Does anyone have clues on how to run a Murder Mystery night? I need advice on how to write and conduct one for the private hospital I work in. It’s part of the resident’s diversional therapy -having fun and igniting the brain- and is meant to be held in 6 weeks or so. I figure it’d be like a mini LARP so I’m hoping fellow LARPers may have some hints for me (please please please please!)
Why does this sound like the first scene in a horror film?
I’d suggest you look for one of the pre-packaged ‘how to host a murder mystery’ kits out there. Amazon.com has them, but local sources should as well.
They’re geared for non-RPers, have all the bits and bobs you need and will let you focus on the stress of running the event rather than the stress of writing AND running it. 
I’d suggest you don’t buy the “How to Host a Murder” box sets. Sorry Jackie, but they’re awful, and I don’t think they’re suited to this situation. Each player gets a booklet and you basically spend the game taking turns reading to each other out of your booklets. Booooring. They’re also only for six players.
How many residents will be playing?
Classic “murder mystery dinner” games, where people pay to be entertained, rely heavily on “actors” that you can think of as NPCs. One NPC is the murderer, some of the NPCs may be witnesses, and all the others NPCs have information about each other that may be relevant. The NPCs act out scenes that give the players clues, and the players can also ask them questions to investigate the murder. In some respects this would be easy to run, because your residents wouldn’t need to play characters and wouldn’t need much briefing. The game rests on scripting and the ability of the NPCs. On the down side, I don’t know of any scenarios in this style available online.
Another option is to run a pregen larp, somewhat like the ones at Chimera. The Freeform Games scenarios are quite well suited to this, because they do involve murder investigations and there are a wide range of genres and sizes to choose from. On the down side, they’re a bit expensive, and I think many of the scenarios involve some sort of crazy supernatural twist that goes beyond straight murder mystery. Also, in general this style of game requires quite a lot of commitment from your players, as they have to read several pages of briefing material and roleplay a character, and it can all feel a bit complex to non-gamers. You’d know better than us whether your residents would be up for that.
EDIT: Below is a page that describes some different types of murder mystery and sells some scenarios. I can’t say whether the scenarios are any good, but I reckon the easiest thing for your residents would be either the “Murder Mystery Event Scenarios” or “Dinner Theatre Murder Mysteries”. But to do these styles you’ll need a number of people to be “actors” (NPCs). For example the “Murder at the Manor” scenario needs 7 NPCs and £20 (+£20 “for each performance of the scenario”, curiously). At the end of the event, the players all guess who the murderer was, and why they did it, and then you can announce who got it right. So it has a competitive aspect.
In the past we wrote a dinner murder mystery, where the characters are based on one aspect on the attendee’s background. For example the person had been to Eygpt touristing recently was given a character as an archeologist. The person who loved reading was a famous author. Every character had a reason to kill the host, and it was decide by rolling the dice by the GM who actually did it. The murder had to be thought out and excuted by the murderer, and had to be done before dinner (since then he was going off to prepare the food).
If (and I’m guessing here) your patients are elderly, you could set the game in the past, and they play out the person they were before the retired. Hinge it around a particfular event, maybe the war, or when the Russians were going to invade NZ. Or the Moon landing. You could ask them to create their own character - of give an idea of what they have always wanted to be. They may get mor buy in if they are playing out their alternate reality. Encourage costuming - gets people thinking about their character before the event, and more buy in to making it successful.
Regarding the food aspect, if you do do a dinner thing, keep it simple and well prepared beforehand. I have had friend who did a chinese style game, and they actually got chinese takeaways kept warm in the oven, and was very sucessful. Unelss you have a specific cook, keep your energy and focus on the game rather than the food.
The pre-packaged “host a murder” box sets can be got on Trade-Me, since they are only used once per group, they re-sell quite frequently. There are different firms that do them with different quality. I’d recommend the original firm, with white boxes with a coloured border and black writing on the front (from memory) as opposed to ones with full photo montage on the front.
I’d suggest asking Raoul Griffiths for a copy of the game “Nightmare Circle: The Return”. It was run at Chimera in 2008 and is one of the best stand alone larps I’ve ever played in. It’s not quite a murder mystery, but it’s pretty close…
I agree with Ryan on this; since the participants are elderly and not experienced role players, it would be much easier to have something like lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin … _Manor.htm where they could imagine themselves as (eg) Miss Marple; since several scenarios are based around 1920s it would also be in a familiar time period for them, which they’d like.
Drawback is you’d need a bunch of NPC actors (although you might be able to get some volunteers from NZLARPS?) plus the #40 cost of running the scenario. The NPCs would need costume, but there’s a lot of that era of costume available and some people already have the kit from previous LARPs.
I think the Freeform games scripts are good, but need ot have at least some experienced role players about to make it good. The Lazybee games seem much more suited to your requirements, if you can get enough people to play the NPCs and arrange costuming in the time available.
There are folks here who could write a decent “murder theatre” game in that style, it would be simpler than writing a larp. And much cheaper than buying a scenario.
I would be happy to pass on the return. It is a bit of fun. I will have to locate it, but that shouldn’t take me to long really.
R