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Hello folks,

I plan to throw a Murder Mystery Party in mid-October. I'll have about a dozen guests and my options are open.

Right now, I'm looking at the possibility of buying a kit online and go from there.

Have any of you been to any Murder Mystery Parties? Or even been lucky enough to throw one? Any tips? Suggestions or what not?

Plan a real murder during the fake one. At least, that's how it's always done on tv.

I LOOOVE Murder Mystery Parties!! My friends and I used to throw them all the time. I highly recommend buying a kit online.

You can find quite a few varieties that have a general theme.
https://www.google.com/#q=murder+my...pw.r_qf.&fp=82fa009bd0082a42&biw=1024&bih=571

Since my friends are..friends with me, I require costumes to be worn, which defiantely adds to the fun. We also like to center the food around the theme; If you're doing a Mobster Mystery, you'll have pasta, meatballs, etc.

The only, hinderance, I suppose, is that with kits you have to have the exact amount of people it says on the box, otherwise it won't work. So, no one can bail on you. And I guess someone could watch, but it's less fun that way.

Also, it helps to give everyone their character a day or a few before, so they can decide on a costume or what their character is like.

Not really a party, but a fundraiser, chicken meal, murder mystery, steam train, trip. Basically board an old steam train, ride out 20 miles and back, the actors come through the cars putting on the play while we were on the go, then you write down the killer on a piece of paper, then a winner was drawn from the correct answers, and you had the chicken dinner on the loading platform, under the stars, when you got back.

That sounds like fun! Let us know which one you choose, and your thoughts after unpacking it.

Kagsin delivers again.



I'll be perusing these kits tonight with the wife.

Ravenpoe said:

Plan a real murder during the fake one. At least, that's how it's always done on tv.

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Murder by Death!

WasabiPoptart said:

Murder by Death!

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I got to see that in the theater when I was quite young. I still don't know how I knew who Truman Capote was back when I was only 7, but for a non-actor he stole the show.

WasabiPoptart said:

Murder by Death!

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I hope this is on Netflix!

sixpackshaker said:

I got to see that in the theater when I was quite young. I still don't know how I knew who Truman Capote was back when I was only 7, but for a non-actor he stole the show.

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I used to catch it on tv once in a while. One of our local UHF stations would play it when I was a kid.[DOUBLEPOST=1346178998][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ravenpoe said:

I hope this is on Netflix!

Click to expand...

I didn't see it on Netflix, but it is available on Amazon Instant Video.

LittleKagsin said:

I LOOOVE Murder Mystery Parties!! My friends and I used to throw them all the time. I highly recommend buying a kit online.

You can find quite a few varieties that have a general theme.
https://www.google.com/#q=murder mystery dinner&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=G848UKqQIIHlyAGsioHIDw&ved=0CJ0BELMY&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=82fa009bd0082a42&biw=1024&bih=571

Since my friends are..friends with me, I require costumes to be worn, which defiantely adds to the fun. We also like to center the food around the theme; If you're doing a Mobster Mystery, you'll have pasta, meatballs, etc.

The only, hinderance, I suppose, is that with kits you have to have the exact amount of people it says on the box, otherwise it won't work. So, no one can bail on you. And I guess someone could watch, but it's less fun that way.

Also, it helps to give everyone their character a day or a few before, so they can decide on a costume or what their character is like.

Click to expand...

Obviously, this will be a costume party and my friends are going to be totally on board on that and won't cost them anything more than usual since this year we won't have a Halloween party but have a Murder Mystery instead.

I don't think the hindrance will really matter much, if people bring a +1, they will be forced to dress us and tell me ahead of time who they are planning to come as and set them up with minor roles to the story.

I can wing it.

Sounds fabulous!

I hope you have a wonderful time!!

My turn to ask you for pictures??

Ok.

Yeah, we didn't check it last night.

All that sex, yo.

