I'm going to be distracted the entire night as I'll be playing barmaid and hostess so playing a character could be rough. Just being a participant at my first murder mystery party took a lot of attention but I want to be more than just a barmaid. So, I was thinking... any ball is going to have a bar and someone tending it--what if the barkeep at this party happened to be a diviner? Not necessarily a good one, but occasionally she gets something right (a la Harry Potter's Professor Trelawny).
The first time a person puts a tip in my jar they get a 'true' but vague fortune. I'll have one specifically for each character. For example (totally off the top of my head): A is married to B but cheating with C and D knows about it. B suspects but thinks A is cheating with D because they're such close friends and is just waiting for a sign to murder D. A's would say: "Someone knows more than you think they do.", B's would say "You're barking up the wrong tree.", C's would say: "Your actions could hurt more than one person.", and D's would say "Someone wants your head on a platter." This establishes me as being credible even if they make the wrong assumptions.
After that, all future fortunes are randomly selected from a pool. 50% of them are junk (lottery numbers, etc.), 35% are true or false depending on who picks them up or how they are interpreted ("Death wants to dance with you this evening.", "E knows.", "You won't get away with it.", "You are going to die tonight."), 10% are statements that are flat-out false or might be half-true ("A is cheating with F."), and 5% are completely true ("C is seeing a married person."). With a good mixture of riddles and direct statements, no one really knows what is true and what isn't (though I bet the first few fortunes pulled will be assumed true!). I'm thinking 100 total 'fortunes' at least; I won't reuse them. If C gets the fortune that says they are seeing a married person, well, hopefully they'll think I'm credible since I certainly wouldn't know the names of guests as a barmaid and that fortune could have been told to someone else!
This way I'm participating, sowing some chaos, and hopefully they'll come back with more tips for more 'fortunes' so I'm stealing some of their money and can auction later that night, too, haha. Since I'm the barkeep if I get killed there are no more drinks for the night (maybe I'll make that a PSA before the murder weapons hunt begins).
How well do you think this would work? Will having more false secrets out there counter the true secrets that are in the mix? I'm excited to be ordering the box set soon.
