Murder He Wrote...

What is Murder He Wrote?

Murder He Wrote is a dungeons-and-dragons-style role-playing game based around Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting and the emotions we believe he was attempting to portray through his work of art. The game takes place in the town of Saint-Remy (the same town from the painting) and explores the lives of the townspeople and how this relates to a murder committed at the start of the game.

There is a single Van Gogh who must create a story around the town and the murderer he decides. This person is pretty much the Game Master for the rest of the play through, making critical decision, offering clues and giving players hints/behaving as all the NPCs in the game.

It is then the players job to either talk to other players or investigate buildings/areas on the game board (which acts like a map) linking motives to travel from one place to another with a story on every turn. There is a night cycle which comprises of 3 nights before the Van Gogh can kill another player but this mechanic is further explained in the rules.

Game Time

A typical game of Murder He Wrote can take anywhere from 45 minutes to more than an hour depending on how creative the Van Gogh is and how good the other players are at guessing/making assumptions/collecting clues/putting it all together.

Contents

·       Game Board (Map of Saint-Remy)

·       11 Character Bios

·       Player tokens (Gems)

·       Clue cards/blank cards for the Van Gogh

·       Van Gogh Guidelines

Set Up

·       At the beginning of every game, all players must place their player tokens (gems) at the Town Square which is the starting and ending point of every night.

·   The Van Gogh must go through the guidelines and stage a murder (this includes victim, place, time, and any other piece of information the Van Gogh decides to reveal).

·  Each player makes up a story to justify their reason for speaking with a character/investigating an area. The NPCs are played by the Van Gogh and the player may talk to other players as well.

NOTE: While the Van Gogh must tell the truth, other players are not obligated to do so and may lie upon being questioned.

Rules

•     Players will decide on a player to be the 'Van Gogh'. The Van Gogh acts as a game master and narrator for the game. The VG will then choose one of the 11 characters to be a murderer and one to be a victim. They will then create a plot as simple or complicated as they want using the rest of the characters. Use sample plot as a template.

•     Every player picks a character bio card (this is their character) and places their token in the town square.

•     The objective of the game is for players to successfully discover which of the 11 characters is the murderer.

•     The game will begin with the Van Gogh telling the players who the murder victim is and suspicious details about the townspeople that may or may not be relevant to the murder. The type and amount of information given is completely up to the Van Gogh.

•     Players gather information about the murder in two ways: Talking to characters and investigating areas around the town. Only one of these actions may be done each turn.

1.    Players can talk to any of the 11 characters to gather information on the murder. This is done by asking the Van Gogh any question they want that they feel is relevant to the crime. All characters have things that anger them.

2.    Trying to determine motive is a good place to start.

3.    Players may also talk to other players, but there is no guarantee that other players will share information or even tell the truth.

4.    Players may also investigate any of the places in the town in an attempt to discover clues about the murder.

5.    The players must justify to the Van Gogh why they are investigating certain places. If the Van Gogh determines an investigation to be 'successful', a player is rewarded with a clue card, which has valuable information on the murder.

NOTE: This game is a very role-playing 'table talking' game. The Van Gogh will always tell the truth, but may withhold certain information depending on how justified you are in asking what you are asking.

•     After every player has had a turn, the game advances to the next night. Every three nights, the Van Gogh picks another character (not being played) to fall victim to their murderer.

•     The game progresses until a player is confident that they know who the murderer is and what the murder weapon was. The player will make their accusation at the beginning of their turn. If they are correct, the game is over. If they are incorrect, they are out of the game.

Game Overview

A typical playthrough of Murder He Wrote consists of players making their way from one area/building to another and attempting to determine who the murderer was and what their motive was. Every night affords a turn for each player and after three nights, the Van Gogh may murder an NPC if they wish.

The fun in this game comes out of the creativity and imagination of every player. Much like the painting, Murder He Wrote may be interpreted in several different manners by all kind of different people. There are always people who will enjoy the creativity and really get into the role-playing aspect of the game. While others might not particularly enjoy the idea of making the story along as they go.

Character Bios are an important part of the game and are interesting to read and characterize by the various player as well as the Van Gogh. These are a few of the character in our game:

Name:	Basile Chaput
Gender:	Male
Occupation:	Butcher
Age:	32
Height:	5 foot 4
Important Relations:	Has a secret crush on the candlestick maker.
Facts:	Likes to walk alone at night. No one knows where he gets his meat. Is a vegetarian.

Name:	Léo Gosselin
Gender:	Male
Occupation:	Town Drunk
Age:	40
Height:	6 Feet
Important Relations:	Brother of the widow. On good terms with constable.
Facts:	Occasionally passes out in the graveyard or park. Sometimes gets arrested for public indecency,  drunkenness, etc.  Used to be a soldier.

Name:	Suzanne Lapointe
Gender:	Female
Occupation	Courtesan
Age:	26
Height:	5 foot 4
Important Relations:	Has a crush on the gravedigger. Is frequently employed by the baker.
Facts:	Extremely insightful. Knows everyone’s secrets. Is very good at keeping them.

Creative Process

Initially when we read our requirement for the Starry Night board game, we thought Prof. Nacke had lost it. An art game based on a painting? That too a painting by an artist who later went on to commit suicide – madness! We figured that the game would be dark and since the outline stated that the game didn’t necessarily have to be fun, we thought we would be able to create a game helping people with thoughts of suicide to make it through. An art game was a hard thought for us to comprehend and we couldn’t decide on what to do. We wanted to make our game fun, but at the same time, we couldn’t find many positive undertones in the painting. So we looked for examples of games with darker undertones which proved to provide hours of fun. Clue was a common one and Whodunit murder mystery books were related in the discussion.

Soon the idea of painting your own picture came about by playing the Game Master and naming that person ‘Van Gogh.’ We liked the idea of being creative and allowing your imagination flow as is common when interpreting art. As a result, we decided to make a game all about the creativity of the people playing which is when the idea of role-playing was born.

We are a creative group of guys with great senses of humor, if I do say so myself. But we also realize the flaw in our game is that it isn’t meant for everyone. Not all people enjoy the concept of role-playing and making up a story at every key moment throughout the game. However, we decided that these people are the same people that might not enjoy the process of interpreting art, then maybe we were on the right track.

Art is an expression of self, just as our game is an expression of who we, as a group, are. Hence our game is the result of our interpretation of the assignment and the painting of the Starry Night. We thoroughly enjoyed play-testing our game, especially coming up with our character bios. The end result was a game we are proud to put our logo on.

Conclusion

While our role-playing game might not be for everyone, we believe that it is a step in the right direction when it comes to art games and we are most certainly proud of our result after a week or so of hard work. We hope you enjoy our game as much as we do; the process of development was most certainly worth the time put in!