The City
City faction
The City is the big team in a mafia card game — the innocent majority hunting the killers hiding among them. You win by voting out every killer before they can outvote what is left of the table. Most Citizens have no night ability at all, and that is the point: their power is the day, where they talk, accuse, and vote. A few City cards do wake at night to heal, check a team, or fight back. Open a card below to see exactly what it does.
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Citizen mafia role
No ability during the night phase.
Citizen
City
Oracle mafia role
Pick a player each night. If you die, the moderator reveals the role of your last pick.
Oracle
City
Policeman mafia role
Pick a player each night; the moderator reveals their faction.
Policeman
City
Coroner mafia role
Pick a dead player each night and view their card.
Coroner
City
Doctor mafia role
Pick a player each night and heal them. Can't pick yourself two nights in a row.
Doctor
City
Priest mafia role
If killed by the assassins, their next turn is canceled.
Priest
City
Vigilante mafia role
Twice per game, pick a player and kill them.
Vigilante
City
Duelist mafia role
Duel any enemy who visits you at night. If lynched, night falls and you duel one of your voters.
Duelist
City · Expansion
Ritualist mafia role
Each night, pick a player who died within the last 2 nights and revive them.
Ritualist
City · ExpansionHow to play mafia
Mafia is easier to play than it looks. Everyone gets a hidden card — most of the table is City, a hidden few are Mafia. At night the killers quietly pick a victim while a doctor tries to guess who needs saving and a cop digs for the truth. By day the survivors argue about what happened, put someone on trial, and vote. The City wins by finding every killer; the Mafia wins by surviving until they can win a vote. The walkthrough takes you through the whole game, from the deal to the last trial.
How to play mafiaStandard game setups
Your first game should be The Lamp and the Lancet — eight players and only three night wakes, so nobody gets lost. With a ninth chair the same deal becomes, naturally, The Ninth Chair. All twenty published deals, up to twenty-seven players, are on the setups page.
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The Lamp and the Lancet
8+ playersThe teaching deal. Eight chairs, one lamp, one lancet — and two knives that already know each other.
City: 1 Policeman, 1 Doctor, Citizens to fill Mafia: 2 Assassins
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The Ninth Chair
9+ playersThe classic table of nine. Two killers, a cop, a doctor — and the vote does the rest.
City: 1 Policeman, 1 Doctor, Citizens to fill Mafia: 2 Assassins