Hemlock Parlor · Scripts

Murder mystery party script

A murder mystery party doesn't use a play script that everyone memorizes. The host reads a few short scenes aloud, and each guest gets a character sheet with what they know, a secret and a goal. Guests talk in their own words. Our free script below is laid out exactly that way, for 6 players.

What a party script contains

Part	Who reads it	When
Opening scene	The host, aloud	Once everyone has arrived
Character sheets	Each guest, privately	On arrival; Round 2 facts later
Discovery of the body	The host, aloud	After Round 1
Clue cards	Everyone, on the table	One at a time in Round 2
Solution	The host, aloud	After the accusations

An example: the opening the host reads

It is a Saturday night on Main Street. Rudy Winterbourne, who has run Winterbourne's Toys for forty years, closes the shop at seven and throws its fortieth-anniversary party for staff, neighbors and old friends: punch, a cake shaped like a toy train, a photo booth by the front window and a model train running through the window display. Just after nine, Rudy slips into the stockroom to fetch "the big surprise." He never comes back.

That is the whole opening: under a minute to read. Then each guest opens a sheet like Holly's: three things Holly saw tonight, a secret about $2,000 borrowed from the till, and a goal. The sheet says when to keep the secret and when to admit it, so nobody has to improvise a plot.

Why sheets work better than lines

• Nobody has to learn anything. Guests read their sheet once and talk.
• Shy guests have something concrete to say: what they saw, and a secret to protect.
• The host can play too, because the solution sits on its own folded page.

Questions

Keep reading

• The free 6-player mystery
• How does a murder mystery party work?
• Murder mystery party clues
• How to write a murder mystery party