The Mafia Game - Teenage Birthday Party Games / Drinking Game
Intro:
“This game is the best party game I have ever played.”
It can be expanded to a drinking game or you can keep individual scores, but mostly it is just a blast as is.
Number of People:
You need at least 3 people, the more the better.
Equipment:
A deck of cards, or another way to secretly determine which people will be the “undercover cops”.
Concept:
Imagine the group of people are mafia members in a meeting, however the group has been infiltrated by a small number of undercover cops, and the mafia members know this, they have also been informed of the number of undercover cops.
The mafia will not rest until all of the undercover cops are dead, but as soon as there is an equal number of cops to mafia members the cops have enough power to capture the mafia members and win. The group votes to decide who to whack.
Instructions:
For every 3 people there will be one undercover cop (you can tweak this ratio to make it harder or easier). Say there are 9 people: get 3 aces, and 6 other cards, put them in a pile and have each person pull a card, if you get an ace you are a cop.
Choose one person to be the announcer, the announcer says “everyone put your heads down and close your eyes”
Wait 3 seconds, then say “undercover cops open your eyes and determine who your partners are”
Wait 3 seconds, then say “undercover cops close your eyes”
Wait 3 seconds, then say “everyone open your eyes”
The fun begins.
There are no rules to the game, except you cannot touch anybody or their card. If you are an undercover cop you will have to lie a lot. If you are in a religious group you may want to make a rule that you can’t “swear on the bible”, or “swear on your dead grandmothers grave”. You can ask anyone any question. You will notice undercover cops acting suspiciously, when a cop is being questioned his/her partner may try to shift attention away from that person onto someone else… there are a lot of strategies that can be used.
When the group is coming to a decision whether they want to whack a person, one person will raise his/her hand and say “I’m voting to whack so and so”, then other people will raise their hand of they agree, as soon as the majority of people have voted this person is whacked and they must reveal their card.
The “majority” is as follows: If there are 6 people alive, then there will be 5 people voting against one person, there must be 3 votes in favor of whacking the person. If there are 7 people in the group, there will be 6 people voting against one person, there must be 4 votes in favor of whacking the person.
The game ends when all cops are killed, or there are the same number of cops and mafia members, in this case the cops win.
Variations:
You can have dead mafia members still be apart of the game, they just can’t vote, this makes it easier for the mafia because you know you can trust what this person is saying.
Generally dead cops should stop playing entirely, they will only hurt the cops by giving away their partner(s). If the game is competitive I recommend the cops leave the room - although this isn’t as fun. When playing it with 3 cops, I was the only cop left and there were 4 people left, when we killed off a mafia member one of the dead cops got up and high fived me thinking we had won! GAME OVER.
Drinking rules:
Make up your own… here are some examples: At the end of the game, all members of the losing team drink. Or you can drink for each fallen comrade.