Murder Mystery Planner

Assign characters, print sheets, and script the reveal — before anyone arrives.

How it works

Fill in the mystery’s title, date, and location under The Basics.
Add your cast under Characters — a name and an optional role, backstory, or secret objective for each.
Add your Guests, then use each guest’s dropdown to assign them a character. A character already taken shows as (taken) in the list.
In a hurry? Tap Shuffle Assignments to randomly deal characters to everyone at once.
Build the Reveal Schedule — add a beat for each course or scene (e.g. “Appetizers” → “The victim is discovered”), and reorder with the arrows.
Track everything you need to buy or print under Shopping & Prop List.

Importing & exporting your guest list

Tap Export under Guests & Assignments to download the guest list as a file (you'll get to confirm or edit the filename first) — this uses the same player-list format as other Board Game Tools apps, so you can bring a roster in from any of them instead of retyping it. Use Import to load one; new names are added and any matching an existing guest by name are skipped.

Printing character sheets

Once at least one guest is assigned a character, tap Print Character Sheets. Each assigned guest gets their own page showing their name, character, and role notes — ready to hand out or mail ahead of the event. Only assigned guests get a sheet; unassigned guests and characters are skipped.

This uses your browser’s print dialog, so you can print to paper or save as a PDF from there.

Where everything is saved

Your mystery is saved locally in this browser, so it’s here the next time you open the app on this device. Tap Start New Mystery to clear the cast, guests, schedule, and prop list and start fresh.

Add to home screen

Install the app on your home screen for one-tap access while you’re planning.

iOS · Safari

Open the app in Safari (must be Safari, not Chrome or Firefox).
Tap the Share button — the square with an arrow pointing up at the bottom of the screen.
Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
Tap Add to confirm.

Android · Chrome

Open the app in Chrome.
Tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.
Tap Add to Home Screen or Install App.
Tap Add to confirm.

Once installed, the app updates automatically — no need to reinstall when changes are made.

About

Board Game Tools is built and owned by Maxwell Drown (maxdrown@gmail.com) — check out maxdrown.com for more of my projects.

Your data stays on this device — everything you enter here is stored only in this browser's local storage and is never sent anywhere. There's no server and no account system yet, so there's nothing centralized to steal.