Mafia game narrator script

What a mafia game narrator script is

The narrator is the moderator — the one player who does not take a hidden card and does not belong to a team. While everyone else sits with their eyes closed, you call roles in a fixed order. The players holding each card open their eyes, do one silent job, and go back to sleep. In the morning you announce who died. Through the day, you keep the trial honest. Every secret in the game passes through you, and only you.

Most people search for a mafia game narrator script because they have been handed the host job and do not want to invent lines in the dark. Good news: the lines below are short on purpose. “Wake. Point. Sleep.” That plainness is doing real work. If your sentences change from night to night, the table starts reading you instead of each other — and nobody should be able to tell a real wake from an empty one by how pretty you made the words.

This page is the spoken script and nothing else. The night phase page explains the wake order and why it runs that way. The day phase page covers how accusations and trials work. And if you need an ability rather than a line to read, go to the cards themselves on mafia roles.

Before you speak

Your most important work happens before anyone closes their eyes. Write out your night list — only the roles in the deal you actually shuffled, in wake order — and keep that same list for the whole game, ticking each name as you call it. A host reading from paper never forgets a wake. A host working from memory eventually does, and unpicking that mistake in the dark is much harder than writing a list.

• Sit where you can see every face and every pointing hand.
• Lights low enough that a peek is obvious, bright enough that you can read your paper.
• Phones down. Hats and hair off faces if people keep “resting their eyes” with a gap.
• A private pad for kills, saves, checks, blocks, and who cannot be trialled tomorrow.
• The published setup you actually dealt — do not add extra names to the script “just in case.”

Two habits to fix in your head now. You may fake a call — a “dummy wake” — so the room cannot hear a hole where a role used to be. You may never skip a name out loud just because that player is dead. The living learn far more from what you stop saying than from what you say, and they should never learn the roster from your silences.

Opening the game

Remember: there is no trial before the first night. Opening statements are introductions, not a vote — nobody goes home during them. When the round of claims is done, you run night one with exactly the same script you will use every night after it.

Basic night script

This is the teaching script, built for the teaching deals — The Lamp and the Lancet at eight players, or The Ninth Chair at nine: two Assassins, one Policeman, one Doctor, and Citizens for everyone else. Only three roles wake, so a first-time host can run it without breaking a sweat. Learn it until it feels automatic — then start adding names from a larger setup.

Many tables add one Lawyer to their first game to give the Mafia a second trick. If you did, insert the call right after the Policeman: “Lawyer, wake up. Point. Sleep.” The player the Lawyer picked cannot be put on trial the next day — though the table may still talk about them as much as it likes.

Full night script

The full script has the same spine every time: block first, then the hunt, then the save, then the check, then the Lawyer, then the other night cards, and finally the jobs that pick among the dead. The killers always finish before the Doctor, so a save can land on the right night. The Mistress goes first whenever she is in the deal, because a cancelled ability has to be cancelled before it fires. Cross out any name that was not in your shuffle, and never invent a line for a card whose ability is not published.

One discipline holds the whole script together: pause the same length on every name, including names nobody holds. And if two jobs hit the same person in one night, do not stop — finish the dark first, then resolve the clash at dawn with the rules. A debate with everyone's eyes still shut leaks information no one can take back.

How to call a role

1. 01

   Name the role

   Say the printed name — never the player, never the team. “Doctor, wake up.” If two people hold the same role, they wake together and share the one visit the card allows.

2. 02

   They act in silence

   Everything happens by point, tap, or nod. You may ask a yes-or-no question of the role that is awake, but nobody else makes a sound. If the player hesitates, let them hesitate — do not fill the silence with a joke, because the sleeping table can hear you.

3. 03

   You show, if the card needs it

   Some cards get an answer — the Policeman's check, the Coroner's look at a dead card. A check sees a team, never a role. Hold up a card, a finger, or a slip of paper so only that player can see it. Then send them back down.

4. 04

   Sleep

   Close every wake with the same verb: “Sleep.” Count to three in your head so every beat lasts the same, then move to the next name on your paper.

One more habit worth breaking. Classic party mafia often says “Mafia, open your eyes,” and that works fine when the killers are the only night team. It stops working the moment extra cards enter the deal — waking the whole dark side would wake the Lawyer, the Mistress, and others who are supposed to act alone, and each would learn things their card never promised them. So call Assassins for the hunt, and call every other night job by its own name.

