10 Tips to Host a Murder Mystery Party
Listen to Chrystina discuss her tips for small kitchen organization in Episode 28 of the Party Ideas & Logistics with Chrystina Noel podcast, above.
This post is sponsored by Murderly. Links below may be affiliate. That said, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
2022 Update: I have been informed that the company, Murderly, no longer exists. The general recommendations below remain the same, but if you are looking for a kit suggestion, I recommend checking out the Dinner & a Murder Kits - especially the Four Deuces ones.
I’ve hosted a few murder mystery parties in my day, but it had been a really long time. I hadn’t found any kits that really excited me.
Yes, you heard me right. Kit.
There’s a lot of creative things I can do in my life. But for things like a murder mystery, I take to the professionals. And sure as heck, this time, the professionals actually found me. Harper from Murderly reached out to me to host a murder mystery party using one of the Murderly’s kits: Murderly Manhattan. What’s the premise? I’m glad you asked.
“You’ve been invited to a high-powered cocktail party in one of the swankiest apartment buildings in New York City during the 1960s. In this star-studded affair, powerful politicians, shady mafia bosses, famous fashion designers, and wealthy bankers have come together to have a night to remember. But the night takes a grim turn when Dallas Presley, the handsome investment banker, is pushed over the balcony railing to a brutal death. You, the guests, must work through the murky relationships at the party to figure out who killed Dallas and why.”
The kit was so much fun! I decided to switch the time era from the 1960s to the 1920s (because flapper costumes are pretty much the greatest). The party lasted for about three hours. Guests were assigned their characters beforehand, showed up in costume, and gave it their best shot to figure out who murdered Dallas Presley. Maybe I should back up for a second. What the heck is a murder mystery party?
Our Murder Mystery Party Playing Bunch
All decked out for the 1920s.
What is a murder mystery party?
For those of you who don’t know, a murder mystery party is a role playing game where each person is assigned a character beforehand, and shows up to a party where a “murder” either happens while you’re there, or it’s assumed that it happened just before you arrived, and all of the characters try to figure out who did the murdering. Each guest knows his or her character’s background, is given a list of things that only they know, and is given objectives to complete during the party. Party guests talk to each other and ask questions to try to find the murderer. At the end of the party, the people who guess correctly get bragging rights (or prizes). Then everyone gets on with their real lives afterwards.
Something to know if you’ve never done a murder mystery party before – the game is what you make of it. If you want to hound people for answers until you get them, you can do that. If you want to go spend $200 on a costume to wear that totally fits the part, you can do that. If you want to speak in an Italian accent the entire time to feel like you’re really Dario Yates, you can do that. If you want to show up, hang out by the bar and have a few drinks, and stir up trouble, that’s fine too.
Most people at the party had not actually participated in or hosted a murder mystery game before, but were excited about the possibility of doing so – that also meant that they had no idea what they were getting into when they walked in the door. And that’s where my job came in as the host. So today I’m going to talk about the steps to take as the host of a murder mystery party (according to me).
1: Read the answer first
I’ve played with a few kits in my day and they all give the host the option of playing along. I’m a little bit type A though, I like to know what’s going on so I can help facilitate it. I had originally intended to play along, but once my guests started asking questions I found that I wanted full access to the game to answer. For example: Is this piece of clothing crucial to my character? (No.) Does the killer already know he or she did it? (Yes.)
Answering that question of did the killer know he or she did it was tricky. I ended up saying, “Yes, they know they did it already.” Gender neutral pronouns FTW.
You make the choice that works best for you. That said, I would absolutely recommend that if it’s your first murder mystery party ever, you should just facilitate instead of play. Somebody needs to know what’s going on.
2: Assign the character roles carefully
Should you choose not to read the answer, you’re still more than capable of assigning character roles. The Murderly kit provided a quick cheat sheet that had key descriptive words for each character. From this sheet I knew that Bertrand Malcom is the butler in Dario Yates’ apartment building. He is grumpy and sly. That would definitely be enough to go ahead and assign someone to the role. I did, however, go ahead and read the top paragraphs of each person’s character sheet, which gave a more in-depth description. I was able to read the in-depth descriptions without reading anyone’s secrets by zooming in really close on a computer screen, so it’s definitely possible to read the detailed character descriptions and still play along.
Personality: I always try to assign people to a character that is either similar to their personality or if they’re more adventurous, someone that I think they would enjoy playing. The more outgoing a person is, the more boisterous of a character they can (comfortably) be assigned.
Accountability: I also always make sure that the main characters are played by people that I trust to show up. On time. And engaged. The Murderly kit will support 6-20 characters, and if you don’t have 20 characters, you start cutting names from the bottom of the list first.
