How to Invite People to Play a Murder Mystery Game

Hosting a murder mystery party for your friends is a fun and rewarding experience! ! By now, you’ve likely taken the plunge and have purchased a murder mystery game to wow your friends with a fun party that will blow their minds, but you may be wondering where to get started. If you haven’t chosen yet, Foulplay Games has many geeky themes that support anywhere from 6 - 24 players! 

Now that you are ready to take your game night to the next level, we have a series of posts that are going to walk you through how to host a party with Foulplay Games that your friends will never forget!

Inviting People to Your Murder Mystery Party Game in 5 Steps!

The first step of any good party is inviting your party and assigning characters! We cover tips on how to assign characters in this blog post. But in order to do that, you need to invite your players to play! How do you do that? It’s easy—just follow these steps! 

1. Take a moment to brainstorm your guest list. Think about friends, work colleagues, family, and neighbors that you might invite. The fun thing about murder mystery games is they provide enough structure and guidance where friends from different social circles have a great way to break the ice! Don’t worry if you have a mix of introverts and extroverts–our murder mystery games have roles for both!

2. Consider if you want to host your murder mystery game online or in-person, which will help determine if you need to invite your guests locally or if you can expand to friends and family around the country. 

3. Whatever murder mystery game you choose for your friends, make sure you have enough people to fill the player count for the game! We find it’s best to invite as close to the maximum number as possible, as sometimes players drop out.  

4. Next, one of the easiest ways to invite your players is to create an RSVP form, either through Google Forms, Survey Monkey, and other event apps. You can find an example form from us here. This will help you collect contact info in one place and any character information you might need! We advise asking people to RSVP before sending out any characters as people may not be able to commit. 

5. To help in your event planning, it is helpful to ask your guests for:

   1. Name

   2. Email

   3. Their top 3 character choices/ or their gender pronouns

   4. Phone number (optional)

   5. The Character List for the game you are playing 

   6. Any content warnings for the game 

6. We recommend you do not have your guests choose their own characters unless you have the maximum number of players, as people sometimes will not choose characters that are required to be played during the game. As the host, you know which characters must be played and can assign them accordingly. Tips on how to assign characters is covered in this blog!

7. Choose a time and place and send out save the dates. This allows your guests to mark it on their calendar and gives you an accurate head count to then send our characters! 

Congrats! You have just taken your first step to hosting a great murder mystery party!

Check out the rest of our “How to Host A Murder Mystery Game” Blog Series:

Part 2