Serving Up Dinner and Roleplaying Fun

Back in the early 1990s a female friend of mine hosted a murder mystery party at her home. As I recall, we all dressed for the occasion and spent the night playing the role of our assigned characters while trying to uncover who was the murderer in our midst. I don’t recall who it was, but I do remember having fun with the rest of the group in attendance. I also once took part in a murder mystery dinner party at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when I was still living in Durham, North Carolina. I didn’t reveal myself to be a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, but I did have a great time and a delicious meal.

These murder mystery dinner parties are arguably a form of roleplaying. They are akin to “LARPing” or taking part in a live action role-playing game (LARP)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_action_role-playing_game). You play the role of a character and move about within the setting and interact with the other characters and the setting as your character would. If it sounds like fun, you would be correct.

Frankly, that experience is not terribly different from playing a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) like Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller, or the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game. But in a typical TTRPG the physical action and the movement of the characters within the setting largely takes place within the imagination of the players and is perhaps represented visually as well on a map.

The players in a TTRPG verbalize what their player characters (PCs) are doing and attempting to do while another player in the role of the dungeon master (DM), game master (DM) referee, narrator, or whatever other title is assigned to the person fulfilling this role adjudicates the action and plays the roles of all of the non-player characters (NPCs). There is typically some interacting with each other in character, even if it is not as actively performative as it is in a murder mystery dinner party or a LARP. But the idea is essentially the same. A group of people gather together to play the various characters in a particular setting and under particular circumstances and the situation develops according to the actions and decisions of the players. It really can be a lot of fun to play make-believe with your family and/or friends and see where the action takes you.

Whether or not you think that you might be interested in playing a TTRPG, I would encourage you to host or join a murder mystery dinner party or similar outing. You will almost certainly enjoy yourself if you approach it with the right attitude and don’t take yourself or the “game” too seriously. And as this article that I found from the Dungeons and Dragons at Work website points out (click on the link below), you might discover that roleplaying and, by extension, TTRPGS really aren’t that weird an activity. You might discover that you actually enjoy roleplaying and perhaps might enjoy those “nerdy” TTRPGs.

“Everyone has a Secret: Fun at the Murder Mystery Party”

https://dndatwork.com/the-joy-of-the-murder-mystery-party/