About Murders

[2coolbaby]

Here are some questions I have received about handling murders, or about the host and murders. If anyone has further murder questions please just hit the Reply button and post your question here so that we can try to keep this topic in one post for easy referral.

When I send the murderer their character package, should I also send their 2ND character booklet along as well? SO they know their going to be murdered ahead of time?

I would send them their second characters also. I would speak to them and let them know why they have 2 characters, although their background does tell them they are being murdered and how to handle it. They just need to know which characters they will be playing first.

Does the victim know who murders them ahead of time?

No. The only person who knows the identity of the murderer is the murderer him/her self.

If not, once they are murdered then don't they know who the murderer is, and doesn't that kind of ruin the rest of the guessing game for them?

This applies to the original staged murder: They will still not know who the murderer is even after their murder. The first murder is planned out before the party and the actual murderer will not be seen to be involved in this murder so as not to give their identity away. It is staged by the victim and possibly the host.

Is it the murderer or the murdered that come to tell me (the host) that there has been a murder?

This pertains to further murders done with weapons cards only: It will be the murderer, but this does not apply to the original murder which is the one that everyone is trying to solve. NO ONE will know the identity of this person.

I thought I read that the murderer tells me......but then I know who did it and I can't really play anymore?!?

You will know only the identity of 'other' murderers, but not the original one. This will in no way affect your ability to play. Just play your character and in no way use any information you acquire while carrying out your hosting duties. Only use information your character has discovered.

There is just soooo much more to our games than solving any murder. So even if you accidentally discovered the murderer, it would in no way affect your ability to play.

I write these, so I know much more than just the identity of the murderer & I still love playing them. Everyone handles information differently, so while I may know the identity of a murderer, I will not have a clue about all the schemes developing all around me by my devious guests. There really is just so much more going on than murder. Everyone has their own plots and schemes. Everyone has to watch their backs while they plot against their enemies, of which there are many!

[Susu]

I have a question about the murderer for the 1957 game. Since the murder takes place before the party, I'm concerned about the murderer not showing up for the party. So if I assign characters to everyone ahead of time (before the party) and then someone doesn't show, what do you do if THEY are the murderer? We (including the host) don't know until the end who the murderer is, right? Hopefully I'm just missing some important piece in the description so I'm curious. We've never done this before and we're going to do it for our company's holiday party in a couple of weeks - we expect to have about 30 people, and usually have 2-3 last minute no-shows. I just wanted to make sure that this won't affect the game. Or are characters not assigned until people arrive?

[2coolbaby]

You have your required charcaters to play the game. These are the first 10 on your Guest List. If one of these is not showing up at the last minute you need to switch and give this required character to one of your guests who has a secondary character. This insures that the murder will be there & everything will work out as it should. You must have your required characters there.

[Susu]

Okay, thanks for the quick reply. I guess that means if I'm the host and I'm playing, I might have a slight advantage in knowing that the murderer is one of the 10 key characters

[2coolbaby]

Yes, but that really cannot be avoided.

[joshua22]

i would like to know how the additional murders take place, i understand the victims get murdered by other guests, what are the victims suppossed to do once they are murdered??. do they quietly tell me or do they annouce to the rest of the guests that they have been murdered and is there a time of when this should take place?. is it at this point when you take their money?.. i'm a bit confused on how the murdered guests continue with the game.

[2coolbaby]

It actually tells about committing murders in any background booklet. They will come to you and quietly tell you, at which time you ensure the "body" is discovered. This is when people will grieve over the body or try to pick them clean.

Afterward, you can give them another character that has not been used or you can have them play an Inspector. If you have left over characters, this is the preferable method.

[girlygirl24]

any advice on how to get the bodies 'discovered'? what have you done/others done that worked well?

thanks!

[2coolbaby]

The "murderer" will come up to you and tell you they committed murder and where to find the body. Then it is up to you to 'happen' upon it. HInt... practice your terrrified scream

Now, this is not the case in the first staged murder. You will not know who committed that murder.

[CF100]

My friend and I were hoping to host a party together - will this be possible?

Also, if we are allocating characters together using the downloadable version, is there a chance that we will accidentally see who the murderer is?

[2coolbaby]

People can work together to host parties and you can use the download version without finding out the identity of the killer. Just do not read people's character backgrounds and confidential's or the evidence or solution. We make the pdf's where you will not see the information on the screen. Just don't read the pages as they come off the printer

[ocdwithmurdermystery]

What happens if the murderer gets murdered by somebody using a weapon card?

[2coolbaby]

This is part of the reason that the weapon cards are not given out until about 1/2 way through the night and certain things have already happened. I have never heard of it happening, but it could. The murder can be solved just from the evidence alone and there is a lot of info in peoples confidentials that could hint at the murderer. Since the murderer is free to lie, if they get killed off later in the night, it really won't make any difference.

[pechilders]

I am planning a fund raiser at school during our Spring fling and would not know who will be participating till the moment it happens can I still use this forum.

[2coolbaby]

Hmmm, that does make things more difficult. I guess the best thing to do is to contact us with the number of people you are expecting and let us go back and forth. If you are having a large fund raiser, then you might consider having a group of about 10 act as the "actors" and have everyone else look on, interact and try to solve the murder. You can find detailed instructions to do this in our Host a Large Murder Mystery Event topic here:

method-3-very-large-groups-t4.html