What Is The Mafia Game?
From Barbelith
You may have seen some threads in the creation with the word "Mafia" in the title. These are not comprised of Sopranos fan fiction, spaghetti bolognese recipes, or coded solicitations for hitmen. Rather, Mafia is a parlor game of paranoia and treachery. We've played one game so far, and participants have enjoyed it so much we're gearing up for another. Here's how it's played online:
A group of players gathers. It's best if this is an odd number of players, ideally around 13 people. These players comprise the Village. Organizing the players is the Mayor. Ze oversees the action of the game.
In a village of 13 people, the Mayor picks three people* to be the Mafia, whose collective goal is to eliminate the other players from the game. The three Mafia players know who each other are. The rest of the Village does not. For barbelith purposes, the Mayor notifies each of these Mafia members by PM. Two players are also chosen to be Detectives, more on whom below. The detectives don't know who the other detective is.
The game begins in Day, with all of the players trying to convince others of their innocence, or of the guilt of other players - for the purposes of Barbelith, these can be general conversations in a thread, or PMs between individual players (see PMsInMafia). After a set period of time, the Mayor calls a vote. The Villagers (including all Mafia members, though they don't reveal themsevles as such) each publicly accuse one other player of being a member of the Mafia. The accusation must be made clear to all (especially the Mayor) in the form of a simple, declarative sentence (bolded for added clarity). Accusations, once made, cannot be changed (it's too confusing).
Once every Villager has voted, (at the discretion of the Mayor, a time limit may be placed on votes) the Mayor totals the votes. (See MoreOnVoting).
A player receiving a plurality of votes from the collective village is killed. This player may no longer participate in the game, on the thread or via PM, save for "ghost" postings at the discretion of the Mayor.
After the lynching, the Mayor reveals whether the player was Villager, Mafia, Detective, etc. Lynched Detectives do NOT have their knowledge (accumulated through questioning the Mayor) disseminated by the Mayor.
After the lynching, Night falls. The members of the Mafia collectively decide one player to eliminate, and convey their choice to the Mayor by PM.
During the Night, the Detectives are each permitted to ask the mayor (by PM) if a certain other player is Mafia, and the mayor must answer truthfully. The questions are couched as "Is X Mafia?" and the answer is "yes" or "no." The Detectives then use this knowledge during the day to influence conversation.
Day comes again, and the Mayor informs the village who the Mafia has killed.
If the Mafia have killed a Detective, the Mayor reveals to the village publicly all that the Detective has known.
The game then proceeds as above, with a general "Day" period of rumor-mongering and disinformation sowing, followed by an Accusation, Lynching, and then Night again.
The game ends when the Mafia has a majority over the Villagers, or the Village eliminates all Mafia.
You can find a slightly different set of official rules, along with numerous variants, here, at this Princeton page (http://www.princeton.edu/~mafia/history.htm).
In some variations, it's called "Werewolf," as at this rather detailed Werewolf wiki (http://wiki.puddingbowl.org/phpwiki/index.php/).
- Ratio of mafia to villagers - in some rules, they suggest 1 to 3 or 1 to 4, the latter giving the villagers the advantage and the former the mafia.
