Personal Objectives and Signed Agreements

Each private sheet states a declaration its character must deposit: acknowledge a meeting, admit a loan, state what they were really doing during a given hour. The wording is specific, and the sheet lists every condition the declaration has to meet. Depositing a compliant declaration with the host, before the accusations are written, earns one point. A declaration is not a confession. A character may declare a borrowed garment, a debt or an appointment without admitting anything criminal. The murder mystery kits pages describe the shape of the objectives in each file.

The second part is a request the character wants supported: preserve certain papers, submit accounts to the commissioner, agree a professional reference, record a withdrawal from authority. The sheet names two partners whose signature counts. Each signature adds one point, provided the declaration has been deposited, so the maximum is three. A signature only validates the commitment actually written. Agreeing to everything in general counts for nothing; the host makes vague clauses precise before accepting a deposit.

Evidence is never traded for a signature. A player may refuse to sign, and refusing costs them nothing: zero, one, two or three points are all normal outcomes. Nobody is ever obliged to sign to save the enquiry, and no exhibit may be withheld to obtain an agreement. That rule is in the host's guide and on every public card, because it is what keeps the social layer from poisoning the deduction. The two scores stay apart: the investigation is out of twenty, the objectives out of three, and they are never added into a single winner.

In a game with one culprit and eleven innocents, the innocents can run out of things to do once they have read the exhibits. The objectives give each of them a private agenda that has nothing to do with the murder: a career, an inheritance, a reputation, a contract. Two or three people negotiating in a corner is the sound of a kit working. It is also what fills the gap between exhibits: while the host waits for the next act to open, nobody is sitting with nothing to do. It also gives the culprit cover. They have an objective like everyone else, so their moving around the room and asking for signatures is unremarkable.

At a fixed minute the host closes negotiations and collects declarations and agreements. Late signatures do not count. Then the ballots are written, and only afterwards does the host enter the killer's name on the case file portal to open the reveal. Results are announced separately: the investigation score, the outcome of the culprit's defence, and each person's personal points. The guide is explicit that no overall winner is produced by adding them together. A full evening in order, negotiations included, is walked through on the printable murder mystery kit page.