Assassin in the Palace

Assassin in the Palace is a nightless mafia variant invented by Kelly Chen and first run for Marathon Day. A larger version ("Assassins...") was run subsequently in Theme Park.

There is one King, one Assassin, and the remainder of the players are Guards who are all told the identity of the King.

The Assassin has one kill that they can use at any time during the game, typically after being lynched. Their goal is to identify the King so that they can use this kill against him. If the Assassin successfully kills the King, then they win, otherwise the King and Guards win. The Assassin doesn't need to survive to win.

This setup differs from normal mafia in that the "town" has more information than the "mafia" does. Every Guard that is lynched narrows the number of targets the Assassin must consider, so the challenge for the Guards is to find out who the Assassin is as quickly as possible without giving away the identity of the King.