How To Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party
by Joseph J. Franco
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joseph J. FrancoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-07-23
ISBN: 1419663631
Number of pages: 100
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing
Book Reviews of How To Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party
Book Review: Helpful But Not Perfect
Summary: 3 Stars
This book was a bit of a mixed bag. My goal is to provide a bit more depth than the others reviewers or the synopsis did.
_How To Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party_ proposes a significantly different approach from the box games that I have played. Rather than having the guests play characters, the guests are themselves and one of them is a murderer. Rather than the players having books of things that they are to say each round, each player is given limited information at the beginning (and one is informed that he is the murderer and is told the whole story). As the game/party progresses, the players talk to each other and share or hide information. They also find "clues" that the host spreads around the party. The guests collect these clues and try to determine who among them is the murderer.
While that is happening, the murderer is trying to thwart their attempts by collecting clues and hiding them, lying to them, etc. Basically anything but destroying evidence.
I definitely like this more organic style of murder mystery better than the heavily scripted boxed games that I have played.
That said, this book is not without its faults. First, this is a self-published book. As is often true with this sort of arrangement, the book could have been helped significantly by an editor. The author consistently wrote "allowed" rather than "aloud", "your" instead of "you're" when meaning "you are", etc. There were also sections early on in the book which could have been fleshed out a bit more and which a publisher might have helped the author to expand. The diagrams and layout are by no means professional. Given the price of this slim volume, I was expecting more.
The description of the book had led me to believe that this would be more of a theoretical/general book. Instead there are a few brief sections at the beginning that lay out the goals of the author, how disappointed he was with the boxed games, how he goes about coming up with his mysteries, and how he runs his games. Once that is dispensed with, the remainder of the book consists of 5 sample mysteries which the author had run the previous 5 Halloweens.
These mysteries range from simplistic (which is appropriate for some situations) to intricate (which appeals to me). They often draw on real or fictional local lore, which is a great idea. One of them even involves some role playing in that the players can be cursed and must behave appropriately. For each mystery, he gives the introductory material that he provided to the players on game night. He then gives an explanation of how any puzzles or props were constructed, how the game play went the night of the party, and in some cases observations about adapting the story for your own party.
In the end, while this was not what I was expecting either in quality or content, reading it has sparked some good ideas for running my own murder mystery parties. I simply wish it had gone further.
Summary of How To Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party
How To Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party will guide you through writing your own custom murder mystery party games. What sets these games apart from the store bought 'boxed' type of murder mystery games is that the party is designed by you and around the people coming to the party. After all, who knows your friends better than you? The other major and most fun difference is that the murderer is one of the guests. They know they are the killer and will be trying to protect themselves by lying, hindering others' progress, etc, while keeping their identity a secret. The book is a step-by-step guide, including many completed examples and a quick start game. The book covers how to get started, how to generate story ideas, choosing a murder weapon and body, how to choose who plays the murderer, generating ideas for puzzles and clues and the difference between the two, timing during the game, setting difficulty levels, keeping people involved and having fun and ending the game.Family Activities Books
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