested catchphrases and mannerisms. These can greatly add to the fun of the evening as players can use them to ham up their characters.
The example shows two very different ways of speaking for two players in our Murder in a 1920s' Speakeasy game: the more-macho-than-a-man bootlegger, Mary May, and the intollerably pompous founder of The Moonshine Gap Temperance and Moralism Society, the fearsome Mrs Mercy Sober.
We do the research so your guests don't need to.
Each player's Party Booklet (and Pre-party Booklet) is written using slang appropriate to the theme. Therefore, our 1960s' murder mystery game will sound completely different to our 1920s' Speakeasy game.
In addition, if a character is from Scotland, Texas, France, Spain, Ireland etc, the suggested dialogue uses some token Scottish, Texan, French, Spanish or Irish words together with the odd easy accent indication.
The examples are taken from Murder in Horror Castle where Mac MacMoon is a Scottish laird transported into Horror Castle within the Witch Kingdom and Murder in a 1920s' Speakeasy where Mayor O'Clipper speaks with his own Southern charm.
Some mysteries give one or two characters optional opportunities to sing odd lines or to say the odd few lines of poetry. When this happens, characters are warned in their pre-party booklets and given a couple of lines of song at odd places in their Party Booklets.
For example, in Murder in the Swinging Sixties, Drake Wilde is a rock star who sings about his love for his Pearly Pearl; in Murder in a 1920s' Speakeasy, Whackem Will can sing his "whacking song" to threaten characters.
In contrast to other murder mystery companies, we write our own snippets of song or poetry and can therefore give these in the Party Booklets. Players are therefore not expected to suddenly remember the words of this hit from the 1960s or that hit from the 1970s.
If players don't wish to sing, then that is perfectly fine.
Unlike some other murder mystery companies, all of our scripts are written exactly as a player needs to say them. Guests do not need to make an on-the-spot conversion of "say you witnessed the murderer leaving the party" to "hey babe, I saw this crazy man leave the gig".
The example is taken from Scrooge's booklet in our Christmas mystery, Is Santa Slayed?
Our scripts work well for At Home murder mystery parties and dinner parties (house, garden, venue) and also for virtual games (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype).
