The Mafia or Werewolf is an excellent game that can be played as an icebreaker or when you just want to liven up a party. It’s a card game that needs 8 or more people and an ordinary deck of cards. This game was created by a Russian Dmitry Davidoff back in 1986. It’s a kind of battle of wits between the majority who lacks information, and a well informed minority. All the players are given roles in secret, they either become townsfolk or Mafia, except for one moderator who will be running the game. The townsfolk only know the number of Mafia that they are up against and they do not know have any idea who they are. There are two phases to the game, the night phase and the day phase. During the nigh phase, the mafia members murder a member of the townsfolk. During the day phase the townspeople debate among themselves as to who is actually a member of the mafia and has to be eliminated from the game. The game will go on until all the members of the mafia has been eliminated from the game or until they become the majority.
Here is a basic outline on how to play Mafia card game:
Each player is dealt a card that will identify whether they belong to the Mafia or whether they are a member of the townspeople.
The Night Phase
During this phase, the narrator tells all the players to close their eyes and then he would tell all those who belong yo the Mafia to open their eyes and see all their fellow Mafia members. They decide who among the townsfolk will be eliminated.
There are two special members of the townsfolk, these are the Sheriff and the Nurse. The Sheriff can identify who the Mafia members are and the nurse can protect a townsman.
The Day Phase- When the narrator tells the players to open their eyes they are told who has been eliminated from the game. The townsfolk will then deliberate over who will be eliminated for being a Mafia member. The deliberation will go on until they are able to perform a lynching. The play ends when there are more Mafia members than townsfolk or until all the members of the Mafia has been lynched. This game became quite popular because of the way that it needed deception and the excitement that it created among the players when they have no idea about who their real enemy is. There is actually no limit to the number of players that this game can accommodate but it gets of difficult to control once the number of players reach over 20.
There are a lot of variations to the game that has been developed over the years but generally they all follow the same basic principles that were laid down by Davidoff when he invented the game. The names of the roles may also vary from one version to another but basically their roles are the same.