Crime Endowments
Crime Endowments is a short-form guessing game in which one player must determine a secret crime, weapon, and location through clues embedded in the other players' behavior. The endowed players know the secret combination and weave references to the crime, weapon, and location into natural-seeming conversation and action, while the guesser asks questions and observes their behavior to deduce the combination.
Structure
Setup
The audience provides three elements: a crime (e.g., counterfeiting, jaywalking, arson), a weapon or instrument (e.g., a spatula, a baguette, a theremin), and a location (e.g., a lighthouse, a laundromat, a museum gift shop). One player is sent out of earshot. The remaining players are given all three elements.
The Scene
The guesser returns and a scene is established based on a neutral suggestion. The endowed players incorporate references to the crime, weapon, and location into the scene through dialogue, physical business, and character behavior -- all rendered naturally enough that the guesser cannot identify the references immediately.
Guessing
The guesser observes and participates in the scene, asking questions or making scene moves that attempt to surface the hidden elements. At any point the guesser may call out a guess for any of the three elements. Correct guesses are confirmed by the host; incorrect ones are not acknowledged. The game continues until all three are correctly identified or time is called.
Conclusion
The host reveals any unguessed elements and opens a brief discussion of how the clues were embedded.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Crime Endowments trains endowment (embedding specific information into scene behavior), active observation, and the ability to sustain scene logic while carrying a hidden structural task. For the guesser, it trains active listening and pattern recognition.
How to Explain It
"You know the crime, weapon, and location. Your job is to put all three into the scene in ways that feel natural -- not forced, not obvious. The scene isn't about the crime. The scene has the crime in it. Make it fit."
Common Pitfalls
Endowed players frequently embed clues too obviously: holding the weapon object up prominently, speaking the location name directly. The exercise is stronger when clues require active attention to notice. A second pitfall is the guesser who becomes passive and observational rather than actively participating in and driving the scene, which reduces the energy available to both performers and audience.
How to Perform It
Audience Intro
"We need a crime, a weapon, and a location. [Guesser] is going to leave the room and the rest of our cast will hide all three of those in a scene. [Guesser's] job: figure out all three."
Cast Size
One guesser. Two to four endowed performers. Host manages the game from outside.
Staging
Standard scene space. The guesser may move through the scene space freely.
Pacing
The game's tension comes from the delay between the clue being planted and the guesser identifying it. Endowed performers should embed clues at varying depths: some obvious once noticed, some very subtle. The host can accelerate the game if the guesser is stuck by asking the endowed players to increase the clarity of their clues.
Wrap Logic
Wrap when all three elements are identified or after a time limit (typically five to eight minutes).
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How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Crime Endowments. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/games/crime-endowments
The Improv Archive. "Crime Endowments." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/games/crime-endowments.
The Improv Archive. "Crime Endowments." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/games/crime-endowments. Accessed March 17, 2026.
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