Mafia

Mafia Alias: Werewolf Alignment: Mafia Role type: Killing Choice: Night

This article describes the in-game faction Mafia, which gives its name to the Game of Mafia (if you're looking for information about the game, rather than the faction, follow that link).

Normal version

The Mafia faction is one of the two major factions in a typical game of Mafia (their main opponents are the Town). The Mafia faction is an informed minority; the Mafia are small in numbers compared to the Town, but are given additional information and abilities to compensate.

The standard version of a Mafia faction has three factional abilities, in addition to the abilities that would be available to any player in the game:

• The Mafia know each others' identities; in other words, each Mafia member has perfect knowledge as to whether any other player is a member of the Mafia or not.
• The Mafia have a mechanism for communicating privately with each other. On mafiascum.net, this is typically a private topic that all Mafia members can read and post in; other mechanisms for communication may be used elsewhere (e.g. when playing Mafia in person, this is often done using sign language while the Town have their eyes shut). By default, the Mafia are allowed to send each other messages only during Night phases and pregame.
• The Mafia may nightkill one player each night; more specifically, one member of the Mafia faction may perform a kill every night. This action is in most respects indistinguishable from a kill made by a Vigilante. (This factional ability helps to balance the killing power of the Town and of the Mafia; the Town control the elimination vote due to having the numbers to outvote the Mafia, but the Mafia control the nightkill because it is their factional ability.)

In order to win the game, the Mafia must ensure that they are the last remaining faction; at least one Mafia member must remain alive, and everyone else must be dead. In most cases, this will become inevitable well before the game technically ends; if the Mafia's enemies lose control of the elimination vote, and they have no other killing abilities, there is then no way that anyone other than a Mafia member can die (leading to the Mafia eventually nightkilling everyone to achieve their victory condition). The game is normally called early if this situation occurs.

It is possible for a game to have more than one independent Mafia faction (in Normal games, this is permitted only if there are at least 14 players). These factions will act identically to each other, but must be given different names so that they can distinguished from each other. These independent factions do not and cannot win together; to win, they must wipe out both the Town and the opposing Mafia faction.

Variations

It is increasingly common for the Mafia to have "daytalk" as a factional ability; this allows them to talk privately with each other during the Day, in addition to during Night phases and pregame. This variation is permitted in Normal games, as long as it is publicly announced before the game starts. (Daytalk might alternatively be granted by a power role (Encryptor), rather than factionally; this variant need not be announced.)

In a Nightless game, the Mafia do not have a factional kill. They do, however, retain their factional knowledge and communication. It has also been known for the killing ability to be limited to certain players (or for there to be a tiebreak if multiple Mafia members wish to kill, e.g. a Godfather having the final say).

On the flipside of that, there are some games in which the Mafia have factional abilities beyond their basic three (for example, some Theme games containing a large number of Night actions risk being broken by a massclaim and coordination between town, and the Mafia might well be given a factional ability to counter that.) Probably the most common of these are a roleblock or rolestop, although one-off abilities that interact with the game's unique mechanics are also common.

Other minor variations on a Mafia faction are possible (e.g. the factional communication is not 100% required). However, in order to meet the definition of a Mafia faction, it must contain at least two members, and the members must know who each other are.

It should also be noted that many games, especially Open games which have few or no power roles, will alter the Mafia's victory condition to make it harder to achieve (normally by adding an instant-loss condition; the most common of these is probably White Flag). Even though the resulting faction does not have the typical Mafia win condition, it is still normally referred to as "Mafia". This could be seen as a variant of the faction, or just as a variant setup mechanic.

Win condition changes do not necessarily have to hurt the Mafia: some games allow the Mafia to automatically win upon controlling 50% of the votes, even if this is insufficient to guarantee that they can wipe out the other factions.

Occasionally, there will be a player who shares the Mafia's win condition, but does not have access to the Mafia's factional abilities and thus is not a full member of the faction. See Traitor for more information.

The guide above simply describes the Mafia's factional abilities; nothing prevents a Mafia member from having a power role, giving them additional abilities of their own. Common examples of Mafia power roles are Roleblocker and Role Cop (with Godfather formerly also being common). A Mafia member with no power role is known as a Goon.

When constructing role names, a Mafia member is known as a Mafioso (plural Mafiosi). However, this is normally only used when a player has a role modifier (e.g. "Bulletproof Mafioso"); more typically, a Mafia member would be named after their role, with "Mafia" added as an adjective, e.g. "Mafia Watcher" or "Mafia Goon".

Use & Balance

Balancing Mafia games is an art unto itself. However, in general a Mafia should make up about one-fifth to one-fourth of your initial population of players. The number of total scum in the game can go up to one-third of the total players if the Town is particularly strong, but usually not from one faction.

Generally, a faction is stronger when it has more members. This is why six-person Mafia teams are not at all common, even in extremely large games.

Play Advice

Pages and pages of articles could be, and have been, written on how to play as Mafia. However, the most basic tip is to remember your win condition; the Town start by outnumbering you, but to win, you'll need to outnumber them. You can't do that with just the nightkill; you need the Day elimination vote to help out, too. So to win, the Mafia faction needs to make the town keep missing with their eliminations; this means trying to make the Town-aligned players think that you (and your allies) are on their side, and that the Mafia are actually hiding elsewhere.

Sample Role PMs

The standardized Role PM for "Mafia" describes the faction as follows:

• As a win condition: You win if at least one mafia member is alive and all other players are dead (or if nothing can prevent the same).

Example (vanilla)

Welcome to game! You are a Mafia Goon.

Your team-mates are names. You may talk to them here during night phases and confirmations only.

You have the following active ability:

• Each Night, if no other member of your faction is performing this action, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.

You win if at least one mafia member is alive and all other players are dead (or if nothing can prevent the same).

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Example (power role)

Welcome to game! You are an Ascetic Mafia Rolecop.

Your team-mates are names. You may talk to them here during night phases and confirmations only.

Actions that target you, other than kills, will fail as if roleblocked.

You have the following active abilities, but may use only one per Night:

• Each Night, if no other member of your faction is performing this action, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, that player will die.
• Each Night, you may target a player. Assuming no interference with your action, you will learn that player's role (but not their alignment).

You win if at least one mafia member is alive and all other players are dead (or if nothing can prevent the same).

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.