10 Tips for How to Plan a Murder Mystery Party at Home

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE planning murder mystery parties. We have now hosted 13 murder mystery parties. There is a lot of planning and prep work that is involved in hosting a murder mystery party – for all of the guests and especially for the host. Today, I am going to walk you through 10 tips on how to plan a murder mystery party at home, broken into two different sections of the planning stage.

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Here is a glimpse of some of our favorite mystery parties to date.  Also, I have linked some additional murder mystery theme posts of some of our favorite parties. Hopefully, these posts will help you figure out how to plan a murder mystery party of your own! It is so much fun to host a murder mystery dinner game!

1920s Gangster Murder Mystery Party

Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Mystery

Honky Tonk Homicide Murder Mystery

I enjoyed Honkey Tonk Homicide so much that I hosted a second party for this theme – an all female murder mystery party

Oh, my goodness, do we have fun! Everyone, including myself, was a little skeptical when I first proposed the idea but we have a blast with these! It has been a learning experience along the way. I can’t even tell you which one is the absolute best murder mystery party game because we have enjoyed them all so much!

To make things a bit easier for your, I have come up with 10 tips to host a murder mystery party at home.

Steps for Selecting Murder Mystery Dinner Game & Murder Mystery Party Characters

1) Start Early When Planning a Murder Mystery Party

There are many steps involved in some of the parties. Don’t wait until a Wednesday to decide you want to try to pull off a party on a Saturday. This type of party requires planning for everyone. Also, consider if you want to plan your murder mystery party around a holiday theme. Think this over carefully. The holiday seasons can be very demanding of everyone’s time. Will you be able to secure enough participants? Settle on a date about 3-4 weeks out from when you start to plan a murder mystery night. This will give everyone proper time to prepare.

2) Choose Your Mystery Dinner Game Participants Carefully

Poll your overall group of friends or family to see who would be open to participating in a mystery party. We have been surprised that some of our outgoing friends weren’t interested in participating in a mystery party because they were unwilling to step into character. You need to have an idea as to how many friends might be interested and how fun and loud those personalities are before you go about selecting your party. You can include some less outgoing friends, but the game is more fun if you also have some loud personalities. Once we have a had a successful party with a certain group of friends, we tend to keep those same friends involved from that point forward.

Important: you need to consider whether you will play a character or simply serve as host of the event. I have done it both ways. It is possible to play a character while hosting the party, but keep in mind you are going to know more information about the other characters (simply from handling all of the game paperwork) than is probably fair. If you do play a character, you probably should refrain from “guessing” the murderer at the end of the night. Also, you will have to be super organized about keeping the party running (drinks refilled, food put out and cleared away, etc.) while you are also playing the game.

3) Select Which Mystery Game You Want to Use

This can get overwhelming. There are several sites for in depth mystery parties which you order online for instant download. (You can also pay extra to some of these companies if you want them to print the game for you and ship it to you.) I usually go the instant download route. There are also some decent boxed games out there sold at places like Target. These games are more simplified and are a good starting place. Our first two parties were boxed games.

My favorite two websites for instant download games are Night of Mystery and My Mystery Party. Both of these companies offer flexible game packages with the possibility to range from 6 characters all the way up to 50 (in some cases). So if you have more interested friends than the basic game can accommodate (which is usually 8-12), you can buy the expansion pack so you can let all your interested friends have a role. These companies also offer some teen versions (read: clean) versions of some of the adult games. There is often some adult humor or adult themes in the murder mystery games. There are also some all female mystery games, and some of the games (like Murder at the Four Deuces) are truly unpredictable with nonstop twists. 

4) Understand What is Involved With Each Character Before Assigning Roles to Friends

You would not want to put your most shy friend in the main character role. Match friends to murder mystery character descriptions carefully. The more outgoing and outlandish the personalities in the main roles, the more fun your party will be. Also, some of the games come with some “optional” characters. Obviously, these optional characters are not going to be necessary for the game’s outcome. If you have some unreliable friends (unreliable friends…do those really exist?!) that you aren’t 100% certain will show up, assign those friends to the optional roles.

That way, if something comes up and they can’t make the party, the game/party can still go on. You would NOT want to assign the main roles to friends you know tend to flake on commitments sometimes. Some games also have gender-neutral characters which makes it easy to fit in groups that may have more of one gender than the other.

