Mafia: The Game




Object of the Game

There are two opposing teams: the mafia versus the citizens. As expected, the mafia wants to remove the citizens while the citizens want to exterminate the mafia from their community.




How to Play

Deal one card to everybody... cards can be any cards as long as there are at least one police man and one mafia person... you may add as many police or mafia as you like, but keep in mind how many total people are playing.

One person is designated as the narrator; he/she does not get a card and does not participate except as narrator... Everyone else places his/her card down onto table and narrator calls out "nightime"

At "nightime," everyone closes his/her eyes... after seeing that everyone has complied, narrator calls out "mafia open your eyes and recognize each other".

The mafia will do so, and select a victim... when they agree on a victim, the narrator must remember who the victim is. The narrator then calls out "police open your eyes and select a card to investigate."

The police then point to a player who they suspect to be a mafia person... the narrator will indicate by shaking or nodding his/her head as to whether the police guessed correctly...

At this point, everybody begins to accuse each other... you will find that everybody has a certain style... some do heavy accusing... and some were really quiet...

Now everybody's made their accusations, and the time comes to vote... the narrator begins the vote at the person to the left of the previous victim... so the person to the left of the victim votes first... When this person votes for someone else as the mafia, the accused raises a finger to indicate to all that he/she has been accused... Continue around the circle of people. The person who has the most accusations against him/her is "killed off" by the citizens... that person flips up his/her card for all to see...

at this point, narrator calls out "nightime" again and the process repeats itself...




Frequently Asked Questions

What can the police say in the game? (If he can guess at who the mafia is, then couldn't Mafia be picked out in a second?)


The police can say anything they want during the accusation period... however, just because they are the police, that doesn't meant everyone will believe them... why? two reasons: 1) police man will not want to announce that he is the police early in the game because you can be sure he/she will be the next victim; 2) given number one, the police man is just like another citizen trying to convince others that he knows who the mafia is/are... in fact, often you see that the police are the most quiet in the game, because they want to stay alive... of course, this often causes suspicion amongst the citizenry.... in my opinion, playing the police man correctly is the most challenging role of the game...



If the citizens kill the police by mistake, is it game-over? When I played, I always picked 2 mafia; thus when it got down to 2 citizens/2 mafia, the mafia won-- otherwise there'd be a stalemate.


You also asked what happens when the citizens kill the policeman... and what happens when there are only two citizens and two mafia left... let me dispense of the easier question first... when there are an equal number of citizens and mafia, the mafia win automatically... for this reason, when there are three citizens left and two mafia (total of five players remaining) the game becomes interesting because the citizenry have to identify one of the mafia, or lose automatically... likewise when there are three total remainin players, one of them being mafia, the citizens will have to guess correctly! this is a great scenerio, because if the mafia person has played his/her role well, he/she can have the two citizens accusing each other, while he/she sits back and laughs inside!



The game goes on even after the mafia kills the police, right?


what happens when the citizens kill the cop... does the game end automatically?... the answer is no... what simply happens is that the game continues w/out a cop being able to look at a person's card during the nightime... everyone still accuses each other, the only difference is that none of those citizens will be able to accuse with any real certainty!




Other Questions?

How many people are playing, and how many people are you allowing to be mafia? note that from the above explanation: if you only have five players, and two are mafia, the citizens are under immediate pressure to guess at least one of them in the first round... if they guess incorrectly, they automatically lose because then there will be an equal number of mafia and citizens... so designating two mafia when only five are playing might not be as desirable thing to do... assign only one mafia in that situation...




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