Some friends of mine threw one about two years ago. It was a blast, though most of us were a little apprehensive about REALLY getting into character. Encouraging people to really play up their roles is probably the hardest part.
As I didn't organize, and only took part in one, my best advice would be to limit your party size. Ours was huge, and so what ended up happening is the planners made a role for someone to basically be the gossip, and spread around what others were saying. When that person bailed last minute, there was no one to spread around what was going on, and so nobody was ever able to solve the murder (My friend, who played my bodyguard, brought a cap gun, and when we all got frustrated over the lack of evidence, he randomly shot someone. Turned out he shot the murderer, so we called that canon).

If your party size is unavoidable, I'd say either make sure everyone get's a good chunk of evidence, or at least make sure you have more than one gossip to spread the word, in case one can't make it.
Literally, in the party I was at, I never once talked to the murderer, or heard anything about the murderer. I only found out later what the story of his character was.

I made up some RCMP "Under investigation" kinda breakdowns of the characters afterwards, got all the notes from the party throwers and everything. I'll see if I've still got them, just in case anyone's curious.

edit:
Foolishly, I apparently neglected to make sure I had them backed up before I removed them from Facebook. So they are gone forever, I suppose.
By my recollection, there were 16 suspects, not counting the victim and the two people throwing the party. But I'm also almost positive I'm forgetting at least one person.

Got the kit and started planning tonight. We were pretty excited about it and had a few fits of laughter while we tried to assign roles to our friends. We included ourselves in the game as "extra characters". There are 6 suspects and we're two extras. I think it'll work well. I wish I could go into more detail but I'm afraid of spoilers.

We're totally going to get people to fully dress up in their roles and roleplay their characters. I posted on Facebook about the update and got 7 other likes within 15 minutes on "Excited?". So signs points positively.

Invitation letters sent out. Will probably update thread with pictures soon. But I feel like I'm updating this thread.

ARE PEOPLE READING THIS?

Feedbaccccccccckkk

Jay said:

Invitation letters sent out. Will probably update thread with pictures soon. But I feel like I'm updating this thread.

ARE PEOPLE READING THIS?

Feedbaccccccccckkk

View attachment 8337

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I'm certainly not reading this.

What do the invites look like? Or did you just facebook message them?

They are actually real cute cards. I'll take a photo of them when I get home.

*raises hand*
I'm reading this thread. Murder Mystery parties are awesome and I am very interested to hear how this goes. From your past tales of the Halloween parties you've thrown, I expect this to be a hell of a shindig.

Oh my goodness what is happening?! Am I..invited??

This looks like a blast Jay! I hope it's a success!

How fun was it coming up with the puns for all the names?

checkeredhat said:

How fun was it coming up with the puns for all the names?

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Kits like these can come pre-packaged. I have a Vincent Price one I still have to use one night.

Yeah, it's pre-configured. To be honest, this year I wanted to do something, without going all out into organizing it.

The hard part was choosing only 6 of my friends out of 15 or so. I fear that will cause issues considering that most have only recently been informed I'm not throwing a party this year, would have been a 4th in a row since I owned a house and some are really bummed out.

Also sucks I tend to be the SOLE organizing in 2 entire group of friends... unless it is to go eat a resto.

Someone else throw a party FFS.

The solution, of course, is to throw three parties.

Parties are expensive. Considering I go all out.

Obviously you love your ability to maintain a decent standard of living more than you love your friends.

Murder Mystery was tonight... it went very well. Our last guests just left. So from 6 PM to 2 AM.

Awesome times.

Jay said:

Murder Mystery was tonight... it went very well. Our last guests just left. So from 6 PM to 2 AM.

Awesome times.

Click to expand...

But you haven't told us who did it!

I should have pictures up in a few days. Honestly though, prepping a party in 2-3 days compared to 2+ weeks of non-stop work was much more fun.

Still waiting on pictures from others but overall we didn't take a whole lot this year....

But this is me as Detective Rousseau before the guests arrived reading my favorite Cocktail Book.

sell me the pipe if you don't smoke...

The Jay keeps his promises. Uploading one file at a time sucks tho.





The Murder Mystery is about to start, Detective Rousseau awaits for his guests to arrive.



More research in my role.



The doorbell rings!



The table, with hors d'oeuvres.



Ze guests!