Mafia game rules

What these mafia game rules cover

Wherever you’ve played mafia before — summer camp, a party, an app — it runs on the same skeleton: hidden cards, a secret night, a talkative day. These mafia game rules pin down how The Final Witness plays it. Two winning teams, never a third, and the names printed on the cards are the names used here. What this page covers is table procedure: who sits where, who wins and exactly when, how night and day are called, and what it takes to open a trial. What it doesn’t do is reprint every card. Where a card bends one of these steps, the step is named here and linked to the card.

Players and the moderator

A game needs living players and one host, and the host belongs to no team. In classic mafia they simply volunteer and sit out; in this deck the Narrator card can settle it — whoever draws it runs the game. Hosting comes with a monopoly: only the host may look at cards, wake players at night, announce deaths, and keep the night list honest.

Every other player gets one card and shows it to nobody. Speech is completely free — lie, tell the truth, stay silent — because in mafia, saying a thing does not make it true. The card is the only proof that exists, and no rule lets another player see it. The host, for their part, only ever confirms what the rules already make public: who died, that a trial has opened, and how a vote landed.

Before the first night, the host writes down the night order and never changes it. Why so strict? Because an order that never varies gives the table nothing to read — no tell-tale pauses, no missing names. If a wake does get missed, the fix is not improvised in front of open eyes; it’s written out under moderator errors below.

The two teams: City and Mafia

Every hidden card in the game belongs to the City or the Mafia — full stop. There is no third winning team, and the Narrator is the host, not a faction. The City is the crowd: most of them have no night job whatsoever, and they win by identifying the killers before it’s too late. The Mafia is the small side that hunts — killing in the dark, and spending each day passing as ordinary Citizens until they have the numbers to win a vote.

You can see the split on the printed faces — City cards carry an eye, Mafia cards a torch — but a symbol nobody is allowed to look at settles nothing at the table. Your team isn’t something you owe anyone. It’s a fact only the host knows for certain.

One trap for new tables: some Mafia cards exist specifically to feed an investigator the wrong answer. When a Policeman check comes back looking impossible, that’s a card working as designed — not evidence of a hidden third faction. Read the role page before you invent one.

Mafia win conditions

The City wins when every killer role is dead. Read that carefully — killer roles. Some Mafia cards can’t kill, and removing those players doesn’t finish the job while a killer is still seated. Count the roles the rule names, not whoever the table “feels” is Mafia.

The Mafia wins the moment they can beat the City in a vote. The printed threshold: two killers against two City players, or one against one — in other words, the killers can match or beat whoever remains. That creates the one rule hosts most often miss: never begin a night that would hand the Mafia that winning vote. If the numbers already sit at the threshold when a day ends, the table must vote someone out again that same day instead of going to sleep. A game can therefore end three ways — on a day vote, on a night kill, or on the count a host makes before calling night. Whichever way it happens, announce the winner out loud. And remember: dead players never figure in the count.

Mafia game setup and the deal

You want eight or more players plus a moderator. Shuffle the cards for the setup you all agreed on, give one to each player, and box the rest. Nobody peeks at a neighbour. The host runs one last check — who’s playing, which setup is dealt, and is the night order written down — and then opening statements begin. From the moment a card lands in your hand, it’s your identity until you die or the game ends. No swaps, no re-draws.

The teaching deal is The Lamp and the Lancet: two Assassins, one Policeman, one Doctor, and Citizens filling every other seat, from eight players. At nine chairs the same deal is The Ninth Chair. Bigger lists layer night jobs onto both sides. Resist building your own pile of exciting cards — deal a published setup instead. They’re balanced, and they’re all on setups.

Opening statements

Oldest player first, then left around the circle. Each living player states a name and a claimed team. That’s the entire obligation — no role reveals required, and no honesty either.

When the circle completes, night one begins immediately. There’s no trial before the first night, for a simple reason: nothing has happened yet. The game’s first genuine information arrives at dawn — either a body, or a suspiciously peaceful morning.

Night phase

Eyes shut around the table, and the host works down the fixed order, one role at a time. A wake is soundless — a tap, a point, a nod the rest of the table can’t hear. Uncalled players keep their eyes closed. Talking at night is against the rules, with a single exception: the host may put a yes-or-no question to whichever role is currently awake.

Two placement rules anchor the order. The Mistress, when dealt, wakes first — her cancel has to land before the abilities it’s meant to cancel. Jobs that pick the dead wake last, after the living night is complete. Everything between those anchors follows whatever order the host wrote down — written once, repeated identically every night.

Kills, checks, and saves all count as visits on the night they happen, unless a card explicitly says otherwise. The host tracks every target privately. Two disciplines matter here: never reveal who woke, and never skip a dead player’s role aloud in a way that maps the remaining roster for the table. When there’s a gap to hide, fake the wake — call the role, hold a beat, send it back to sleep — and the table learns nothing.

For the full order with all the common night cards, see the night phase page. For word-for-word lines, the mafia game narrator script. This page is where to come back to when two abilities land on one person.

Night visits and conflicts

Most night actions target one living player. The host resolves them in the written order and reports the outcome at dawn — never mid-night, while eyes are still shut. Two cards come up constantly. The Doctor heals one player a night and can’t choose herself two nights running. The Duelist duels any enemy who visits him — automatically, not as a choice he makes.

On investigations: a check returns a team, never a role name. And one card is built to break the check — if the Policeman picks the Mastermind, the moderator lies about the faction.

