One plus two plus two plus one

One fun and crazy New Year's Eve recipe:

24 (or so) gamer geeks
a plethora of booze
one yankee swap themed to "game night"
enough appetizers to feed a small army
one gothic revival mini-mansion
one murder mystery with parts for everyone

Press play.


We had a blast on New Year's Eve. A gentle snow was falling. The weather began relatively warm, but did get quite cold by midnight. Chris set up an outdoor fire in his grill for the folks who needed cigarettes throughout the evening. The babies in attendance were amazingly behaved and once asleep, stayed that way despite the party going on all around them.

Best yet, though, was that a new NYE tradition was quite possibly founded, and it happened in the best of ways-- on a whim. Dan and Toni, who are long-time folks in my outer circle of friends, were unable to get a gift for this year's Yankee Swap due to their Hanukkah celebrations with relatives. So instead, they went online to a website that had downloadable Murder Mystery games. Apparently the site has games for anywhere from 6 to 200 people, and you just select a game for the appropriate number. All of the pages are in PDF format-- you just need to print, compile, and distribute. So Dan and Toni announced this once everyone arrived and distributed characters.

For a party comprised of approximately 20 Dungeons & Dragons players, it took no time at all to get into character and have a blast. The scene was the opening night of a speakeasy in Chicago in the early 1920's.

The funniest thing was that despite couples being written into the different parts, no real-life couple was cast as a married couple. Instead, we were all joined through our character's romantic affairs. :) I was assigned the part of Donna Wannabe, a 24 year old flapper girl who loved the social life of the speakeasies and spending her time with actors and dreaming of going to Hollywood. Thankfully, we weren't required to come in costume for this-- because my size 24 body would not have been very good in the recommended flapper dress. :)

Throughout the night, certain characters were "killed", per a to-do list on each of our individual character profiles. My list had no murders, but I was able to do a lot of gossip and shit-stirring. Thankfully, the part of the flapper girl gave me the perfect excuse to help myself to one too many cosmos-- the alcohol definitely made me a bit more outgoing. As part of the atmosphere of the night, I was tempted to "kill" someone in the ballroom and leave a candlestick next to them, though. Just to be a brat.

:)

So much fun. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a rip-roaring party with their friends!