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Black Death
a Brief History
The Premise
Black Death is a series of Murder Mystery Freeforms that all follow a certain guideline. All 12 player games, there are set in various 'closed room' situations where one of 13 people is murdered, leaving only the 12 remaining characters. Obviously, one of them is the murderer. All of the games are designed with a 2.5 - 3 hour time frame in mind as this is the normal duration of a session at Role Playing Conventions.
In all of these games someone committed the murder, and they know they did it. There are no accidental killings, there are no suicides. Everyone except the murderer knows they didn't do it, but that does not make life any easier for them, as the murderer will obviously not admit to their crime. Unlike "How To Host A Murder" games, we do not put any restrictions on the players like "You must tell the truth". If a player wants to do something, then they can; although attempts to murder other characters generally fail until the last 15 minutes of the game. (It is more reasonable for other players)
The first Black Death game was based on the board game Cluedo and the movie Clue.
The original Black Death had the following characters.
- Mr. William Black
- Ms. Madeline Black
- Miss. Yvette Ebonet
- Dr. Terrance Green
- Reverand Grant Grey
- Colonel Daniel Mustard
- Professor Phillipa Plum
- Mrs. Dorothy Peacock
- Ms. Tiffany Scarlet
- Mr. Charles Shade
- Mr. Jason Steele
- Mr. Oliver Wadsworth
- Mrs. Alice White
All of the games since then have also had these characters (with some variation), this has allowed players who have come back to play more than one of the games to play the same character; except of course, the characters are never the same.
Each Black Death game is a completly seperate entitly. They make no reference to each other and they can be played in any order. The characters are also often different, for example Madeline Black was William Black's wife in the first game, but she was his daughter in 'Scarlet Fever' and his mother in 'Being for the Benefit of Alice White'. Other variations like this happen; occupations, histories, personalities, morals, appearance can change in any way, the surname is the only constant.
It is worth pointing out that with reason there are always exceptions. For example, instead of Reverend Gray, 'The Masque of the Black Death' had Father Grise. This was simply the translation of nationality and denomination of the character, but the changes were obvious.
One last important thing that I feel I have to say. There is nothing that will not be changed to make a stronger game. We have always endevoured to deliver the best game that we can, and the fact that after 6 games people are still begging for more means that we must be doing something right. We feel that we have had some games that were not as good as they should have been, but our players have never complained. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive.
Where the idea came from
Richard Dennis and I (Richard Canning) were at a convention where I had just played a murder mystery game where every character sheet said that you were the murderer and in reality the victim had committed suicide. It looked like a lot of fun for the GM's who were running around laughing a lot while the rest of us wondered what the hell was going on; it wasn't fun for me or any of the others I heard feedback from.
I walked down to the registration area where I ran into Richard and told him what had happened and that I was really upset with it. He told me then that he had been thinking about an idea for a Cleudo based game where there was a TV evangelist by the name of Rev. Grey. I liked the idea and asked if we could work on the idea together. Earlier on that year I had GMed a freeform of Richard's called "The Last Resort" and I liked that game and style. I had never written a tournament Role Playing game before and I wanted to both use his experience and add something of my own.
Apparently it worked.
A few short weeks later Richard and I were well on the way to creating the beginning of the Black Death saga. From the first time the first game ran, up until the present day there has been much more positive things said about these games than negative, and players are always asking for more.
Since then Sara Hanson and Marian Starwatcher have both joined the list of Black Death writers, both of whom have shown themselves to be very talented and just as sick and twisted as Richard Dennis and myself. Others have also expressed interest in writing Black Deaths, so we hope to have other people taking this series onto bigger and better things in the future.
To all involved - Thank you.
Richard Canning
Credits & Thanks
There have been many people that have helped make the Black Death games what they are. I will have forgotten some, of that I am sure, and to them I am sorry as well as thankful.
First and formost there are the writers: Richard Canning, Richard Dennis, Sara Hanson, Marian Starwatcher and more recently; Larry Larkin, Madi and Dean Shannon.
I would specially like to thank Jim Vinton, whos help has been a great support to many of these games. As Marian has said "Nobody does a corpse like you do!"
There are many players that have lended their support by playing as many of our games as they could. Some of these always play the same character (if possible) and others try to vary whom they play, whichever way they do it, we have appreciated their participation and hope they have enjoyed themselves as much as we have.
So, thanks to everyone who has ever written, edited, proof read, GMed, played, organised, supported or in any other way helped Black Death.
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