How to Play Alibi

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Alibi is a social deduction parlour game for six or more players in which one secretly appointed murderer must bluff their way through questioning while the rest of the group works together to catch them out. No board, no cards, no timer: the entire game runs on conversation, memory, and nerve.

It travels well, needs no equipment beyond a pencil and some slips of paper, and suits any living room or kitchen table. Players love it because the tension builds naturally with each round of questioning, and because a skilful liar can keep a whole room guessing right up to the final accusation.

A little history

Alibi belongs to a loose family of oral deduction and bluffing games that became popular in British and European drawing rooms during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its precise origins are unclear, and no single inventor or published rule set from that period has been definitively identified. Traditionally it was passed on by word of mouth, which accounts for the many regional variations in questioning format and voting procedure still encountered today.

Setting up

1. Tear or cut one slip of paper per player. Mark one slip with an X and leave all others blank.
2. Fold all slips so the markings cannot be seen and place them in the bowl.
3. Each player draws one slip in secret and checks it without revealing it to anyone.
4. The player who draws the X is the murderer. They must not reveal this.
5. Agree on a fictional crime scenario before play begins: a brief, invented setting (time, place, victim's name) announced aloud so everyone shares the same context.
6. Choose a player to act as Lead Detective for the first round. This role typically passes clockwise each round.

How to play

1. The Lead Detective announces that the crime has occurred and invites every player, including themselves, to state their alibi aloud: where they claim to have been at the time of the crime and who, if anyone, was with them. Each alibi should last no more than thirty seconds.
2. Once all alibis have been stated, the Lead Detective opens a questioning round. Any player may direct a question to any other player about the details of their alibi. Questions must relate to the stated alibi or to events surrounding the crime scenario.
3. The accused player must answer every question. They may not refuse, say they cannot remember, or stay silent. The murderer may lie freely; all other players must answer truthfully.
4. A questioning round lasts until the Lead Detective calls time, typically after five to ten minutes. There is no set number of questions per player.
5. After questioning, the Lead Detective calls a vote. Each player (excluding themselves in the first variant, or including themselves in open play) privately writes down the name of the person they believe is the murderer.
6. Slips are read aloud. The player with the most votes is accused. If there is a tie, the Lead Detective has the casting vote.
7. The accused player reveals their slip. If they hold the X, the detectives win. If they do not hold the X, the murderer has survived that round.
8. If the murderer survives, a second round of questioning begins with a new Lead Detective. The murderer's goal is to survive all rounds; the detectives' goal is to make a correct accusation before play ends.
9. The group agrees in advance how many rounds constitute a full game, typically two or three. If the murderer survives all agreed rounds, they win outright.

Winning and scoring

The detectives win the moment a vote correctly identifies the murderer. The murderer wins by surviving every agreed round without receiving a majority accusation vote. In scored play, award the murderer two points for each round survived and one point to every detective who voted correctly in the round the murderer is caught. Keep a running tally across several games so the role of murderer rotates and scores accumulate over the evening.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns what counts as a lie versus a technicality. The standard ruling is strict: non-murderer players must answer the spirit of the question, not just its literal wording. If a detective asks whether a suspect was alone and the suspect says yes while knowing a third party was nearby, that is treated as a lie and the player is penalised or disqualified at the group's discretion. Only the murderer has licensed permission to lie. Agree this boundary explicitly before the first round to avoid arguments later.

A second frequent edge case arises when two players' alibis corroborate each other: they claim to have been together. If either is later exposed as the murderer, the corroborating player is not penalised unless the group has pre-agreed a conspiracy variant. In standard rules, only one player holds the X and only that player may lie, so an innocent player who gave a false corroboration simply made an error of memory, which should be handled leniently. Establish before play whether corroborating alibis require both players to be questioned simultaneously or separately.

How to win more often

• Listen for internal contradictions across alibis before you ask a single question. Players who mentally map every stated alibi in the opening round spot inconsistencies far more quickly than those who focus only on one or two suspects.
• If you are the murderer, keep your alibi simple and specific. Elaborate stories are harder to maintain under cross-examination. A short, plausible alibi with one or two concrete, invented details is much easier to defend than a complicated narrative.
• Ask follow-up questions, not standalone ones. A question that builds on an earlier answer forces the suspect to maintain consistency across multiple statements, which is where liars most often slip.
• As a detective, pay close attention to how suspects answer, not just what they say. Hesitation, over-qualification, and unprompted extra detail are all reliable tells in a game built on social reading.
• Do not vote on instinct in the first round if you have no firm evidence. A premature wrong accusation wastes a round and emboldens the murderer. Wait until at least one contradiction has surfaced before committing your vote.

Variations

Double Agent

Two slips are marked with an X before drawing, creating two murderers who do not know each other's identity. Each must lie independently and avoid exposure without tipping off their fellow murderer. The detectives win only if both are correctly identified in the same vote; catching one alone scores a half-win and play continues.

Witness

Before alibis are stated, one additional slip marked W is added to the bowl. The player who draws it is the Witness: they know who the murderer is (the murderer briefly and silently shows them their slip at the start) but must not reveal this directly. The Witness can only guide the group through the questions they choose to ask, not through direct accusation. The murderer may not lie to the Witness specifically, but the Witness is bound to silence about what they know.

Continuous Alibi

Rather than stating alibis before questioning begins, players build their alibis on the fly in response to questions only. No player may prepare or volunteer a story; every detail of their whereabouts must emerge through direct questioning. This dramatically increases pressure on the murderer and rewards detectives who plan their questioning sequence carefully.

Timed Rounds

Each player is allocated exactly sixty seconds in the hot seat during which any other player may fire questions at them. A timekeeper enforces the limit strictly. Once time is called, questioning of that player ends for the round, regardless of how many questions remain. This keeps the game to a predictable length with larger groups and prevents any single suspect from dominating the session.

Alibi: frequently asked questions