#Live Action Mafia Rules
##Current Moderators
The mods for this game are Jackie Bredenberg, Luke Sciarappa, and Dylan Hendrickson. You can reach the mods for this game through the forum account lambhen or by emailing lambhen@mit.edu.
##Communication
You may communicate with moderators by messaging their account on the Mafia forums, sending them an email, or by communicating with them in private. Any method is acceptable, but please send all messages to their joint account/mailing list and not to them individually.
Communication with the Mods is confidential. Do not reveal anything about what the Mods communicate to you, except what you have learned through official game actions.
The forums at mafia.mit.edu have three sub-forums for this game. The Town Square is for all living players to communicate in. The Mafia Den is for the living Mafia and anyone they choose to add. The Graveyard is for the dead players.
Cryptography, anonymous communication, hacking the website, and dead-man switches are not allowed. Public randomness (a coin flip or die roll that everyone can see) is also forbidden. Private randomness ("hey guys, I totally chose this at random") is allowed. Be reasonable.
Special request from the moderators: please cc: them on your sketchy private messages. They enjoy reading about your plots (and possibly discussing them on Graveyard). In fact, you should do this even if your private messages aren't sketchy.
##Evictions
Periodically, the moderators may notify noticeably inactive players about their lack of activity. If such a player does not respond to that notification within 24 hours, they may be removed from the game at the end of the day. Such a death will be indistinguishable from other end-of-day kills other than executions.
##Goals
The Town wins if all Mafia are dead and at least one Townie is alive. The Mafia win if all Townies are dead. Game ends immediately when either condition is satisfied. If you are currently a Townie, your goal is for the Town to win. If you are a Mafia, your goal is for the Mafia to win. If you are a serial killer, your goal is for the Mafia to win. Everyone is 100% loyal to their current team, even if they expect to switch teams. **You win with your team; your personal survival does not matter. **
##Kills
Some players can kill another player by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "BANG." If this happens to you, you are dead, unless you know otherwise. Dead players tell no tales. They do not communicate, give general advice to, or make facial expressions towards living players or non-players. If you died, all of your items now belong to the person who killed you. Try to get the physical representations to them. Also, please let the Mods know who killed you, where, and when. If you killed someone, also please let the Mods know who, where, and when.
If you are dead, and someone tries to talk to you about game, you must respond with "I can't talk about that." All players (including ghosts) must respond truthfully to inquiries about whether they are alive.
Kills will be announced officially on the forums. If a kill announcement happens within an hour of day end, game will be extended until an hour after the announcement. If the moderators do not post your death within half an hour, you may post it. Message the moderators again to say that you are about to do so. Start a new post including your name, time of death, and location of death. Make sure you check your messages to see if the Mafia have used any manipulation abilities on your death.
##Executions
Each day, each player may cast a vote for a player to execute. You may vote for No Execution on the first night only; after that you must vote for a player. You may make conditional votes (ex: Vote for player X unless there's another kill, otherwise vote for player Y). Mods will count only your latest submission (ex: you voted for sammyluo at 9:07pm, but then voted again for jakob at 9:09pm, you will be counted as voting to execute jakob). If a player does not vote, they will be counted as voting for themselves. At Day End (11 PM), whoever has the most votes is executed, and all votes are cleared. The tiebreaker between players is whoever placed higher on the previous day. If both players had the same number of votes every day of game, none of the tied players will be executed.
##Alibis
Non-players are not constrained on what they say. They can lie, tell the truth, or choose not to talk about it. However, players should not actively ask non-players to communicate information about what they witness. Telling a non-player to report who killed you counts as a deadman switch, and is not allowed. Likewise, non-players are discouraged from volunteering information to players without being specifically asked. Players can, nevertheless, take the initiative to ask non-players whether they have any information on what happened.
Information created electronically may never be shown to any other player, and other players should never try to look at it. Never look at another player's screen. Do not show messages of any kind (although you can paraphrase). Most importantly, players should never see other players' forum screens. It is the responsibility of all players to make sure this does not happen.
##Faking Game Actions
Do not fake incants. We also ask non-players not to fake game incants. You are not allowed to not use an incant and make it look like you did (although using an incant and making it look like you didn't is, of course, acceptable). As a reminder, the incants not to fake are:
- "BANG!"
- "I taze you."
- "I do not die."
