number of guests?

[girlygirl24]

hiya. have never played/hosted one of these before so would appreciate if you could help me out with a couple of questions?! am thinking of following your recommendation of murder at four deuces. i note that the minimum amount of guests required is 10. is there an ideal amount of guests to get the best playing experience from this game? i will be hosting in my house, a relatively small semi-detached house, so we will really be playing in the lounge, kitchen/diner and garden. as such, am concerned that 20 guests will be a little over crowded, but that only 10 will hinder us in some way?!

also am concerned that upto 4 potential murders plus the first murder could be a little contrived when attempting to 'act' it out! - is there some way of limitting the amount of murders, perhaps by only finding 1 or 2 weapon cards?

thanks in advance for your help!

[2coolbaby]

I like to have around 14-16 people. That seems to work best, but I have played many times with the bare minimum with no problems. It did not hurt the game at all.

There is a first staged murder, then later in the evening you do the weapon cards. When someone is murdered, they return as another character. Unless they want to be caught, guests will not be comitting murder in front of anyone. If you really want to limit the weapons, you can do so by skipping the scavenger hunt and using the draw method with the action cards.