What brings Muskies to the library on a Friday night?
On Friday, September 23 a Speakeasy Murder Mystery game brought Muskingum University Students to the Roberta A. Smith Library.
Muskingum University Game Club hosted the event from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Brad Roberts, Game Club President, said that this is the first time they are hosting on the library.
“We have been running them normally Boyd Science Center, which is nice and kind of home for a couple of us, but we thought we might try the library,” said Roberts.
Roberts said that this is one of Game Club’s most popular events. Students have even asked them to run more than one Murder Mystery Event per semester.
“They’ve been a big hit with students,” said Roberts.
Each Murder Mystery has a certain number of required characters.
Game club must first fill up the required character spaces and then people also are able to reserve additional characters that are inside of the story line that way more people can get involved in the game.
“[Optional characters] that add a fun level of flavor,” said Roberts.
The secondary characters are not necessary for play. If all of the secondary characters have not been claimed by game time it will not impact the execution of the event.
According to Roberts, the day of the event for Game Club members isn’t as much work as the prep that goes into it beforehand.
“The day off it is actually just mediating and letting the players kind of have a box to go crazy in,” said Roberts.
Roberts said that there are numerous online sites where organizations are able to find collections of dinner party murder mystery storylines. He said the Game Club usually uses the ones found on Freeform Games.
Each scenario is different and requires a different number of characters, different prep, and different props.
Roberts said that due to budgetary and policy restrictions that usually make any necessary props.
Most Murder Mystery props would be considered weapons and are not allowed on Muskingum University’s campus.
“A lot of the times the props are guns, or knives, or swords,” said Roberts. “We can’t go out and buy them but what we can do is make them out of cardboard and keep them in a secure place.”
Roberts said that the props are an important part to any scenario they chose.
“It adds another level of immersion I think,” said Roberts.
Roberts encourages those who want to give it a shot to try it at least once.
“One of the coolest things about these kinds of events is that everyone has been there,” said Roberts.
For more information about Game Club events happening in the future, Game Club is on OrgSync.
