EP 3 Game Rules: Murder Night! | GAMEBREAKER

WHAT IS THIS?

This post explains the rules of the game featured Episode 2 of Gamebreaker.

These posts will be split into two sections:

Section 1 is the rules of the game as presented in the episode. This is for viewers who find reading rules helpful for game comprehension, or wanted to check a specific rule.

Section 2 is for people who want to try and play the game themselves with friends. It will include extra information on top of the rules explained in section 1, and suggestions to adapt the game outside of the competition format. Section 2 may contain spoilers for the episode.

SECTION 1: RULES FOR EPISODE

Game 3 of the competition is... Murder Night!

Aim:

The players are actors in an upcoming murder mystery, and must perform the role they're assigned by the Director (Games Master) on set for a test shoot.

Each role has a different aim:

If you are a Guest, you want to survive the night.

If you are a Murderer, you want to commit murders without being caught.

If you are a Detective, you want to catch murderers.

There will be three rounds of the game.

Each round is split into three phases: Role Selection, Murder Night, and Crime Scene.

Role Selection:

Players take turns to blindly draw a role card in private.

The role cards are randomised before each round, based on these odds:

50% chance for a Guest card.

30 % chance for a Murderer card.

20 % chance for a Detective card.

However, there must always be at least one Detective and one Murderer role in play.

Once a player has picked their role, all players return to set (see below).

The doors of the game area will be left open so there are sight lines between adjacent rooms.

There will be one weapon placed in each room (weapon placement is randomised between rounds)

The Detective(s) reveal themselves to everyone. The remaining players decide on which transition zone they want to start in (a transition zone is the space between adjacent rooms).

After a preliminary inspection of the set and players starting positions, the Detective(s) retire to the detective area, and the next phase begins.

Murder Night Phase:

When the Director calls "Action! ", players may move freely within the room they're in for 10 seconds.

When the Director calls "Cut!", players must freeze on the spot.

The Detective(s) will hear "Action! " and "Cut!" called through a walkie talkie, but won’t be able to see what's happening on set.

When "Action!" is called, in addition to moving freely in a room, players on set may take only one of the following actions:

• Move into a different room (this will be every players first action, as they must leave their starting transition zone).

• Pick up OR put down an item.

• Use the weapon they are holding (only murderers can use lethal weapons).

The weapons work as follows:

• Dagger (lethal). Action = stab player. Result = if a dagger touches a player, they die on the spot

• Pistol (lethal). Action = shoot (you can only shoot a player if they are in a different room to you). Result = if a player is hit by a bullet, they die on the spot.

• Poison (lethal). Action = place a sticker on player’s body to poison them. Result = if you have been poisoned, you die when the murder night phase ends (unless you are killed by other means sooner). You cannot remove a poison sticker.

• Chloroform (non-lethal). Action = touch player with towel. Result = the chloroformed player must drop to the floor unconscious, and cannot move again until "Action!" has been called two more times (or the murder night phase ends).

Important rules:

• Game is no contact. You cannot touch another player, except with a weapon.

• You may not stand in a transition zone unless moving into another room, and you must complete this action before the next "Cut! " is called.

• When you die, you must instantly drop to the floor. Once you are dead, you may not move or communicate with other players.

• If a player breaks any rules, they will be disqualified from that round, removed from set, and cannot score points.

The night will continue until the Detective(s) radio the Director to declare "crime scene".

The Director will call "Cut!", and the Detective(s) will return to set, where they will be faced with one of three scenarios:

• If no-one has died, there is no crime scene. The Guest(s) win, and the next round begins.

• If everyone, except one Murderer, is dead, the Detective is too late to solve the crime, there is no crime scene, and the next round begins.

• In any other scenario, the crime scene phase begins!

Crime Scene Phase

The Detective(s) have 5 minutes to inspect the crime scene and interview survivors. 

Survivors are not allowed to drop the weapons they are holding, or leave the room they are in, unless permitted by the Detective(s).

After 5 minutes, the Detective(s) return to the Detective area, and can opt to privately accuse player(s) of murders.

To be successful, Detective(s) must get both the identity of the murderer and who they killed correct.

Round Scoring:

Guest: If a Guest survives the murder night phase, they score 1 point.

Murderer: A Murderer scores 1 point for every player they kill.

Detective: A Detective steals a point off every murderer they successfully accuse.

However, if their accusation is wrong, they lose 1 point!

The scores are not revealed to the players until the end of the game.

Competition Reward:

Whoever has the most points after 3 rounds will win a complete GB token!

Whoever has the least points after 3 rounds will get a strike!

SECTION 2: RULES FOR PLAYING YOURSELF

Players: One Director (Games Master) and 5 - 8 players

Props:

• x2 Walkie Talkies/ Radios/other way of Director communicating with Detective(s) without noise on set being audible (eg. audio call with phones, Director mutes themselves when not calling action or cut).

• Soft fake dagger: can buy foam prop or make out of tin foil, be very careful what you use can't actually hurt anyone, test on yourself first with force applied (even tin foil can have hard edges).

• Stickers for poison.

• Towel for chloroform (warn people not to actually suffocate each other)

• Projectile fake weapon: I used a nerf gun with foam bullets, but even that was a bit intense, you want a slow moving projectile that is soft enough it won't hurt anybody. Don't use something like a bb gun unless everyone is comfortable with it and all wearing eye protection.

Your play area depends on your space available. I recommend a minimum of three rooms, the connecting doors must be left open, and there must be some walls between the rooms so players can't see everything that's happening on set. Make sure your play area is safe for people moving quickly through the space. The detective room must be far enough/sound insulated enough that they can't hear what's happening on set.

You should have about as many weapons as you have players. For example in an 8 player game you should have at least six weapons. You don't have to have all four weapon types to play the game (for example you can move the projectile weapon if it's not feasible, not comfortable with it).

Before you play:

As you can't be everywhere at once, stress to players they must be honest about following the rules for this game to work. Emphasize there is no physical contact or force used with weapons, point out any hazards/risks. I'd recommend a helper if you can get someone, to adjudicate everyone's following the rules on set correctly.

Draw:

Assign roles however works best for you.

If you want to keep it simple, rather than percentages, you could do a set number of roles:

5 players: 1 detective, 1 murderer, 3 guests.

6 players: 1 detective, 2 murderers, 3 guests.

7 players: 2 detectives, 2 murderers, 3 guests.

8 players: 2 detectives, 2 murderers, 4 guests.

Scoring and balancing:

As played in the episode, detective is certainly the hardest role. The reason I deducted points for incorrect guesses was detectives were permitted to do multiple guesses for the same corpse, and there were niche scenarios where someone might have done that to get a certain outcome.

When playing yourself though, I'd recommend the following rule change (especially if only playing with one detective):

Detectives are only allowed one accusation per corpse, but do not lose a point if they guess incorrect.

This will change the balance to murderer being slightly harder, but murderers still have the advantage of having the opportunity to gain multiple points in a round.

If wanted to make it easier for the detectives still: players must freeze completely when crime scene is called, and can only move again once the detective releases them, or extend their crime scene investigation time (though consider the experience of players lying on the floor dead)

For the purposes of the competition and inventive plays, I allowed certain actions that the rules didn't exclude. But with repeated play you might want to ban certain strategies that are unbalanced (eg. murderers offing themselves).

This game is a bit more work than the others, but it's also a lot of fun, so I'd really recommend giving it a go!