HELP!

[punkrockprincess]

Hey Mary Lee,
I am playing the Murder at the Four Deuces Teen for my 16th Birthday Party on April 28th (that is in 10 days!!), but I have a small problem:

I DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT I AM DOING!!!

I have sent out invitations and *mostly* decided who the ten main suspects are going to be, but I am totally confused about what character info and stuff to send to the guests. I registered with the Event Planner thing...is the Character Guide all they need? (About Big Jim, did I read that I need to assign him a second character too for after he gets murdered?)

And I am really confused about how the game will generally go. I read the Host Guide, but that just confuses me more! I have invited a ton of my friends, and I'm trying to play it cool and act like I've got it under control, but I am really stressing out here!! How long should the game take? I've set the party time from 7-10:30 and I'm wanting to eat, dance, and stuff, so how long is the game supposed to last if we take it fast-paced?

Oh, and I'm inviting about 50 people, so I bought all the extra character packets. A question about that: I bought both the teen extra character packets, but i didn't see a third teen packet, so i got the third regular packet. But there are several duplicate characters! Did I do something wrong? What am I supposed to do?

If you could just tell me what I need to do now, I would be in your debt!!

Thank you!

Laura (The Sleep-Deprived and Stressed-Out Almost-Sweet 16 Birthday Girl, Party Planner, and Murder Mystery Game Hostess Extraordinaire)

[2coolbaby]

Let me see if I can address each issue:

Before the party all they need is their Character Background Booklet. Nothing else. For assigning characters you MUST use the Guest List Worksheet. It tells you how to handle assigning characters, it gives you a place to put your Guests name next to the character they are assigned to. It lists the required characters in red & from there the suggested order to assign them in. You also have one of these for your extra character packets.

If you have 50 people you need to use the 3 extra character packets that go with the Mature game. The T-Rated game only has 2 of them as we removed a few of the more racy characters, although unless you are an extremely conservative group, all the extra characters would be just fine.

Your game will take 2.5-3 hours as stated in the Host Guide. This will include dinner. Please really be sure that you have read the Host Guide through carefully. Not just skim it. It includes step-by step instructions for the entire evening in it also.

I really think it would be easier to get this corrected and answer your questions on the phone. Can you email me with your phone number? Please do not post it here for safety reasons.

[punkrockprincess]

Thanks for the reply!! Well, I went back and checked the host guide and looked at more topics in this forum about the games, and now I feel pretty good about it.

(haha...I bet getting messages and calls from a lot of dumb freaked out people like me who skim the host guide gets pretty old. )

So the party is 3 days away, and my guests have have told me how excited they are for the party -- we can't wait!! =) And the ones that can't come because of proms and trips are so mad and want me to have another one already...the anticipation for this is really great! I think it's gonna be big!

[2coolbaby]

I am glad that you are becoming more comfortable with things. We do understand that people are nervous about hosting a murder mystery party for the first time. That is normal because this type of party is far from normal. We all know that as hosts our reputations hinge on how these turn out.

1 bad party and suddenly no one wants to attend your parties. 1 great party and everyone wants to be on your next guest list. This is why it is so important to do your research on the games available. There are good ones and bad ones. You obviously did your research and have chosen a company that produces great games!

The good thing about our parties is that our format and games themselves are tried and tested to work every time... as long as you read your Host Guide

We get a LOT of phone calls from people that don't read or just skim their Host Guide. The good thing about this is that we know by their questions that they have not read it through. That gives us the opportunity to stress how important reading it is.

Browsing the forum is also a huge help to any first time host. This can not only give you ideas, but it can help you get a clearer view of how things are going to work. I really like our forum. People ask some great questions and post a lot of helpful feedback.