- "Disarm."
- "I am an innocent child and I trust you."
- "I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse."
##Town Roles:
Moderators will randomly and independently assign roles to players. (Except for Mafia / Serial Killers, which are not assigned independently because there are a fixed number of Mafia in game, and something about having an even number of gay knights.) Mods reserve the right to re-randomize the roles until they achieve a role distribution they're happy with.
###Investigator
Once per day, an investigator may make an investigation: they ask the Mods a question of the form "Did X kill Y?" A single investigator can only ever ask one question about Y's death; in future investigations they must ask about other deaths. (Police officers who are also investigators have a possible exception.)
An investigator cannot investigate the death of a player unless they have visited the kill scene (and have informed Mods that they did so). Investigators are encouraged to visit the death location promptly to prevent serial killers from gaining an investigation (see below).
###Desperado
Once per game, before the start of a day, the Desperado can tell the Mods that they are going Desperado (you can make the request conditional on day-end events, or cancel the request as long as it's not too late). While going Desperado, they gain all of the abilities of an investigator. Additionally, if anyone tries to use "BANG" on a desperado who has "gone desperado", they may respond by saying "I do not die" (You have 10 seconds to say this, but if you forget to say it you will still live and must notify the mafia asap that you didn't die). After two days of going Desperado, the desperado dies (after the execution, but before day start).
###Gay Knight
At the start of game, each Gay Knight will know the identity of their mutual partner, who is also a Gay Knight. If a Gay Knight dies, then their partner will die at the end of the following day (For example, if the Mafia kill a Gay Knight at 6 PM Tuesday, their partner will die at 11 PM Wednesday). Twice per game, if a Gay Knight's partner is dead, they may guess their partner's killer (Note: They are immune to Mafia powers that trick investigators). If they guess correctly, then they are allowed to kill their partner's killer by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "BANG." Additionally, if a Gay Knight guesses correctly, they may respond to anyone who tries to kill them by saying "I do not die" (You have 10 seconds to say this). Role distributions will be weighted toward an increased number of gay knights.
###Group Investigator
The group investigator acts the same as a regular investigator, but their investigations ask about whether anyone in a set of n people killed X. If any of those n people would have returned positive for killing X in a regular investigation, the group investigator is told "Yes, someone in that set killed X." Otherwise they are told No.
The group investigator cannot make investigations two days in a row. If their most recent investigation was m days ago, they can ask about any set of size at most 1+2+...+m = m(m+1)/2. For example, if a group investigator made an investigation on day 3, then they cannot make an investigation on day 4. They can ask about a set of at most 3 people on day 5, or can ask about a set of at most 6 people on day 6, or 10 people on day 7, or so on until they make an investigation, at which point their set size resets to 0. The group investigator is considered to have made an investigation on day 0, so they cannot make investigations on day 1, and have a maximum set size of 3 on day 2.
###Innocent Child
The innocent child is allowed to use the phrase "I am an Innocent child and I trust you" in person only. No one else is allowed to use this phrase. The Mafia have an ability that allows them to kill innocent children more easily.
###Priest
Each day, the priest can designate up to 20% of the number of players (rounding up) as sinners, and up to 20% as saints. Mods will assume the list is unchanged unless told otherwise, and will remove the last player on the list at the end of day if the previous list has become larger than 20% of game. No player can be on both their sinner list and their saint list.
If a sinner on their list kills a saint on their list, the priest will be notified that the killer was a sinner.
If a saint kills a sinner, because of their poor judgment the priest will lose their ability to discern between sinners and saints. They lose their powers for the rest of the game and will be notified. Meanwhile, any investigations on this saint for killing this sinner will return a negative result.
###Stalker
The stalker chooses a person to stalk each day. If person X is being stalked by stalker Y, X is informed that they are being stalked, but not told who is stalking them. If person X makes any successful kills while being stalked, their stalker is notified that they made the kill. If stalker Y has ever stalked person X before, they may not do so again, though stalker Z may stalk person X. No manipulation abilities will prevent the stalker from learning if their target makes a kill. Mafia have an ability that allows them to simulate the stalker role.
###Vigilante
Once per game, a vigilante may attempt to kill any player by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "BANG" at least ten seconds after deciding to do so. If the person died and was Mafia (including conscript) or serial killer, then the vigilante gains this ability back, but cannot use it again until the following day. If the person does not die for any reason or was Town aligned, the Vigilante loses their power for the rest of game. Vigilantes are Town aligned, and their goal is for the Town to win.