What to say for each night role

The table below covers every night wake in the deck. Skip any row that is not in your deal. The passive cards — Citizen, Priest, Duelist — have no wake at all, so never call them at night; their abilities take care of themselves. The Narrator does not wake either, for the simple reason that they are already looking.

Dummy wakes, dead roles, and empty names

The dark leaks information through absences, and this is where hosts get caught. Here is how to handle every awkward case without teaching the table anything.

Role not in the deal. Do not call it, ever. Your written list is the deal you shuffled, not the whole box, and calling a card nobody could hold only wastes the night.

Role in the deal, nobody alive holding it. Still say the name. Pause. Pretend to watch a point. Say “Sleep.” Make it exactly the same length as a real wake — this is the dummy wake, and it exists so the living cannot work out which roles have died by listening to your rhythm.

You forgot a wake. Do not open the day. Go back and replay the missed names, and fake a few extra calls around them so the table cannot tell which one was the real hole. Then finish the list as normal.

Someone is blocked. Still wake them if they would normally wake. They simply have no job tonight — if the Mistress or another block cancelled them, send them back down without accepting a point. Do not announce the block; discovering it is part of their game.

A once-per-game card has already fired. Still call the name. The player sleeps without pointing. Same pause as every other night. The Vigilante's spent bullets and the Terrorist's used vest are secrets too.

Dawn script

The rule at dawn is names, not roles — unless a card specifically forces a reveal, like the Oracle's death. A quiet night is still news, so never skip the announcement. And never explain why a save hit or a kill missed; the table's whole morning argument depends on not knowing.

Keep the dead in your script, too. When the expansion roles of The Final Witness are in the deal, dead players still close their eyes at night with everyone else, and on the last day of lynching they cast one collective vote toward that final lynching. As host, that means you do not wave the dead off to the sofa — they stay in the circle until the game truly ends.

Day and trial script

The day is the other half of a mafia game narrator script, and it asks less talking of you, not more. You are not a third team and you are not the entertainment. You count hands, you stop a speech that has already made its point, and you protect every secret the night sealed. The table provides the drama; you provide the structure.

A few edges worth knowing before they happen. The accused never votes on their own fate. Two names can stand trial at once only if both accused agree to it — the sentence then covers both of them, and the day ends when that trial ends. And a successful vote on a Duelist is not a simple death: night falls, and he duels one of the players who voted against him. Resolve the card as printed instead of assuming he is gone. Exact vote counts live on the day rules; the full walkthrough is the day phase.

Checking for a winner

Run this count in your head before every night, because games end quietly more often than they end loudly. City wins when the killer roles are gone — voting out a Lawyer or a Mistress is progress, but it is not the win while an Assassin still breathes. Mafia wins when they can match or beat the remaining City on a vote: two against two, or one against one, exactly as the printed win line says. Dead players do not count for either side. When one team has won, say so out loud, and then stop — the game does not need an encore.

If something goes wrong

Every host makes a mistake eventually. What separates a good night from a ruined one is what you do in the ten seconds after. The short answers:

• Peeking. Stop the night. Take a private report from whoever saw it. Restart the game, or sit that person out — but never announce the role they saw, because that would double the damage.
• Someone talks in the dark. Send that role back down, fake a few extra beats so the moment is buried, and do not repeat what they said. Ever.
• You showed a check to the room. Treat it like a card everyone has seen, because it is. The game may need a restart, and it is better to admit that than to limp on.
• Two lethal effects, one body. Finish the night first. At dawn, resolve it with the visit rules and the FAQ. The Doctor stops most kills on the night they happen — but a Duelist duel is not a night kill, and the Doctor cannot stop it.
• A dead player saw a mistake. They wait for day and tell you quietly, to the side. The dead do not coach the living during a live night, even when they are right.
• You are simply lost. Protect the secrets first and worry about elegance later. A slow night that stays sealed beats a clever night that teaches the room your wake list.

The longer error notes are on the rules page.

Mafia game narrator script FAQ

Quick answers to the questions hosts actually ask mid-game. If a clash involves a specific card, the printed mechanic is on that card's page.