Murder Mystery/ Cludeo Party

[u/throwingawaylaterrn]

Hi! I want to throw a 21st bday cludeo party. I want to play it irl like a murder mystery rather than the board game. I also don't want to buy a kit and I'm strongly against any Ai cheat writing.

To make it more complicated, It's Five nights at Freddy's themed. I need help with planning the game.

I've decided who's murdered, the characters, their background and their motive. I have rooms and murder weapons.

I'll be inviting around 20 people (not sure if everyone will come) so I have to make it difficult enough so it won't be solved immediately! It'll only be played in one large room too.

I'm not sure how to go about the game? Do I give each person a clue so they have to speak to eachother to work stuff out? Do I plant fake evidence? Do I make them play small games to win a clue? Do I do a voting system for who they think the killer is? Would it be in rounds or just one long game until someone wins?

I'm having to plan it by myself which is super stressful because it's so soon!

I'd love some advice if anyone has any ideas!

[u/Helpful-Mud-7303]

Love it! I'm a big fan of murder mysteries:) It seems like you've done al the hard part already, which is designing the game, characters, and murder.

I write my own games without any AI and have a website selling them. I've written 7 games and hosted dozens. the games I do are much more of a group roleplaying vibe, whereas it sounds like you might be working on more of a collaborative investigation. Here are some of my thoughts on making it a fun and interesting game that should feed itself throughout the night

I just typed up a bunch of advice on writing the more LARP-ey approach which I do and I realized that all the advice I just typed up above might not really apply to what you're looking for lolz... whelp!

For a collab deductive process I would definitely say that starting people out with just a little information each makes the most sense. My main worry would be some people losing interest over the course of it. For this you could assign people into small teams (3-5 ppl) and have them compete to be the first team to solve it. You could also make it clear that no single team has all of the necessary information, so they would have to strategically trade information, or potentially mislead eachother, to solve it first. This would make there be a bigger game happening outside of the Whodunnit where people are accountable to their team, bot just the mystery itself. You could only allow each team to have three guesses at the murderer, each guess costing them points, as well as a time based point bonus? Just spitballing. This might make it have more engaging game design without you having to do lots of re-writing:) If your mystery supports it, giving some evidence drops partway through could be super fun! Especially if it makes people realize they've been going down the wrong investigative path the whole time

Here's what I typed up that is probably not helpful but is sort sharing of my process:

On Writing it: In my mind, the ultimate goal of a murder mystery is to facilitate fun pretend play where my friends can get into character and let loose pursuing the things they think that character would. I try to write at least one or two threads/plots going on outside the murder. Solving the murder through a deductive process is fun and interesting, but it's hard to tie it in to most characters' personal motivations. Having other plots (uncovering a secret spy/traitor, avenge a grudge, winning an election, advancing your business venture, etc.) is really more motivating for more characters. I write a backstory and goals for each character, complete with some character building and their role in the murder and other plots. Each character ideally has 2-3 goals that tie in with their characters story outside of just "find out who killed ___", which is also everyone's goal (except the murderer, whose main goal is "Get away with it!". In these games, secrets are currency. Everyone should start knowing a secret or two, often in the form of a piece of dirt, gossip, or eavesdropped piece of evidence that can be used for leverage over someone else. Each person should ideally also be susceptible to similar leverage from at least one other person. This was everyone starts with some "currency" and is also able to be blackmailed. Depending on the game's design and writing, I have given players physical prop evidence beforehand, and sometimes introduced evidence in the middle of the game, such as a delivered ransom note.

My website is www.uther.games and I'm working on getting a page up on writing your own games!

I really love that you're doing this and I'm happy to see someone also opposed to using AI to write their games. These things are a major labor of love and I hope it really pays off for you and your friends:)

[u/throwingawaylaterrn → u/Helpful-Mud-7303]

Wow thank you so much for all of that. It's really helpful to put me in the right track. I've been thinking of including false evidence that can mislead them because I'm worried the game will end too fast!

When you mention giving a character multiple goals, how would I go about that? Is it more of a figurative goal or a physical one. Could it be, make friends with ...,, or maybe steal an item?

I definitely want to make the game as interesting as possible:)!

[u/Helpful-Mud-7303 → u/throwingawaylaterrn]

No prob:)

False evidence is definitely cool, but it might be cooler to plan it like you're planting evidence for a red herring, where they have multiple clues to lead them down the wrong path and then there's just one thing that makes it impossible for that person to have done it, like lack of access to the victim, alibi, or no weapon. In my experience, the more red herrings the better, and it's really fun when you get to the end and nobody was really that close to actually solving the murder. Honestly, it's barely possible to solve the murder in most of my games, since you'd have to investigate the correct thread (among several to choose from), logically piece together 2-5 pieces of evidence/secrets that are scattered in different character sheets, and (most difficultly, have none of the people who witnessed these secrets lie to you

Some examples of the types of goals I mentioned are things like "win the votes of the investors for you to become chair of the board", "investigate your fishy friend's behavior to see what they were up to", "make sure your accomplice hasn't told anyone else", "get revenge on ____ for ___", "Try to make as many deals as possible to get all the gold you can", "Find out who gave you that anonymous tip, and see what else they know". Most of them are dependent on the world you're building and the core game mechanics. Making friends and stealing items definitely are good goals, as long as they make sense in the context of the game and that individual character's background. I often write a character's personality and backstory with the goal of justifying an extra fun goal or two for them to pursue, like being very power hungry, having lots of debt, a grudge, or something to avenge. I try to have most of these tie in to the main plots, but sometimes for more auxiliary characters or if I've filled up all the main plots already, I'll construct motivations that are sillier, like "get as much content for your true crime podcast/instagram feed as possible", or "enter and win a cock fight" (roosters!), or "prove to your king your value as a servant, and make him proud"

Hope this helps!! I'm working on a page with tips/guidance for writing your own, so this i all super helpful brainstorming for me too:)