Insanely complicated parlour-game murder mystery under a CC license

Rich sez, "This is not for the faint of heart, but a friend and I recently wrote a 120 page murder mystery game for 8 daring role-players. It's called 'The Little Engine That Could Kill.' The game consists of 8 short stories, each of which details the perspective of a character who may have been involved in a somewhat gory murder that has occurred on a transcontinental train in 1932. Everybody reads a story and then plays their character as they wish, using what they know to try to figure out who did it. The true murderer, of course, must lie to avoid being caught. The characters are over-the-top and super-suspicious, and, the plot is ridiculously complicated - nobody we've seen has been able to figure out the whole thing so far. We've posted it free on Scribd under a CC license. Hope you enjoy!"

Fun stuff!

You waddle through the Bar Car into you room. You waddle past the Violinist who is sitting on your bed red-faced and angry. You open the door and waddle forward with a last desperate step as your lungs burn with every breath and you see the Barman entering the Magician’s quarters. Your sweaty fingers clasp the bottom corner of his white apron, but they are too wet and slippery and you are too drunk on capitalism and whiskey to maintain your hold. The Barman pulls himself into the room and swiftly closes the door. But you are out of control. Your weight is propelling you forward and you can’t stop in time. You crash into the firm metal door and crumble into a pile of flesh and bones – more flesh than bones -- and the voice of Adam Smith, now wheezing and hacking with exhaustion, whispers “A true capitalist would tear down barriers to entry. A true capitalist would. A true capitalist. Capitalist.”

You shove your flabby shoulder against the door, but you are shoving against more than just a steel barrier. You are shoving against fair trade, shoving against the public school tax, and shoving against...no, you can’t say it, but you can think it. You think, “I am shoving against the the not-for- profit charity. You shove with the full force of thought conviction, but your weak shoulder bounces off the door and your bulky body makes a soft wet thud against the cool tile floor...Mr. Smith, are you there?...Mr. Smith?...You call to him through the darkness of your mind, but he’s not there anymore and you pass out.

The Little Engine That Could Kill (Thanks, Rich!

• [Anonymous]

  Short version: I’m echoing #7.

  Long version:
  While the setup is “insanely complicated”, this isn’t to the game’s benefit. Everyone reads their 10-20 pages of story, and then you argue and vote on whodunnit. That’s it. I found that much reading to be far too much setup for the single scene’s worth of play you’re granted at the end.

  Also, the characters aren’t suspicious so much as they are caricatures of sleaze; if you want to sympathize and identify with the character you play, I suspect you’ll find it difficult. The stories contain lots of sex, in more detail than is probably necessary.

• [Apreche]

  We just played this.

  The format of the game is very good. I really like how everyone reads some back story, and then is thrown into a situation where they must roleplay.

  However, this particular game is not so great. The writing was just so terrible and convoluted. Also, all of the characters were disgusting. My character, the conductor, was such a sleaze, that I didn’t want to play him after I read it.

  We ended up just discussing how terrible the writing was, and such, and didn’t actually play it. I would be very interested to see if someone else made a game in this format that was actually written well.

• [Anonymous]

  If you’re looking for an easy fun Roleplay type experience, check out Inspectres:
  http://www.memento-mori.com/inspectres/

  You’ll laugh your ass off :)

• [VICTOR JIMENEZ]

  Thats the true foundation of roleplaying!

  Not that hack-n-slash 4th Edition D&d! Wee need more pure fluffy adventures like this one. Word of old roleplayer (still roleplaying).

• [kiltreiser]

  Oh thanks so much for posting that! As soon as my flat sells and I get a new place that’s getting played at my flatwarming. Might even try to make my own…

• [Anonymous]

  I’m curious about the mechanics of this, but I don’t want to read through it in case I spoil it. Is it intended to be played by 8 people, or should there be 9 people, one of whom is a moderator?

  So, will the game play itself once the people have their characters, or is it expected that someone will run it?

• [Mike Estee]

  Spoiler: It was Cory in the Boiler Room, with a Unicorn Horn.

• [Anonymous]

  The game will play itself. All you need is 8 people.

• [mztry]

  Hire a professional murder mystery company!

  We kill people and we sing about it!

  RANDOM ACTS – http://www.random-acts.net