Gender: While each character is written for a specific gender, that gender is not set in stone. I had many more females invited to the party than males, so some females played male roles. Originally, I started texting people to find out if they were okay with this. Some said yes, some said no. (They were already going out of their comfort zone by attending a murder mystery party, they didn’t want another added layer of complexity.) I ended up deciding to include this blurb in the email invite:
“Some folks will be playing characters of the opposite gender due to availability. Their call on whether they’d like to play that gender or change the character to the opposite gender.”
It worked perfectly. We had some females playing males. We had some males transformed into females. Definitely doesn’t mess with the story.
Extra Characters: If you end up having more guests than you have character roles, it’s actually super possible to create your own and add them into the game. Ben actually didn’t have a character role and I offered him two options: (1) he could be the dead guy – come on, doesn’t that sound great, just laying there, or (2) he could be the bartender for the evening. He ended up playing a great bartender and pulled out a quick, “just got into town” background story that worked fantastically.
3: Give your guests some background
The Murderly kit came with a great one pager on a background for the party explaining the current murder situation. I was able to include this one pager with each person’s character sheet to provide more context, which was awesome.
If the kit you are using doesn’t have this, I’d recommend writing the blurb that came on the box, or from the website you got it from, just so everybody’s starting on the same page.
4: Create a character map
Admittedly, I didn’t do this for this party, but I will be doing it for any future murder mystery parties I host. I’m going to put my Photoshop skills to use and steal Facebook photos to create a simple character map of everyone who will be at the party with their character name and a brief description. While this would definitely be too much information for some people, they can just ignore it. There were a few people (especially those who participate in role playing games more frequently) who definitely would have found this useful over the course of the evening.
5: Lay out the details in the invitation
I did this in a few steps. Here’s how I broke it down:
I sent out an email to people asking if they had any interest in participating in a murder mystery party.
I sent out an Evite to anybody who said yes to confirm whether or not they would be able to make the date.
When I reached 20 people (the maximum character limit), I texted everybody to confirm that they were actually coming and to ask who their plus ones were.
I closed down the Evite and communicated with the confirmed guests through email to give them their character information.
Does it need to be this complicated? No. But I really wanted to be sure that everyone was going to show up, because things get complicated if somebody important backs out at the last minute. It ended up that 19 of the original 20 were able to join (I filled the +1 spot very quickly.) and then everyone actually showed up on the day of the party. (Which, if you host a lot of parties, never happens. So that was cool.)
Here’s the breakdown of what I included on my final murder mystery party invitation email:
I’m so excited you’ll be joining us!
See attached for the background of the party, your character sheet, and a character map*.
Do not share your character sheet with anyone.
The gender caveat listed above.
An overview of the logistics: Feel free to do up the outfits as much as you’d like. No shame in showing up in jeans though. Everyone will be given a nametag when they walk in the door. The party will officially kick-off when Millie reads the welcome speech. Then everyone will discuss the murder (as their character). Clues will be revealed throughout the event. Everyone will guess who the murderer was towards the end of the party. Then the conclusion will be read aloud. TBD if there are physical prizes, we’ll see how my week goes. Either way, you have bragging rights and pride.
Feel free to use your cell phone or bring your printed character sheet with you.*
If for any reason you will no longer be able to attend, please let me know as soon as possible.
Party location, date, and time.
My contact information.
*Admittedly, I didn’t include these things in my invite, but in the future I would.
If you’re interested in learning more about what information to put on party invitations, check out this post.
6: Introduce people who should know each other
This is another thing that I didn’t spend enough time doing. And maybe a character map would have helped to avoid this. In the Murderly Manhattan game specifically, there is one couple in the lineup, a husband and wife pair. They each arrived at the party not knowing who was playing their significant other, which felt a little weird. In the future, I would definitely make more of an effort to connect these people before hand. This could have been done quickly in a follow up email.
Murder Mystery Party: The Bar Setup
7: Set the stage strategically
Another thing I appreciated about the Murderly kit is that it said that I could decorate as much or as little as I would like. It’s true. First of all, I’m not a huge believer in party decor to begin with. And second of all, you don’t need a heck of a lot of decor for a murder mystery party specifically because people showing up in costumes definitely helps set the stage.
I did, however, do a little bit of research before hand about decor using a guest post Miranda wrote for me 3 years ago about How to Host a 1920s Party. I wasn’t able to find reasonably priced peacock feathers or pearls in the time frame I gave myself (less than 24 hours), but I was able to use some great tips about sticking to classic colors, putting a silent movie on in the background (thanks, YouTube), choosing playlists to set the stage, and I even splurged to buy all of the ingredients for a Pimm’s Cup.
Murder Mystery Party: The Food Setup and Staging
One thing that kind of changed things was that I hosted the party during the day. So it was a 2:00pm murder mystery party. There’s certain decor items that don’t work as well during the day. Filling a room with balloons didn’t seem quite as useful. Lighting a bunch of candles seemed unnecessary. And you know what, it was totally fine without it. (But I have may have considered doing those things if I was having an evening party, just to fit the “extra” vibe of the setting provided to us.)
