Mafia

Sleeping City (Mafia), a board game for at least 7 players

1. The game

In its simplest version, Mafia is a game in which players are divided into two camps: honest citizens and mobsters. Each of the two groups tries to win the game by eliminating the other group.

2. Roles

Each player receives a role at the beginning of the game, on the part of the citizens or on the part of the mafia. The role can be a simple one, "Mafiot" or "Citizen", or one with special powers, such as "Godfather" or "Policeman". Special powers are usually manifested in the "night" phase of the game.

Citizens' role players do not know the roles of other players at the beginning of the game (with rare exceptions), they receive information from the moderator only about their own role.

Players with mafia roles receive, along with information about their own role, the names of bad smile colleagues. So they know who the mafia is and who the honest citizen is, but they don't know which citizens have special roles.

More information about the roles in the special section below.

3. Moderator

Every game needs a moderator. He is responsible for distributing the roles, managing the game and ensuring that the participants comply with the rules. The moderator does not participate in the game, he only referees it.

4. Day / Night

The game takes place in a day-night alternation and starts at night.

The first night is a special one, in which players with special roles cannot use these roles. The only objective of this night is to let the mafia talk in private and to establish, if they want, of course, a common strategy for the next day.

On all other nights, the mafia chooses a citizen to kill. The discussions between the mobsters are held in private, and they have to decide in a certain period of time who they are attacking.

Also, night is the time when players with special roles use the powers they have (investigative, protective, attacking, etc.) in order to help the camp on whose side they are to win.

All the actions during the night of the mafia and of the players with special roles are materialized through the moderator.

During the day, the discussions take place freely, with very few restrictions. If the night is the time when the mafia kills citizens, the day is the time when the citizens try to find the mobsters hidden among them. The mobsters, in turn, try to look like honest citizens, possibly being able to lead the discussions and suspicions on false leads. Lying, concealment, manipulation, anything is possible during the day, but usually the mobsters are the ones who are forced to lie and hide, honest citizens having every reason to be honest and not to look like mobsters in the eyes of other citizens.

Every day, the surviving players (including the mafia) decide on a person to lick. For someone to be licked, he must be voted for licking by most living players. Each player has a vote, which he can use as he wishes. The vote can be given and withdrawn as many times as possible, for any player, except for himself. Following the discussions, the votes can migrate from one player to another.

When a certain player collects the majority of the votes currently cast on him, he dies. At that moment the day ends, followed again by night.

Dead players, both day and night, leave that game for good and can no longer participate in discussions.

5. The end of the game

Day and night alternate until one of the camps wins the game.

Citizens win when all the mobsters are dead.

The mafia wins when all the citizens are dead or nothing can stop it. For example, when at the beginning of a day the mobsters and the citizens are in equal numbers, the citizens can no longer reach a majority to lick a mobster, so the mob wins.

When a camp wins, all its members are considered winners, whether they are alive or not. Self-sacrifice is sometimes necessary, the important thing is that in the end the camp you belong to wins