##Elected Roles
Players may make petitions to elect a player to an office, or to impeach a player from that office. Any player can sign each petition once. Election petitions for a role cannot exist while anyone is elected to that role. Impeachment petitions for a role cannot exist unless that player is elected to that role. This means that if another player is elected when your petition was aaaalmost ready, you have to throw it out and run from scratch after they die or are impeached. If a petition has the signatures of more than 50% of the living players, then the player who has the petition can use it by pm-ing the Mods the names of the players who signed. There are two elected roles, and a petition must list the name of the role.
###Mayor
The mayor's vote counts as three votes.
Twice per game, the mayor may ask the Mods how many Mafia there are (including conscript, but not including serial killers). No mayor may count the Mafia more than once during their regime. (If they are impeached and reelected it counts as the same regime.)
Once per day, they may make a single investigation by asking the Mods "Did X kill Y?" They must have visited Y's kill site in order to make this investigation. It counts if they visited the kill site before becoming elected mayor.
###Police Officer
Each day, the police officer may designate up to three players to "watch" the next day. The police officer gets one investigation per day (in addition to whatever investigative role powers they may have). They can use it on any person that died while on their watch list, even if they have previously investigated that death.
A police officer must visit a person's death scene and message the Mods that they did so before they can make any investigations on that person's death. They can only make police officer investigations on people who were on their watch list when they died.
##Items
The Mods, being nice guys, have given some players items at the start of game. If someone who is executed has an item, the Mods give it to a random player in game. Anyone may destroy an item by telling the Mods. Players may transfer items to each other in-person. An item transfer is only valid if both the giver and the recipient are aware of what item is being transferred. If you give an item to anyone or receive an item from anyone, you must tell the Mods.
###Shovel: (4 in game)
A player with a shovel may use the shovel to find out all role information of any dead player, including whether or not they were conscripted. Once used, a shovel is destroyed.
###Taser: (4 in game)
You may write a target's name on a taser. Once written, it cannot be erased. 5 minutes after the target's name has been written on a taser, anyone with the taser who has line-of-sight on the target may say "I TAZE (name of target)". A target who has been tazed may not make any kills for the remainder of the day (but can make conscriptions). Once used, a taser is destroyed.
##Mafia: (3 Mafia in game)
The Mafia are allowed to give anyone they want Mafia den access, but they should be wary that some players might pretend to be serial killers to gain information on the Mafia.
The following powers are all usable by Mafia, and can be used in combination with each other.
Mafia typically needs to find someone in person and touch them on the shoulder in order to kill them. Three exceptions are:
-
If they are in their own private room but their door is open, the Mafia can stand in the doorway and say "I kill you one, I kill you two, I kill you three, BANG." They may not interrupt this incant, they may not slam the door in the Mafia's face, they may not jump out their window, but they are free to make any communications they want otherwise while the Mafia chants.
-
Poison (see below)
-
Hitman (see below)
###Free Kill: (1 use per day)
Each day, any Mafia can attempt to kill someone by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "BANG." This power is shared between all Mafia, but it is not used up if the target doesn't die.
###Scheme: (1 use)
A Mafia who has not made any kills yet on a day can use this power to make an extra kill. If all living Mafia have made a kill on a day, then any Mafia can use this power to make a kill.
###Poison: (2 uses)
The Mafia may use this power to poison a player. At the start of the next day the victim is informed that they have been poisoned. The victim dies two days after the poison takes effect (after the execution).
###Set a Trap: (2 charges)
Once per day, the Mafia can set a trap on someone by pm-ing the Mods with a guess about that person's role. If their guess is incorrect, the trap is destroyed. If their guess is correct, an active charge is stored on the target, and a kill on that person by the Mafia no longer uses up the daily kill. If someone with an active trap charge on them dies for any reason, the mafia get their trap charge back.
###Slaughter the Weak: (1 charge)
This power is identical to set a trap, except that slaughter the weak charges can only be used on innocent children.
###Frame a Townsperson: (3 uses)
Choose a player X and a player Y. From now on, all investigations asking "Did player X kill player Y?" will return an answer of yes. Note that if W killed Y, an investigation of "Did W kill Y?" will also return an answer of yes. This ability will not affect Gay Knight investigations. This ability must be used at the time of the kill.
