to play a game of mafia also known as werewolf assassin or village you just need 12 to 16 players and a deck of cards choose one person to be the moderator they'll assign everyone's roles and make sure the game runs smoothly next grab your cards and decide which suit will represent the mafia members for instance the mafia cards could be hearts or clubs you'll need three mafia members for every other player or townsperson so choose as many mafia cards from that suit as you need set aside a king card and a queen card of any suit as well whoever gets these cards will take the roles of detective and doctor then pull enough random cards from non-mafia suits for all of the remaining players the moderator will then shuffle the cards and distribute them randomly to all of the players instruct the players not to show their cards to anyone they have to keep their roles a secret once the cards are assigned the moderator should tell everyone to go to sleep meaning they must look down and close their eyes next they will ask the mafia members to wake up any player with a mafia card opens their eyes silently identifying themselves to the moderator the moderator then asks the mafia members to choose another player to kill the mafia members can communicate with each other and the moderator about their choice silently for example by pointing at the chosen victim if they can't unanimously decide on who to kill no players will be eliminated during this round after the mafia members make their choice they go back to sleep then the moderator will ask the detective to wake up and point to someone they think may be the mafia at this point the detective will just have to use their instincts and make their best guess once they've done that they go back to sleep finally the moderator asks the doctor to wake up and choose someone to save they can either save themselves or another player of their choosing if the doctor happens to pick the mafia's victim that person will survive and won't be eliminated during that round otherwise they will still be eliminated from the game now the moderator wakes up the rest of the players and briefly explains the events of the night for instance if the detective guessed wrong they might say that the mafia attacked susan during the night but unfortunately the killer escaped from the detective the players still won't know who any of the mafia are but the detective will now know that the first person they selected was innocent if the detective guessed right the player they choose will be identified as mafia and eliminated from the game whatever happens have all of the players debate for 5 to 10 minutes then ask them to vote to eliminate one player from the game once a player is voted guilty they must reveal their role and sit out the rest of the game whether or not they were actually mafia the moderator will now ask all the players to go to sleep again and the mafia will choose a new victim keep repeating the process until either all of the mafia or all of the townspeople are eliminated