The Mafia game: rules and roles

How to play the Mafia game

One person is the narrator (also called the moderator or the game master). They don't play, they run the nights and keep the story going. Everyone else gets a secret role and plays for one of two sides: the mafia, who know each other, or the town, who don't know who anyone is.

1. Deal the rolesUse the role dealer above, or deal playing cards face down. Everyone looks at their own role and keeps it hidden. Nobody shows their card until they are eliminated.
2. Night: everyone closes their eyesThe narrator calls the roles one at a time. The mafia open their eyes, see who else is mafia, and silently point at one player to eliminate. Then the doctor picks someone to save, and the detective picks someone to check.
3. Morning: the narrator tells the storyEveryone opens their eyes. The narrator announces who was eliminated in the night, ideally with a dramatic little story. If the doctor saved the target, nobody is out. The eliminated player shows their role and is out of the game.
4. Day: discuss and voteNow everyone, mafia included, argues about who the mafia are. Anyone can accuse anyone. When the talking dies down, the narrator calls a vote. A majority sends one player out, and they reveal their role.
5. Repeat until one side winsNight and day alternate. The town wins when every mafia player is out. The mafia win when there are as many mafia as town players left, because from then on the town can no longer outvote them.

Eliminated players stay at the table but say nothing and give no hints. Watching the rest of the game knowing who is who is half the fun.

The first day

Many groups skip the first night kill and go straight to a day vote, or run the first night with only the mafia waking up to see each other. Either way, the first day is mostly guesswork, so keep it short. The real game starts once someone has been eliminated and people have to explain their votes.

Mafia game roles

The basic game needs only four roles. Start with these until everyone knows the rhythm, then add one variant role at a time.

• Mafia. Know each other from the first night. Each night they eliminate one player. By day they pretend to be ordinary townspeople.
• Doctor. Each night, protects one player. If that player was the mafia's target, they survive. A common house rule: the doctor can't save the same player two nights in a row.
• Detective. Each night, points at one player and learns whether they are mafia. Called the Seer in Werewolf. The hard part is sharing what they know without becoming the next target.
• Villager. No night power. Villagers win the game with their votes, so the best ones ask a lot of questions.

How many mafia for how many players

The role dealer uses one mafia per four players, rounded down, with at least one. The doctor comes in from five players and the detective from six. Count the players only, the narrator is extra.

With fewer than six players the game is over quickly, because one wrong vote can hand the mafia the win. Seven to twelve players is the sweet spot.

Variant roles to add later

These are popular house roles, not part of the basic game. Add one at a time and tell everyone what it does before you deal.

• Godfather. A mafia player who shows up as innocent when the detective checks them.
• Jester. Plays for themselves and wins only if the town votes them out. Makes every suspicious act suspicious in a new way.
• Bodyguard. Protects one player at night, but dies in their place if the mafia attack that player.
• Vigilante. On the town's side, and may eliminate one player at night once per game. Dangerous when wrong.
• Mayor. Their vote counts twice once they reveal themselves, which also makes them a target.
• Lovers. Two players are secretly linked on the first night. If one is eliminated, the other goes too.
• Serial killer. Plays alone and eliminates one player each night. Wins by being the last one standing.

How to play Mafia with a deck of cards

Before phones, the mafia card game was played with an ordinary deck. Take out one card per player using the counts in the table above, shuffle them, and deal one face down to each player. The mapping below is a common convention, any mapping works as long as the narrator says it out loud before dealing.

After the game, collect the cards and reshuffle before the next round, so nobody can remember which card was bent.

Tips for a better game of Mafia

• As the town: watch who votes with whom. Mafia players rarely vote against each other, so voting patterns from earlier days are your best evidence.
• As the mafia: don't be the quiet one. Ask questions, make one honest-sounding accusation and vote with the group when the vote is going against a villager anyway.
• As the detective: wait until you have found one mafia player before you reveal yourself. A detective who comes out too early rarely survives the night.
• As the narrator: tell a short story every morning. "The mafia came for Lisa at the bakery, but the doctor had been there first" turns a list of rules into a game people retell for years.
• Keep days short. Five minutes of discussion per day, then vote. Long days make eliminated players restless.

No time for a full round? Imposter and The Spy give the same "who is lying" feeling in five minutes, with no narrator and no eliminated players sitting out.

Mafia and Werewolf: the same game

Mafia was created by Dimitry Davidoff at Moscow State University in 1986, and spread from student dorms around the world. In 1997 Andrew Plotkin reworked the theme into Werewolf, with villagers hunting werewolves instead of a town hunting the mafia. The rules are the same, only the names change.

Keep the night going