###Plant Evidence: (1 uses)
Choose a player X, and a role and alignment. The alignment can include "conscripted" and an original role. From now on, all attempts to shovel player X will return the falsified role and alignment.
###Manipulate the Press: (1 use)
You may use this on any previous murder the Mafia have committed to cause all investigations to return negative. The Mafia can also set the location where the kill is announced to have happened. When you use this ability, notify both the moderators and the victim immediately, so that the location will be posted as desired.
This ability will not affect Gay Knight investigations, though a Gay Knight will not know the true kill location. It will work on all other investigative roles including police officers and mayors. Frame may be used on top of this ability to make investigations on a different person return positive.
###Hire a Hitman: (1 use)
Before the start of the day, the Mafia may designate a non-player as a hitman. For that day, the hitman may attempt a kill. If the hitman succeeds, this uses up the Mafia's daily kill. If the hitman fails, the hitman power has still been used up.
###Conscript: (1 use)
Once per game, the Mafia may conscript a player by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse." The conscript's goal is now for the Mafia to win. The conscript retains any abilities they had before they were conscripted. The conscript can use Mafia powers as if they were a member of the Mafia. You MAY conscript someone after a failed kill attempt.
###Disarm:
If a player says "BANG" to a Mafia, they may say "Disarm." (They have 10 seconds to say this). If they do, then they ask the attempted killer if they are a serial killer. If the attempted killer was a serial killer, then the Mafia survives. If they were not a serial killer, then the Mafia still dies.
###Stalk: (1 use per day)
Each day, the Mafia may choose a target person to stalk. This ability works identically to the Stalker role above, and if the target makes a kill it will be reported to Mafia Den.
###Don (1 use):
Once per game, the Mafia can designate one Mafia (not a serial killer) to be the Don. The Don does not have to be someone who started the game as Mafia. When the Don makes a kill, the victim's microphone and any cameras in that area do not work. Additionally, the Don comes up negative if an investigator tries to investigate them for any kill they have made so far while being Don. If two of three consecutive Mafia kills are made by the Don (while they are Don), then the Mafia loses the Don powers permanently. However, they still come up negative on all kills they made as Don before they lost their Don powers.
###Mafia restrictions:
If 2 consecutive days or 3 cumulative days pass by where no Mafia aligned players make kills, Town automatically wins.
If the Mafia try to kill someone and fail, no Mafia can try to kill the same person again on the same day (this is separate from the serial killer's restriction).
##Serial Killer: (1 in game)
The serial killers want the Mafia to win. Unfortunately, they don't know who the Mafia are. The serial killer may attempt to kill any player by tapping them on the shoulder and saying "BANG". If the kill succeeds, or if the serial killer was disarmed, then they can't make another kill until three days later (for example, if you make a kill at any time on Thursday, you cannot make a kill again until after day end on Saturday). The same serial killer may not try to kill the same person twice on the same day.
A serial killer has 3 free no-kill days. Every day that they could make a kill but do not, they lose one of these no-kill days. If they fail to make a kill when they could have, and have already used up all their no-kill days, they die of bloodlust. For example, if they make kills on days 1, 4, 7, they have not used up any of these three days; if they make kills on days 2 and 6 they will die at the end of day 10, having used their no-kill days on days 1, 5, and 9. Being disarmed does not use up a no-kill day.
If the serial killer tries to kill someone and fails because the target was immune, they can make another kill the same day, but they cannot try to kill the same person again on the same day (this is separate from the Mafia's restriction). They cannot make another kill that day if they were disarmed.
If a serial killer visits a kill site before at least 3 investigators have visited that kill site, the serial killer may make one investigation about the kill. This allows them to find the Mafia more easily. Any role that visits a kill site in order to gain investigative powers counts toward those 3 investigators.
##Credits:
Game concept by Alex Arkhipov, with help from Stephanie Schmit. Rules document modified from Kevin Mustelier and Ellena Popova. Webapp made by Jakob Weisblat with help from Sammy Luo and updates from Jackie Bredenberg. Special thanks to Peter Iannucci for making the forum work, and David Benjamin for setting up the new web address. Thanks to everyone who commented and gave feedback on the game!
This document is version-controlled on github