When two printed cards collide on the same player, the procedure is always the same: finish the night, then apply each card exactly as written. The collisions real tables actually produce are answered one by one in the FAQ.

Larger setups seat more night cards on both sides — the Ritualist and the Arsonist among them. When one fires, its card page is the authority. Never improvise a job for a card mid-game.

Dawn: announcing the dead

Eyes open, and the host names the night’s dead — if there are any. A dead player is fully out: no speech for the rest of the game, and no card reveal. The living hear names only, not roles — unless a card forces a reveal. The Oracle is the usual one, and her exact text is on the role page.

A deathless night gets announced just as clearly as a bloody one. “Nobody died” is real information — someone was saved, or nobody was hunted. Then the day opens: talk, converge on a name, and open a trial if the numbers support one.

Day: nomination, trial, and the vote

Day is the City’s weapon — the vote — and the Mafia’s daily exam in looking innocent. Any living player may accuse any other. A trial opens when half the living players plus one stand behind the same name. The count is hands in the air, not volume.

An open trial follows a strict shape: the accusers state their case, the accused speaks last, and the table votes live or die. The accused has no vote. The host announces the outcome — a yes removes the player from the game (they join the dead: silent, card hidden), a no seats them back among the living. Whether the day continues after a vote or ends there is the host’s call: the printed rules don’t cap the day at one trial, and they don’t forbid a second removal. Two names on one trial? See the FAQ.

The Lawyer complicates the day from the Mafia side: each night he marks a player, and that player can’t be put on trial tomorrow. Talking about them stays legal — opening the trial doesn’t. And when the win-count forces the table to vote again before night, that vote must land on somebody who can stand trial. Immunity on one player doesn’t hand the City a pass.

One City card interrupts a successful vote: the Duelist. Vote him out, and instead of a simple removal, night falls and he duels one of the players who voted against him. Resolve the card as written before treating him as dead — and don’t extend that treatment to any other role.

Before calling night, run the win check. Mafia would win the next vote? Then the table votes again today. Somebody already won? Stop and say so. The gentler, walkthrough version of all this is on the day phase page.

The dead and what you may say

For the living, speech has no limits. Claim a role you don’t hold, claim City with a Mafia card warming your pocket, say nothing for three straight days — all legal. Talking is never a game action, except where one card removes it: the Enforcer, whose page holds the exact rule.

For the dead, silence has no exceptions. No talking to the table, no voting, no “helpful” card reveals. Watching is allowed. And if a dead player spots the host missing a wake, the protocol is patience: wait for day, take the host aside, say it quietly. The dead don’t referee a live night.

Accidental card flashes get handled the same discreet way. Tell the host privately whose card you saw, and keep the role name out of your mouth. The host may restart the game or sit someone out. What nobody does is turn the leak into entertainment.

Moderator errors and how to fix them

A forgotten wake: don’t open the day. Rewind and play the missed wakes — and pad them with a few fake calls, so nobody can deduce which role was the hole. Then close out the night as written.

A card seen by living eyes: full stop. Take a private report, then restart the game or sit a player out, exactly as with any leak. A mistake seen by dead eyes waits for daylight — the dead don’t moderate from the dark.

And whenever a situation isn’t covered, fall back on one instinct: protect the secrets. A chaotic night that exposes your wake list does more damage than a slow night that reveals nothing. Write the order, read from the paper, tick names off as you call them.

Recommended mafia setups

The eight-player teaching game doesn’t need your improvements — stuffing extra Assassins into it just breaks it. Grow a table with the published lists instead: The Lamp and the Lancet at eight, then setups that add City tools and Mafia pressure as the room fills up, all the way to twenty-seven chairs. Deals marked Final Witness seat expansion cards; in those games the dead close their eyes at night and rise for one last vote. Every setup page states its player count and its exact City and Mafia deal.

• The House Is Small Tonight — 6+ players
• A Chair Brought In — 7+ players
• The Lamp and the Lancet — 8+ players
• A Visiting Card Returned — 8+ players · Final Witness
• The Ninth Chair — 9+ players
• Sherlock’s Demise — 9+ players · Final Witness
• The Yard Was Certain — 9+ players
• A Prior Engagement — 10+ players · Final Witness
• A Death Off the Books — 11+ players
• Struck from the Roll — 12+ players · Final Witness
• Rise of the Underdog — 13+ players · Final Witness
• Two Lamps, One Slab — 13+ players
• Protected Until Breakfast — 14+ players · Final Witness
• Debate Club — 15+ players · Final Witness
• Two Cartridges — 15+ players
• Apologies for Absence — 16+ players · Final Witness
• The Last Point He Made — 17+ players · Final Witness
• Both Lamps Lit — 18+ players · Final Witness
• All-out Warzone — 20+ players · Final Witness
• Limehouse Overtime — 20+ players · Final Witness
• Foolscap in the Dark — 22+ players · Final Witness
• The Box Stands Empty — 24+ players · Final Witness

A setup is a shopping list of cards, nothing more. Abilities live on the role pages, and table procedure lives here — a setup is not a third rulebook.

Mafia game rules FAQ

The questions below are the ones real tables generate. Where an answer names a role, the complete mechanic is on that role’s page.

After the rules

Never run a night? The walkthrough is how to play mafia. Comfortable with night and day already? Browse the mafia roles and deal a setup. And keep this page in its place: these mafia game rules don’t replace the cards — they govern how the table gets to use them.