How to play

Social deduction · 6–8 players · about 15–35 minutes

In one line

A hidden mafia kills one player each night. Every day the rest of the town argues about who did it and votes one person out. Nobody knows who is on which side except the mafia, who know each other.

Winning

Town wins when the last mafia member is voted out.

Mafia wins when they equal or outnumber the town — at that point they can no longer be out-voted.

A round

01Night. The mafia agree on one player to kill.

02The Doctor picks someone to protect. If it is the mafia's target, nobody dies.

03The Detective investigates one player and learns whether they are mafia.

04Dawn. The death is announced. Nothing else is.

05Day. Everyone talks. Claim, accuse, or stay quiet.

06The vote. A majority puts one player out. That player is dead and stays silent for the rest of the game.

Roles

Role	Each night
Mafia	Choose one player to kill. You know the other mafia; nobody else knows you.
Doctor	Protect one player from the night kill.
Detective	Learn whether one player is mafia.
Villager	No ability. Your vote and your argument are the whole of your power.
Vigilante	Kill one player, once per game. Catastrophic when wrong.
Godfather	Mafia, but reads as innocent to the Detective.
Jester	Wins alone if the town votes them out. Turns every accusation into a trap.

House rules

Set before the game starts, in the room. The ones that change play most: whether a body reveals its role on death, whether the Doctor may save themselves, whether the first night is quiet, and whether the town may vote nobody out.

That last one is safer than a bad guess, but it hands the night back to the mafia. It quietly favours them.

In one line

Mafia, but every player has a different character with its own ability, a Storyteller runs the game and may lie to you, and the dead keep talking.

What changes

01Everyone gets a unique character, drawn from one script. No two players share one.

02A Storyteller adjudicates, and is allowed to give you false information when a character makes you drunk or poisoned.

03Death is not the end. You keep talking, and you keep one final vote to spend for the rest of the game.

04Exactly one execution per day, and only if a nomination reaches a majority of the living.

Winning

Good wins when no Demon is alive. Killing the Demon usually achieves that, but not always — the Scarlet Woman takes its place if five or more players are still alive, and a Demon can pass the role to a Minion on purpose.

Evil wins when only two players are alive.

Either side can also win outright on a character's ability. Execute the Saint and good loses on the spot. Reach three players alive with no execution while the Mayor lives and good wins without touching the Demon.

The four types

Type
Townsfolk	Good. Their abilities work for the town — most give information, some protect, a few act once and decisively.
Outsiders	Good, and want good to win, but their ability works against their own side.
Minions	Evil. They work with the Demon, usually know who it is, and one of them may end up replacing it.
Demon	Evil. Usually kills at night, though not every Demon kills every night. Good wins only once no Demon is alive.

Script

The cast

Night order

Characters act in this order every night, whether or not they are in play. The Storyteller wakes each one in turn.

First night

Every other night

Effects

Drunk: You have no ability, but you think you do, and the Storyteller acts as though you do. If your ability gives information, what you are told may be false. You are not told you are drunk.
Poisoned: The same effect, caused by a character rather than by your own. Also not announced.
Mad: You have been told to convince the group that something is true. If the Storyteller decides you are not really trying — or you convince people of something you were told not to — you can be penalised, up to execution.
Execution: The group's decision to kill a player during the day. At most one per day, and only if the nomination reaches enough votes. An executed player usually dies, but not always.
Dead vote: When you die you keep exactly one vote for the whole rest of the game. Spend it and you cannot vote again.
Nomination: Declaring a vote to execute someone. Each player may nominate once per day, and be nominated once per day.
Not in play: A character printed on the script that nobody was given this game. Demons are shown three of these to bluff as.
Storyteller: Runs the game, holds the truth, and decides between legal outcomes. Also the one who lies to you when you are drunk or poisoned.

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