Player Guide

Welcome to Murder at Mauch Chunk, a Sci-Fi murder mystery party game set in 1989. During this game, you will play a character who may solve a murder, be a victim, be a killer, or even all three!

The story of this game is set at the Apex Vector Inc. Mauch Chunk Campus, a research laboratory facility set in the woods of Pennsylvania a few hours from the town of Jim Thorpe. All the characters are attending a party hosted by Raleigh Kane, the reclusive genius founder of Apex Vector, celebrating the anniversary of the company's founding. Raleigh has usually eschewed public appearances, but once his PR team cajoled him into it, he became enthusiastic about the opportunity to show guests a sneak peek at what he called "incredible recent break-throughs."

Each character will have different abilities and items they can use to interact with the world of the game. These items and abilities will be represented by cards. To use an item or a power on someone, you will present them with that card.

Each character will also have their own starting goals, as described on the character sheet. You are encouraged to pursue these, but if you decide as the game unfolds that your character would be motivated to change priorities, you are free to do so.

Rules of Engagement
During this game, characters will have items and abilities to use on one another. These are represented by cards. If another player walks up to you and hands you a card, you have been targeted by their action. (If you are trying to just offer someone an item, say so - otherwise they might think they are under attack!)

Safety in Numbers: If 5 or more characters are in a room together, and one player character chooses to physically attack another player character, then the other characters who are bystanders in the room are given a chance to interrupt that attack before it is resolved, with a single action by any one of the bystanders. The interrupting action cannot itself be interrupted. If no one decides to interrupt the attack within a count of five seconds, the attack succeeds.

Example 1: Characters A, B, C, D, and E are in a room. A attacks E with a laser pistol, but B, C, or D get a 5-second chance to interrupt. B decides to interrupt by shooting a freeze ray at A.  E is saved, and A gets frozen in place.

Example 2: Characters A, B, C, D, and E are in a room. A attacks E with a laser pistol, but B, C, or D get a 5-second chance to interrupt. B and C don't have any weapons, and D has a grudge against E. They reach a count of 5, with no-one interrupting. They have all witnessed a murder - but what will happen next?

Overwhelm: If three characters declare they are working together to restrain another character, that character is automatically pinned and unable to take actions that require movement.

The Power of Love
Each character begins play with a certain number of tokens, which they may give to other characters. Giving someone a heart token may represent an in-fiction kiss or other act of passion, or simply gazing into their eyes or holding their hand. A heart token does not necessarily represent romance, but it does represent one character having genuine strong feelings about another. A heart token must be freely given, and cannot be requested or bargained for, in or out of character.

If two characters have exchanged heart tokens, they are bonded as partners. Once during the game if one partner would be harmed, the other can intervene and prevent that effect from occurring. After this ability has been used once, either partner can still intervene to save their partner from harm by sacrificing themselves and suffering the harmful effect instead.

The Unseen
This scenario includes items that not all characters may be able to see. If as a player you see someone or something that is marked with the symbol of an X'd out eye, you are to disregard this as something that your character cannot see.

Below are mentioned some reasons why a character may be marked as Unseen. You may discover other reasons why you or others would be unseen over the course of play.

Death
If you are given a card that says your character is killed, you are to flip your name tag over to the unseen symbol and tell a secret keeper. The story keeper will ask you questions, possibly give you an instruction, and provide you a Body Marker to leave in the room where your character's body would be found. You can write a description of the state of the body, providing a clue about what happened for whoever finds the Body Marker. If your character has been killed off, you can still watch the game play out and try to fill out your accusation sheet, and feel free to chat out of character, but try not to give away spoilers for what happened to your character! We'll also have some little side games.

Incapacitation
Characters who are paralyzed, knocked out, in a trance state, or otherwise unable to respond to the environment around them are to flip their name tag to the unseen symbol and leave a marker for their body. This functions similarly to death, save that it is temporary. Depending on the situation, the unseen player may be able to observe and navigate through other areas while having left their body behind. If not, the player can still leave the body marker so that the player can feel free to go have a snack or take a break until their character becomes conscious.

Accusations
At the start of the he night, you will receive an Accusations sheet, to fill out with all the crimes that you as a player figure out. The Accusations are a "metagame" element, so you can include crimes that you've solved as a player, whether or not your character lived long enough to puzzle it out. Whenever you feel satisfied with you solutions, write down your finishing time on the sheet. There will be a prize for most crimes solved! You will only get half points for the crimes you committed. If there is a tie, the winner goes to whoever finished first.

Epilogue
Once everyone has finalized their accusations, NPC police will arrive to restore some semblance of order over whatever remains of the party. Rather than asking for a consensus or interviewing each survivor individually, the authorities will look to the survivor who seems most trustworthy (from a predetermined ranking) and take their word for it, making the corresponding arrests in the epilogue.