Murder Mystery for 15 Players: Printable Options

The kits are sold in three tiers, $39 for 6 to 8 players, $49 for 9 to 10 and $59 for 11 to 12, and the top tier is the end of the line. The host guide's section on adapting the game to your number of players goes up to twelve and stops, because the scenario has twelve written characters and a solution built on them. There is no thirteenth sheet in any file. So fifteen forces a choice rather than a bigger purchase. You can have fifteen characters written for you, you can put twelve characters in play and give three people a different job, or you can run two smaller games at once. Each of those is a real evening; each has a cost, a preparation time and a feel that the others do not. The printable murder mystery kit page explains the formats and tiers; this article assumes you know them and compares the three routes at fifteen only. For twenty and above, the arithmetic changes again, and murder mystery for 20 players: printable options covers that count.

The custom murder mystery is $219 for up to 15 players. It is not a kit with three extra sheets: the scenario is written from scratch around your group, with fifteen unique characters, and real first names are allowed, so the guests play versions of themselves inside a story built for them. You send a brief. A detailed outline comes back for your approval. Once the brief is confirmed, the print-ready PDF is delivered within 72 working hours, with unlimited revisions within the agreed brief, and a QR-code mystery mini-site is included. Cost per head is under fifteen dollars. Preparation is mostly calendar: allow the days for the outline exchange and the 72 working hours, then print as you would a kit. Do not start a custom order the week of the party; two to three weeks of lead time is comfortable. The feel is the best of the three, because nobody is a spare part. Fifteen people each hold a sheet written with them in mind, the host runs one story in one room, and the reveal is one reveal. It is the route for a birthday or an anniversary where the fifteen are the point of the evening.

The cheap compromise: buy the 11 to 12 tier at $59, hand out all twelve characters, and give the three remaining guests the job of investigators. They hold no character sheet and no secret. They question the suspects, compare notes with each other, and vote at the end on a slip of paper beside the twelve ballots. The host briefs them at the start: you are the detectives, everyone else is hiding something, find out what. Say it plainly to yourself before you choose it: three people will have a thinner evening than twelve. Investigators do not get questioned, do not bluff and have nothing to protect, so the role suits guests who would rather ask than perform, a couple who arrived late to the plan, or the teenagers of a mixed group. It does not suit three friends who expected to play. Preparation is that of any twelve-player kit: one file, one host, one room or two, printed the day before. Cost per head is under four dollars. The feel is a full twelve-player game with a small detective bench attached, and if you cast the bench with the right three people it works better than it sounds.

Split fifteen into a table of seven and a table of eight, and run two different kits from the murder mystery kits page at the same time, each on the 6 to 8 tier at $39. Two hosts, two rooms, the same start time, and a shared reveal at the end where each table presents its case to the other before its solution is read. The two kits must be different, so that a guest who wanders into the other room hears nothing they can use. Pick two titles with the same announced run time, about 2 hours each, The Cursed Manor and The Cursed Island, so the tables finish together. The seven-player table hands out the core six plus one added role, as its host guide describes; the eight-player table has every character of its tier in play. Cost is two purchases at $39, about $5.20 a head. Preparation doubles in the obvious ways: two files to print, two hosts who each read their own guide, two sets of envelopes. The feel is two intimate games rather than one big one, and the shared reveal is the moment they become one party.

Cost first. The custom scenario is $219 for one story; the kit plus investigators is $59; two tables are two purchases at $39. Per head, that is under fifteen dollars, under four dollars and about five dollars. Preparation next. The custom route needs a brief, an outline approved and 72 working hours after the brief is confirmed, then a normal print; the calendar is the cost, not the effort. The kit plus investigators is the least preparation of the three: one file, one host, one printing session. Two tables need two hosts who have each read a guide, two printing sessions, and a room plan that keeps them apart until the reveal. Feel last. Custom: fifteen full characters, one story, one host, one reveal. Kit plus investigators: twelve full characters and three detectives; honest, cheaper, uneven. Two tables: fifteen full characters across two stories, two hosts, and a shared reveal that gives the evening its ending. None of the three is a bad evening; the two-table route is the closest to the custom route in feel, and the kit plus investigators is the closest in effort.

A big birthday, an anniversary, a reunion of a group of friends who all know each other: the custom scenario, because the fifteen names in the story are the gift, and the lead time is easy to plan around a fixed date. A work team, a club, or a group where fifteen is really twelve regulars plus three partners who came along: the kit plus investigators, with the three partners as the detective bench. They get an evening they enjoy without being asked to act, and the twelve get a full game. A mixed crowd of two friend groups, a family gathering with two generations, or any fifteen that already splits into two natural halves: two tables. Put each half at its own table, give each its own kit, and let the shared reveal introduce the halves to each other. Murder mystery party for large groups goes deeper into running parallel tables and a loud room; this article stops at the choice.

Whichever route you pick, the file is a PDF: emailed within seconds of paying by card for a kit, delivered as a print-ready PDF for the custom scenario once the brief is done. Nothing is shipped. Everything prints at home in color or black and white, on A4, with fit to page ticked on US Letter; at fifteen sheets and two or three rounds of clues, a print shop starts to make sense. The recommended age is 14 and up and there is no graphic violence in any scenario. The license is personal and non-commercial: your own private parties, as many times as you like, but no paid events, no commercial hosting and no sharing of the files. A club night with a ticket price needs a commercial license, which is available on request. The files do not change for a big room: name tags, place cards and invitations are not included and are worth making at this size. The tier below fifteen, and what a full twelve-player table asks of a host, is covered in a printable murder mystery for 12 players.