I recently hosted my first murder mystery dinner party as a surprise for a friend’s birthday, and I have to tell you that I am hooked!  I want to do more!

I purchased The Watersdown Affair, which is one of the excellent How to Host a Murder products.  The kit was really well put together and easy to understand.  It even provided suggested times for the serving of food and the various rounds of the game.

The kit contained printed invitations and name tags for the characters, a booklet for each character with their role information, a CD describing the murder scene, a map of the murder scene, several secret clues to  be revealed as the game progressed, and a host guide.

There are eight characters in the game, but I invented two more, one for myself and one for the husband of the birthday girl.  He was the Detective-Superintendent who unravelled the case at the end, and I was the deceased’s sister who had flown in from the Riviera on hearing of the death.

The action was set in 1936 in a stately home.  We hired a private room in a grand restaurant, organised a set menu and arranged for our servers to dress as a period maid and butler.  They participated with gusto – I guess it was something a bit different for them   However this was a special occasion.  You could actually hold this game anywhere and bring in some food and it would still work really well.

The guests were asked to dress in black tie and to bring out whatever vintage folderols they had.  One man wore an antique fob watch and chain, one lady brought out a fountain pen.  Someone else had a 40-year-old mink stole. I had my hair done in a 1930’s period straight style with rolls around the face.  Everyone dressed up and got right into hamming up their characters.

There are lots of different games in the How to Host a Murder series.  I think I am going to try another one for husband’s birthday next year.  The video shows some of the game packs available.

 

Here are just some of the How to Host a Murder games. What a perfect Christmas gift!

 

 How to Host a Murder – The Chicago Caper 
How to Host a Murder – The Good, the Bad and the Guilty

 

 

 How to Host a Murder: The Watersdown Affair
How to Host a Murder – An Affair to Dismember

 

 

 How to Host a Murder : Power and Greede (Game)

Get more How to Host a Murder games .

 I did a few things that I think improved the game for our players.

First, I didn’t give the players the whole 12-page booklet all at once.  I sent them their personal character information and what they needed for Round 1 of the game ahead of time, then sseveral times during the dinner I handed out the pieces of information needed for the next round.  This meant the guests did not have to confront a large amount of information up front.

We played the whole game dinner table, except for the introductions and the solution.  I timed the courses to be about 3/4 hour apart, so that there was plenty of time for the clues to be revealed.

One thing I found was that the players were disinclined to reveal information unless they were directly asked.  Next time, I will brief them to reveal any facts they have about OTHER players, and only conceal facts about their own characters unless asked.

I also did not have the players wrap up the solution.  Our supernunerary character, the Detective-Superintendant, did that. After dinner we went to the lounge for coffee.  The D-S invoted each player to make their accusations.  Then he read out a paper that I had prepared, listing each of the suspects in order of their elimination.  This went down very well.

I did ask the guest playing the D-S if he woudl like to play Hercule Poirot himself.  This would have worked extremely well,  but our man was a bit too modest.

We had such a good night, and it was easy to do.

 

Read more about  Murder Mystery Games.