5) Notify Your Friends of Their Murder Mystery Character Assignments as Soon as Possible

They need time to hunt down costumes. I try to do this at least three weeks in advance. The online games come with a bio sheet that includes the character description, costume suggestions, and “script” sheet for each person. The script sheet is not a word-by-word script. It basically tells the person how he/she should act and engage with certain other characters throughout the game. Each person will still have to ad lib most of the night. I usually save each page as a separate PDF or document and email each individual person his/her sheet with some additional brief info about the character. The info is found in other parts of my game materials. No participant of the murder mystery game should see any other character’s bio sheet.

How to Host a Murder Mystery Party

1) Look for Decoration and Menu Inspiration in Advance

Check out Pinterest, Google, or the murder mystery sites I listed above for decoration and menu ideas. Your game will come with some ideas for both but it is always good to search around for visuals to inspire you.

2) Assign Each Attendee/Couple a Potluck Item

This runs much more smoothly if you assign each person a category. For instance, at our Murder in Margaritaland party, I assigned a tropical salad to one person, a tropical dessert to two other people, a Caribbean side dish to one person, etc. The person still has the freedom to choose exactly what he/she is bringing but sticks to a certain category.

3) Allow Yourself Plenty of Time for Prep Work

Even though I email the bio sheet and script to my friends, I like to prepare a folder for each one to have at the party. I print a copy of their bio sheets and scripts, copies of any clues I have been directed to distribute in my host instructions, name tag, and paper money. All of this goes into their folders. If you think you can cut up thousands of dollars in play money in just a few minutes before the party starts, think again. Things take time. Don’t wait to the last minute.

4) Decorate Big for Your Murder Mystery Party

On the day of the murder mystery party, decorate to your heart’s desire. The cheesier, the better! It is much easier to decorate for a seasonal theme or a holiday theme murder mystery dinner at home than the non-holiday ones. Obviously, you can rely heavily on generic holiday decor if you choose a holiday theme murder mystery game.

You will probably want to incorporate some general crime scene decorations, regardless of your theme. I like to keep a body silhouette outline, crime scene tape,  footprint floor decals on hand because they can typically be worked into many themed murder mystery party. Also, this cute mugshot backdrop comes in handy for a cute photo station for your guests. This mugshot banner is a little shorter in length but it comes with some fun signs that the suspects hold with funny names.

You might not use all of those crime scene decorations, but I do suggest adding at least one or two to remind your guests they are there to solve a crime!

5) Consider Murder Mystery Party Prizes

Not necessary, but consider purchasing some small prizes for best costume, best actor/actress, and the person who guesses the “murderer.”

Murder Mystery Prizes for the Person Who Solves the Mystery

You could simply give a gift card to favorite local store or restaurant to the person who solves the mystery. I find this a bit tricky because sometimes more than one person cracks the case. If you do gift cards, you might buy a couple of smaller ones in case this happens.

Murder mystery prizes could include a theme-related item. Examples would be a bottle of whiskey for a 1920s prohibition theme or a big box of 1980s style candy and snacks for a 1980s party, etc.

Another idea is to buy three or so different prizes of your choosing and letting the winners pick what they want.

Murder Mystery Prizes for Best Costume

I definitely believe in recognizing best costumes. These best costume trophies are fun! You might not use them all. I like to let my guests vote on the costume categories, and then we reveal the winners at the end of the night after we solve the mystery.

Mystery Party Prizes for Best Actor and Best Actress

It’s also fun to let your guests vote on best actor and best actress of the night. My guests really think deep and put real thought into their votes. It’s so fun! I would suggest going with similar prizes as you do above by gathering a basket of goodies. Or you could purchase these best actor trophies.

One final thought on murder mystery prizes…buying prizes can get expensive for the host. If you find you are on a tight budget, you might suggest to your guests that all participants bring $5 to put into a pot on game night. At the end of the night, the winner of one designated category (best actor, best costume) wins all the money (or splits the money if there are two people in a tie.) This would be a budget-friendly option for the host.

And there you have it…my 10 tips for how to plan a murder mystery party. I really hope you decide to host a murder mystery party at home and have a super grand time!

For some of my murder mystery party ideas, be sure to check out my 80s theme murder mystery party post. Or maybe you would like to see my summer theme murder mystery party and Mardi Gras themed murder mystery party. All are such fun to consider while you plan a murder mystery party! Oh, and we have now attended our first murder mystery dinner theater that you might want to check out!

So what do you think? Do you want to plan a murder mystery party? Murder mystery party planning is not for the faint of heart. It’s a lot of work! But it is so worth it!