If you have been invited to a murder mystery party and you are wondering what you have agreed to, this is the game. It takes five minutes to understand and two hours to play.
The setup
Someone has been murdered before the party starts. Every guest plays a character who was there and had a reason to want the victim dead. One guest is actually the murderer and knows it. Everyone else is trying to work out who.
The game is played in three rounds, each about 20 minutes, followed by a vote and a reveal. The host runs the rounds but is also a character and a suspect.
Your character card
Before the party you get your character. Read it once. It contains:
- Your name and role. “Lola LaRue, the headline singer.” This is who you are all night.
- Your public bio. What everyone knows about you. Say this freely.
- Your secret. Something you did that you do not want known. It is usually not the murder, but it looks bad, and other characters have objectives that involve finding it out.
- A costume hint. Two or three items. Not a shopping list.
In a phone-based kit like Sleuth Night this arrives as a private link. In a paper kit it is a printed page. Either way, do not show it to anyone.
What happens in each round
At the start of each round you get objectives and knowledge. Objectives are what to do (“find out where the bartender was at eleven”). Knowledge is what you know that you may share or must hide (“you saw the singer leave through the back door”).
Round one: who is in the room. The host announces the death. Everyone introduces themselves in character. Your objectives point you at two or three specific people. Talk to them. Find out what they say about the night.
Round two: the clues arrive. The host reveals the first physical clues, usually on a TV screen or read aloud: a note, a receipt, a witness statement. New objectives arrive. Somebody's story from round one no longer matches. This is the round where secrets come out.
Round three: accusations. Final clues. Objectives now say some version of “decide who did it”. Confront people. Compare notes with someone you trust. Be wrong out loud; it is part of the fun.
Your phone or envelope only shows the current round. You cannot read ahead, and neither can anyone else.
The rules that matter
There are only four, and most kits agree on them.
- Stay in character. You are not you. You do not know what you know in real life.
- You may lie, except when your card says you may not. Cards often include one or two facts you must admit if asked directly. Everything else is fair game. The murderer may lie about everything.
- Do not show your card to anyone. Telling people what it says is playing. Showing it is cheating.
- Keep talking. The game only works if people move around and ask questions. Sitting in one seat waiting to be interrogated is the way to have a bad time.
Nobody wins by being right silently. Share what you know, trade information, and build theories with other people. The murderer wins by being trusted.
The vote
After round three, every guest votes for who they think the murderer is. In a phone kit you tap a name; in a paper kit you write it down. You cannot vote for yourself. Voting is secret and there is no conferring.
The result is usually split. That is normal with ten suspects and is what makes the reveal land.
The reveal
The host shows the vote, then reveals the murderer and the solution: what actually happened, which clues pointed to it, and what each character was really up to. Good kits include a short epilogue for every character, the “what happened next”, which is often the best-written part of the whole thing.
Then awards, if the host has them: best detective (closest to the truth), best liar, best costume, most suspicious for no reason.
If you are the murderer
You find out when you read your card. Your job all night is to seem like a normal suspect. Practical advice from people who have done it:
- Do not be the quiet one. The quiet one always gets voted for.
- Have an alibi and stick to it. Your card gives you one and tells you how to defend it each round.
- Accuse someone else, early and loudly. Then agree with someone else's theory in round three.
- Do not overplay it. You are not a villain. You are a guest with something to hide, like everyone else.
How Sleuth Night runs this
Every rule above is built into the kit so nobody has to explain it. Each guest's phone shows only the current round: objectives, knowledge, and, if they are the murderer, a note on how to lie this round. The host advances rounds from a dashboard; the clue appears on the TV for everyone. The vote is a tap, and the reveal, with per-character epilogues, plays on the screen.
Hosting? Read the full guide to how to host a murder mystery party. Picking a game for your group size? See our pages for 8, 10 or 12 players.