Mafia games

 

— a psychological game for a large company of players — from 4, and ideally from 8 to 20. The general principle of the game is as follows: the roles of “mafia” and “villagers” are distributed among the players (there are usually more "villagers" if the number of players allows it), after which the mafia tries to “kill” all villagers, and villagers, respectively, to identify and imprison criminals. In addition, a host is chosen to manage the game. Game time is divided into "day" and "night"; for the night, villagers close their eyes, and the mafia “goes hunting” — outlines a victim for itself, after which, according to special rules, it is determined whether someone was killed or not. During the day, everyone opens their eyes, the host announces the results of the hunt, after which a discussion follows, during which the players try to determine the most likely candidate for the role of a criminal and "put him in jail." "Killed" and "prisoners" are eliminated from the game.

The roles in the "Mafia" are distributed randomly, initially they known only to the host ("mafiosi" also know about each other), and for everyone the role of the character is revealed only after their "death" or "imprisonment". Mafia during the "hunt" can not talk. Thus, in order to successfully perform the role — detecting a criminal, attacking a villager, avoiding punishment — the player needs to be attentive, note small details in facial expressions and intonations, remember and correctly evaluate them, and also successfully defend his position. Thus, "Mafia" develops observation, intuition, as well as communication and persuasion skills.

Mafia kits include at least a set of cards for the distribution of roles, as well as game rules. At the same time, there are a great many variants of the rules, often they are much more complicated than those described above. For example, separate categories of mafiosi and villagers, additional characters (doctor, police officer) can be introduced into the game, and sometimes each card provides its own role — “Journalist”, “Lawyer”, “Killer”, “Authority”, “Maniac " etc. In addition, kits are produced with similar rules, but on a different theme — for example, vampire or pirate.