No costumes, nothing to perform
Nothing in any file asks for a costume, a scene or an accent. Each guest gets two printed pages and reads them. The rest of the evening is talking to the people at the table about what the documents say.
What is there instead is the permitted lie, with written limits: you may deny a purchase, you may not invent a witness, a route, a key or a document. That is the whole performance requirement. The four files are on the murder mystery kits page.
For eight: the film noir file
Hollywood Noir: Meridian Pictures studio, Los Angeles, August 1953, a star dead in front of her mirror. Fifty-six pages, thirty exhibits in three binders, four search tokens per player, one ballot and one commitment sheet each.
Six to twelve players plus a host who does not play, about three hours, $39.90 whatever the head count. The setting does most of the work: nobody needs the genre explained, and the exhibits look like what they are.
For four: a cold case instead
A kit needs six players and a host, so at four the format changes: a cooperative case file, no roles, no host, everyone against the documents, one to seven investigators.
The Winter of '74 suits a long evening: a cold case at the Grand Hotel des Neves on 12 January 1974, twelve exhibits, one cipher whose key comes from three wage slips, two clocks that disagree, two and a half to three and a half hours. The catalogue is on the detective case files page.
Beer, food and a three-hour plot
The evening survives both. The host opens the exhibits at set minutes, so you can eat through act two without breaking anything, and a twenty-minute pause between acts costs nothing since the opened documents stay out.
Two practical notes. Keep the exhibit folders off the table you are eating at, because a stained exhibit is evidence lost. And put a lamp near the reading end: these are photographed documents, sometimes handwritten.
Somebody has to host
For a kit, one person does not play. They read the guide beforehand, release the exhibits, answer briefly for characters nobody is dealt, settle the signed agreements and read the reveal at the end.
It is about an hour of reading and an hour of printing and sorting, and the whole routine is set out on the printable murder mystery kit page. If nobody will take it, that is not a problem: run the cooperative case file instead, where there is no host and nobody knows the answer in advance. Prices are $39.90 for a kit and $39 for a case file, both for the whole table, and the file can be reprinted later for another private group.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need costumes?+
No. Nothing in any file requires a costume, an accent or a performed scene. Each guest reads two printed pages and talks to the table about the documents. The only rule about lying is that you may not invent evidence.
What works for four people?+
A cooperative case file rather than a kit, since a kit needs six players and a host. The Winter of '74 runs two and a half to three and a half hours for one to seven investigators, with a cipher and two clocks that disagree.
Can we eat and drink during the game?+
Yes. The host opens the exhibits at set minutes, so you can eat through an act and pause between them without losing anything. Keep the exhibit folders off the eating table: a stained document is evidence lost for the night.
