Mafia the Card Game

[bengibbard13]

Hello everyone

I recently stumbled on Mafia from SC2 and I absolutely love it (minus the trolls) and I find that this game would be extremely fun with the amount of friends I could pull together. So I decided to turn it into a drinking game but I do need some help and criticism so I wanted to put this up for review.

This is taking the idea of Werewolf and bringing mafia into it so the idea is that the players at night close their eyes (Through a trust system of course) and me being the game host I would go through the night orders of waking up mafia to converse with each other and so on and so fourth.

Sound has been an issue so I ordered ear plugs or sound cancelling headphones and will test both on a group of my friends to see A) how long the length of a game goes for and B) if this will actually work out correctly

I left out these roles due to time it would take to wake up so many roles or complexity of a role or simply a role having no purpose (stump)
TOWN:Marshall, Mason, Mason Leader, Spy, Stump
MAFIA:Beguiler, Blackmailer(I am unsure how a blackmailer would work in person I feel people would catch onto this very fast but at the same time it would be interesting to have)
NEUTRAL: Cultist

I added a role labeled Shaman(two classes listed on here before mixed into one class) which I am also mixed about at the moment
Shaman: Can bring one person back to life, can speak to one person who is dead

a few things I need thoughts on are can this game work without the cult or masons? I always felt that was just an addition to the core game so I removed them because it would take up a lot of actual time if I have to wake up so many different roles each night.
I did however leave the Witch Doctor in which is obviously a cult converter so I really just need to decide on whether I should keep WD and cult in or take them all out entirely.

I have not completely worked out all the drinking rules and am still creating it but a few that come to mind would be
1) If you die you take a drink/shot (so everyone drinks)
2) If you get hanged as a jester you take a drink/shot
3) If all three mafia survive till the end the whole town takes a drink/shot
4) If town wins all of mafia and any neutrals who do not win with town takes a shot/drink

Personally I think it will be a lot of fun because I have friends who are great bullshitters and me being the host will get off to the whole idea of watching my friends battle it out.


Thanks for your time guys and I welcome any feedback
This link will give you a view of all my cards I have made even the game host cards.
The PDF file is about 8MB so it might take a little bit of time to load if you have a slow connection
Click to View

[Azuriae]

Or you could get this, which is just so much fun.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/925/werewolf

[bengibbard13]

I like the roles and complexity of roles that have been introduced from mafia
werewolf is too basic for me, and while I plan to keep the arrangement somewhat basic I still like having the option to add very cool and unique roles if done correctly (balanced) and the fact that I can introduce any role whenever I want instead of staying with werewolf's cards and just those cards.

[Azuriae]

Problem is, if you don't keep it simple, as soon as people start to get tipsy, everything is going to go down the shitter. :v

[bengibbard13]

I agree which is why I wont introduce too many complex roles all in the same game
obviously at a certain point we would have to stop playing but I think it would be an initial fun game to introduce 2-3 rounds
I can also always hold back on the rules of drinking, usually these games don't seem to go by that fast so unless we are taking shots every few minutes I think what we would do is have a drinking/sipping beer and then the consequence of hard shots when you fail or whatever it might be.

[SuperJack]

Takes far to long to get drunk.
I say take a shot, once a day, once a night. On top of all the already suggested shot.

[bengibbard13]

wouldn't that be eliminated though if everyone has a full tall glass of beer that they can sip on throughout the entirety of the game? so when the shots come its more of a punishment and the beer is more of a relaxed kind of thing

I don't want to get everyone shit faced round one

and the drinking part is not nearly as important to me as the actual structure of the game

[Kirdaiht]

and the drinking part is not nearly as important to me as the actual structure of the game

You want to keep the game-mechanics simple. Only add roles with night-actions that you can give instant feedback to or don't have to give feedback to at all.
For practical reasons, don't use roles who need to talk anonymously (Jailor, crier, kidnapper), and make every town-role who wakes up at night unique. (if there are 2 sheriffs, they will both open their eyes an learn eachother's identity when you call them.
And how the fuck do you think a disguiser could possibly work?

[SuperJack]

Huh, you think shots are punishments?

[CmG]

Depends on the "quality" of the shot i would say and if you want to go somewhere after the game...

[bengibbard13]

It wouldn't it's just a role that I overlooked

I agree with you on the jailor as well now thinking more into it but this could work if I had some kind of head phones people wear around the neck that block sound so during the night phase they slip the head phones on and close their eyes.

Jailor talks to me directly with a number of things to ask the jailed person, I then ask the jailed person these questions and relay the answers. I agree this is probably a bit complicated but its not to say it could not work but at the same time I almost do not want to do the headphones deal because I feel like even that would be too much to add to the game mechanics.

The simplicity would be you get to ask three questions to the jailed person (usually in mafia anon chat its "what role are you" and thats about all the jailor asks so even three is too many




Also when you say make every town member who wakes up unique... doesn't that mean I should not have two sheriffs but instead an invest and a sheriff or lookout?

[Kirdaiht]

I'd avoid any kind of role that has to communicate at night, beyond simple gestures and fingerpointing. Buying 15 headphones just so you can play mafia with a jailor doesn't sound like it'd be worth it to me.

[bengibbard13]

Aside from that any other discrepancies you guys might see?
I will take out and limit the roles that have night actions and only leave pivotal ones or fun ones

for neutrals (since I love neutrals so much) I will probably announce "Neutral killing wake up"
"Neutral killing go to sleep" "Neutral Evil wake up" etc

I only ever plan to have a killing in large games to make it go faster otherwise I would stick with Evil neutrals and benign's

[eezstreet]

How will a Spy work out? Won't a Spy figure out the whole mafia just based on the sound of their voice?

[deathworlds]

Lol No idea. Maybe mafia has to speak via signs? I don't know.

[bengibbard13]

I thought I took the spy out

The spy could work if you think about it but only if you did the head phones but that has been pointed out to be a dumb idea because it would require too much money and effort. If you really wanted the spy to work though and had noise canceling headphones you could easily give the spy headphones that could listen in at night to mafia chat.

As previously commented it should be on a basic level so I revamped my whole set up and I plan to repost it over soon because I realize that this will be harder than I originally thought.