Murder Mistery Dinner

Summary:

Murder Mistery Dinner set allows you to dictate truth, if your logic is sound.

Murder Mistery Dinner

DarknessAwaits 19 Jun 2020 17:48

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP

Elevator Pitch: Murder Mistery Dinner 'make-your-own' set, but you solve past unsolved case and modify reality.

What is a Murder Mistery Dinner?

Since this was not as widely known a format as I thought, Murdery Mistery Dinners (the translation I could find for "Invito a Cena con Delitto", as we call them in italy) are basically performances either played out by actors or in some cases just LARP'd by the people there, where complete with prompts and costumes appropriate for whatever the plot is, a murder mistery is staged and the audience is called upon to solve it. Basically Cluedo but LARP'd, and with a plot. At the end everyone basically tries to guess who the killer is, sometimes having to justify it to prevent random guessing, and who gets it wins.

After some research it seems they may also be called "murder parties" in english? If that rings any more of a bell.

Central Narrative: The backstory is simply that someone made this and couldn't come up with a good plot so they didn't, and instead decided to draw on past murders. Which ones? All of them. The narrative happens when it's used/experimented with, and what it can unearth. After all, in every one of these re-enactments, there are enough clues to find the truth. However… what if the truth was so awful you couldn't accept it?

The narrative I had in mind thus would be about either a researcher or someone who'd bought this kit realizing it draws from unresolved cases, figuring out how it selects them (I have an idea as to how but it would exceed 400 words), and using the kit to solve some backstory event that has never been solved- only to unearth some sort of awful truth. Thus they, unable to accept it, make up a different yet still plausible theory… and are quite shocked when it turns out to literally become true, with clues supporting it and whatnot found in the next few months.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: As has already been said, if someone playing this manages to come up with a theory that cannot be disproven but is false, that theory will become the truth. And with these being past cases, it means that evidence will be found at an unspecified but not great time in the future that "proves" whatever the theory said, no matter how absurd.

Additional Notes: There's a few minor additional ideas I'm thinking about for this:

1. Whenever this is played, the crime involved is always a murder. Even if the past event it's not based on was not a murder, it will become one now. (Van Dine's 7th)
2. All murders presented follow the Knox Decalogue, because it's not fair otherwise.
3. Every time someone plays the game, a random person out of the players will die in the next two months in mysterious circumstances, ensuring there's always a crime to solve.

…Do take pity. It's been a long time since I last tried to pitch an idea, and I might have forgotten some detail of how to do so properly.

Last edited on 22 Jun 2020 11:03 by DarknessAwaits Show more

Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Zyn 22 Jun 2020 03:48

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Re: Murder Mistery Dinner

Naveil 25 Jun 2020 13:44

Placeholder - will crit soon

So from what I can tell, your pitch seems entertaining, and your narrative has potential. The main thing that needs work is the development.

You're afraid of intruding on the word limit (which, by the way, you're already 100 words over), but a lot of your post is just waffling¹ so like, you could definitely fit more details in if you restructured. The narrative, in particular, is important as you should specify how exactly you plan to do things, while keeping it brief. Explaining the semantics is only important if you can do something with them.

Other than that, there's the concern that not enough people actually know of Murder Mistery Dinners (by the way, was this a typo?) to actually portray it as an established thing². You need to take care in this case, but it might also benefit the idea to change it to something more well-known, like a board game or something. At the end of the day, these are suggestions, and you can take them how you wish.

No greenlight for now, try thinking about the inner working of the idea a bit more. The concept has potential (especially if you decide to go a history route), but there isn't enough substance for me to confidently give it the go-ahead.

Footnotes

1. The art of saying a lot without saying anything

2. Hence your explanation in the beginning

Last edited on 30 Jun 2020 16:13 by Naveil Show more