Curse of the Pharaoh Review
Curse of the Pharaoh was the first of the Freeform Games murder mystery parties I hosted. I was immediately hooked! I've covered murder mystery parties in general in another page (go there for links to other reviews). Here I'll give you an in depth review of Curse of the Pharaoh, along with my impressions after running it.
If you like the Amelia Peabody series of books, you'll love this game! Click on the name of the game for an introductory PDF, or read on for the review.
Enjoy!
Game Setting
The archaeological team has gathered for a dinner party to celebrate the find. Just before the party starts, one of the diggers is murdered!
You take on the role of one of the main characters of this story.
What do you think about Curse of the Pharaoh?
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Cast of Characters
Sir William Saville is the distinguished archaeologist in charge of the expedition. His reputation rides on the results of the season's digging.
Ariadne Price-Evans is the team's expert in translating Egyptian hieroglyphics. Her late husband was Sir William's partner.
Hugh Carlaw is an enthusiastic student worker.
Helen Mackinnon is another young student, and quite popular.
Shafeez Merouf is the curator of the Luxor museum, invited by Sir William to inspect the latest find.
Alvy Spanheim is the cultural attache at the German Consulate.
Eva de Chalons is a dilettante and art connoisseur.
Lindsay Wilde is the misfit of the student workers. Just misunderstood, or truly wild?
Robert Tregarne is a Detective Sergeant in the Colonial Police, sent to investigate the murder of the digger.
One of the great things about Freeform Games games is that every character is interesting. The public descriptions may say little about a character, but each has secrets and personality quirks that make them interesting to play.
And each has their part in the story.
Number of Players Needed
For example, Robert Tregarne is an optional character. It might be surprising that the detective in a murder mystery is optional, but the game plays quite well without him.
That's not to say that optional characters aren't fun to play! They have their secrets and quirks just like everyone else, and if present become an integral part of the story. But if you need to run the game with fewer people, some can be dropped out.
In this game, the optional characters are: Robert Tregarne, Eva de Chalons, and Lindsay Wilde.
The game is at its best with all the characters, but I've run it without Robert Tregarne twice and it's worked quite well.
So you can run the game with anywhere from 6 to 9 players. If you have more players, Freeform Games has some extra characters you can download for free.
The main extra character they've written for each game is Ginger Roberts, a reporter. Ginger has a great reason to poke into other people's business. Ginger can also be played by a male or female (Ginger is a nickname for hair color).
Genders Needed
In Curse of the Pharaoh, three of the characters must be male: Sir William, Hugh Carlaw, and Robert Tregarne. Three must be female: Ariadne Price-Evans, Helen Mackinnon, and Eva de Chalons.
The remainder of the characters are written so they could be played as either male or female.
The Role of the Host
Before the game starts, you have to recruit players, and print out the contents of the game from the PDF you'll download. You'll need to cut up item and ability cards, and put everything into envelopes for each character. Allow several days for this, unless you're like me and like to do it all at once (in which case, allocate a four hours or so).
During the game, you handle rules questions and moderate any unusual actions people want to take. Mostly, though, you enjoy watching the scheming going on around you!
My Experiences
The game starts with an innocent dinner party (well, as innocent as a dinner party after a murder can be), and quickly moves into weighty matters that will affect the entire British Empire (and even the world!)
One of the nice rules in Curse of the Pharaoh is that no character can die until dessert is served. This helps to keep the first part of the evening relatively peaceful.
After dessert is served, though, watch out! Your players have spent a couple hours getting into character, and most will be ready to kill someone by the end of the evening in order to accomplish their goals.
Each character's goals tie in nicely with other characters' goals, creating tension between characters with opposing goals.
The "show a card" mechanic is a great one for people new to these sorts of games. If your character is good at getting secrets out of people, you don't have to be. Instead, you'll have a card that says something like, "Talk to another character for three minutes, then show them this card and they must show you their top goal."
This makes it very easy for anyone to participate and have fun.
Where To Buy It
Or, if you just want to buy it, click one of these according to your payment preferences. You'll be able to download the PDF files for the game in a short time.
Enjoy!
Or to pay via credit/debit card:
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Have something to say?
Have you played the game, or have questions about it? Leave a message here!
Great lens. I agree, Freeform Games have an excellent choice of Murder Mystery kits. I've also found more great sites where you can download all sorts of themed Murder Mystery Kits from. If you're interested you can check out my post about these sites here: My Top 5 Mystery Murder Dinner Party Download Sites.
Posted August 26, 2008
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JayShaffstall
Freeform Games does have one or two games that can be run with fewer people (they seem to like large numbers of players). I've gotten by with as little as 5 other people with Death on the Gambia, by eliminating one of the required characters and playing one myself, and it worked out pretty well. Posted June 05, 2007 |
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KnotGypsy
I have always wanted to try one of these parties! Alas, I don't know enough people who would be willing to try. Loved your lens, it was very informative. In fact I like your writing style, it flows easily and clearly. Posted June 05, 2007 |
