Murder Mystery DECEPTION · STEALTH

One of you is a bloodthirsty killer, will you find out who before it's too late?
 1hr - a few days |  5+ players

“It’s like werewolf, but more stressful”

What you need

How to play
| Setup
Give each player one slip of paper. Make sure they are not see through. Make sure you do not see any body else’s slip but your own.
Whichever player receives the slip with a cross is the killer.
Next notify all players that whoever is the killer may kill any other player simply by looking them in the eyes and blinking slowly and
steadily three times. If there is any confusion you may demonstrate what this looks like. Try to make it very clear and leave a good
second between each blink. Also let everyone if they are not the killer they may not perform this signal, and if someone has locked
eyes with them and starts something that looks like the signal they are not allowed to look away.
Then you may declare that the game has begun. And everyone in the group may go about their day.

| The Murder
Now, the murderer may perform the signal at any time. Note that it must specifically be directed towards one person. However
once the murderer performs a signal, they must wait for their victim to die, and the trial to be enacted before performing another
murder. In short, murders can only happen one at a time.
If you are not the murderer, and the murderer performs the signal towards you, you must accept you fate, you have been murdered.
Now comes the fun part, you have to wait at least 15 minutes and at most 30 minutes to plan a theatrical death. If possible, you
should perform your death near where you were murdered, however if have moved from that area, or would never be found there,
then you can just die wherever you happen to be at you chosen time of death. Your death may be a clue as to where you were
killed and what you were doing as you died, however you may not intentionally try to point to the murderer, or to their belongings.
Moreover, from the moment that you are murdered, you may not indicate that you know the identity of the murderer to ANYONE.
When executing your death, be as dramatic and twisted as you want, just make sure that someone finds you, screaming is always
a good idea. For drama purposes, stay dead until the trial is over, and once it is, you are no longer a part of the game and you may
once again go about your day. Once a corpse is found, a Trial begins.

| The Trial
When a corpse is found, all surviving players must gather around it, to discuss the trial. A first vote occurs, via a public ballot by
raising hands on whether or not the group wants to execute someone, any amount of deliberation is allowed. If a strict majority
wishes to execute a player then a second ballot is begun, once again with any amount of deliberation. Any player may accuse
another player of being the murderer during deliberation, once everyone agrees that deliberation is over, then all living players
may vote for one of the accused players by a show of hands. The person with the most votes is executed. If there is a tie, nobody
is executed and the trial is over. However if a player was chosen, then their accuser may decide how they are executed and the
players may theatrically perform the execution. Once this is done, the newly dead player announces whether or not they were the
murder. If they were then the game is won by the non-murderers, and if they were not then everyone goes about their day until the
murder strikes again.

| Variants

Many variants are possible, here are a few:

JULY 30, 2020 QUENTIN TANG · M

• You can change the wait time before enacting a death; death can be instantaneous if you want to make things very difficult
for the killer, or take a whole day if you want the game to take a long time.

• The constraints on the death scene can change if you want to allow wills, last words, or some mandatory props for extra
serial killer vibes.

• If the deliberations take too long feel free to add a time limit. Or for more mysterious games you can organize secret ballots

• Of Course there’s room for more roles, like a detective who can ask one person if they’re the killer each time someone dies,
or a spiritualist who can get one word out of the last person who died, etc... Just keep balance in mind.

Example
A, B, C, D, E and F are all live together. At lunch they decide to start playing, D is the killer. D is dating C, and A is dating B. For safety,
everyone agrees to only move in groups of three, like that, the murderer will easily be caught.
While A is doing the dishes, D swings by and looks him in the eyes and blinks three times. 20 minutes later, people hear violent
gurgling coming from the kitchen, A is drowning in the sink! He collapses on the floor. Everybody gathers around the new corpse.
C says that it must be B, as B had the easiest access to A. B says it wasn’t him. Nevertheless everyone but him votes to have an
execution. C accuses him, and B accuses E, hoping it’ll work. Unfortunately, everyone votes for him, and C decides that he should
be put on a pyre with A, because that’s romantic. He screams and dies. Unfortunately he says nothing, and the game continues.
Tensions mount, however nothing more happens throughout the afternoon, people go to work but nobody dies.
The next day nothing happens throughout the morning, everyone is getting fairly paranoid, however they had planned an outing.
On the walk out, C starts to scream and falls to the ground, a knife sticking out of his side. Now only D, E and F are alive, they decide
to try a final execution in the hopes of surviving.
Due to rising tensions, E and F accuse each other, D votes with F and E is offed. Which leaves D alone with F, who is promptly
murdered.

Well that’s how it should look,

Have Fun!

Murder Mystery

JULY 30, 2020 QUENTIN TANG · M