The Game Space
This is one of the few types of parties that it doesn’t matter that my house is super small and split among four floors. To be honest, the combination of both small with nooks and crannies works perfectly for a game like this. With a small playing area, it forces people to hang out together and have to talk to each other, and the nooks and crannies are perfect for private conversations. I ended up deciding we would use the kitchen (which would be the bar), the living room, and the top floor bedroom. In order to facilitate this, I put food on each of the “active” floors and played music so people knew they were welcome. We used the second floor bedroom for coats; that room was off-limits for playing.
The Food
Some Murder Mystery kits build dinner into the game. This one did not. Which I really enjoyed because it meant that I didn’t need to worry about facilitating a party and cooking dinner for everyone. I decided to go with desserts and snacks, and lucky for me I have awesome friends who volunteered to make a few things of their own.
The Drinks
As I said, we had Pimm’s Cups (for which Ben made up the recipe every time he made one). I decided to make punch because I thought the punch bowl looked very 1920s. Then we had other assorted drinks, like tea, water, sparkling water, and wine.
8: Make name tags
The Murderly Kit does a great job of this. They provide nametags that you print out and cut out (they suggest attaching them to people with tape). Then the highlight the fact that you can use those name tags at the end when people submit their guesses because everyone already has a sheet of paper with their name on it.
I hung all of the name tags on the wall for people to grab them when they came in. That way people could see who wasn’t there yet and had a way to grab their name tags easily.
9: Lay out the rules one more time before the party “officially” starts
As I’ve said before, the purpose of a host at a party is to make your guests not feel awkward. How do you do that? By explaining to them what they’ll be getting into one more time before the game actually starts. For this specific kit, the layout of the day looks like this:
The game starts when the welcome letter is read at the party.
Everyone has 30 minutes to mingle.
Clue #1 is read to everyone at the party.
Everyone has 30 minutes to mingle.
Clue #2 is read to everyone at the party.
Everyone has 30 minutes to mingle.
Clue #3 is read to everyone at the party.
Everyone has 30 minutes to mingle.
The Evidence of Summary is read.
Everyone votes on who they thinks did it.
We also decided right from the beginning that people could use their phones during the party to read their character sheets. It made everybody feel a little bit more comfortable.
10: Facilitate and host the party
And number 10. Facilitate and host the party. It’s because of things like this that I prefer to host/facilitate as opposed to play. But as I said, it’s your choice. Actually, the first murder mystery party I ever went to was for a friend’s 10th grade birthday party and her mom was the “host” so that the birthday girl could play. So maybe you can talk someone else into being your host if you don’t want to be. Here’s what I did during the party:
Modified the amount of time allocated between clues. If people seem really engaged in conversation. Make it more time. If people seem like they’re getting bored. Make it less time. Beware that there are certain things the characters have on their sheets that need to happen at certain points of the evening, so don’t cut any of the amounts of time too short. I set my phone alarm to make sure that I knew when the 30 minutes was up.
Facilitated speeches and clues being read. The Murderly kit provides guidance on who is supposed to read each speech and clue. I printed these out ahead of time, folded everything in half so it couldn’t be seen (but wrote what it was on the outside), and each time my phone went off, I handed the write sheet of paper to the right person.
Moderated the temperature in the rooms. We found that with everybody in the same room it got really hot really fast. I was busy opening doors and windows to make sure that nobody was overheating (a) in their costumes, and (b) with so many people in the room.
Made sure the serving dishes were full and in the right location. I noticed that people were pretty much all hanging out in the same room, so I started to move the food into the rooms that people were hanging out in and refilling empty plates over the course of the evening.
Last Minute Tips
Don’t worry about whether or not people know their character role super well. It’ll all turn out fine in the end. Some people at our party even got really into character and started sharing information that was not on the cards. That was the information that somehow spread like wildfire throughout the guests. It was funny. (That’s a reminder to the guests though that you never know who you can trust.)
Don’t forget to take a photo of everyone! How often are you going to have all your friends together in awesome costumes? Don’t miss the opportunity to capture the moment.
As I’ve said, we had a lot of fun with the Murderly kits. In addition to the Murderly Manhattan party (the one we did), they also offer a Murder at the Belfry Manor (which takes place on Halloween), and A Murderly New Year’s Eve (which takes place on New Year’s Eve). Their website is full of FAQs and guides to help out. And once you purchase your kit, they immediately send you a link to download it in a digital format. All you need to do is use Adobe Reader to separate the pages and get each guest the one they need.
Click here to browse Murderly’s kits, story, and advice.
You can use the code SAVE10 to get 10% off your kit.
We had a lot of fun, I’m definitely thinking about doing the Halloween party, and my guests are excited to come back and play again. Everyone said that after their first time doing this, they would definitely change their approaches for the second one, now that they knew what to expect. And you know what that means, right? I guess I’m just going to have to host another party.
