MY FIRST MAFIA EXPERIENCE
Last night I experienced the game of "Mafia" and I have to say that it's a cool game. If I can remember all the rules we have to play this game in the Fall during college. Okay Meghan, Melissa, Mike, Shaun and anyone else reading this who will be in Kamloops come September? Are you reading this? I'll briefly desribe the game right now.
To put it simply, although it is fairly complicated before getting a hang of it, you have a group of people, and within that group there is the Mafia, Townspeople, an angel and a cop. The mafia is the minority group and are trying to take over the town, the townspeople are trying to save the town, while the cop has the power to kill members of the mafia and the angel can bring whoever the mafia kills back to life, if in fact he/she manages to guess the right person. That's right you have to guess, and you never really know in this game that's the thing. You just have to base your decisions on evidence.
The game is started when the team names are placed in a hat, there is a host of the game by the way who makes sure nobody cheats and supervises, ect. The host carries the hat around the circle, each person picks a paper out of the hat, which will read "Townsperson", "Mafia", "Cop" or "Angel". Nobody can say who they belong to or else they lose. People then close their eyes and only members of the mafia open their eyes to figure out whos on their team. Only the mafia knows whos on their team the whole game and must protect their true identity throughout the game, because the majority(townspeople) will vote out a mafia person once the identity of who the person belongs to is revealed.
Then the eyes are closed again, and only the cop opens his/her eyes, and after that it's likewise with the angel. Then everybody opens their eyes. After that the first round begins and everybody goes in a circle saying their name and a profession, trying not to make it obvious that you might be a mafia member and looking out for the towns health. I was Ed the engineer once, and then Leonardo the artist. Other people went as a teacher, a butcher, librarian, foot doctor, veterinarian, stuff like that.
After everybody goes in the circle the questions can continue to take place until somebody gets the ball rolling by accusing somebody as being mafia, and if a majority supports that decision, which will be determined by the number of hands raised, then the vote stands, and after the person is officially voted off, he/she says who he/she truly is. It's like "Survivor" in this sense. After that the mafia can open their eyes again when everyone else's is closed, and they chose somebody to kill, by basis of hand and eye signals since any noise will be heard by everyone else. Remember, they aren't leaving the circle, they just have their eyes closed. After that everyone except the angel closes their eyes. Then the angel can save that person, and give him/her the life back if he/she choses the right person. The cop has the power to kill a mafia person if he/she choses the right one, or something like that. There's a few details I don't fully understand but I plan to get rules to this game straight before I go back to school, and we'll have a game. It is really a cool game, but it involves the total cooperation of everybody involved. I ended up losing the first game as a townsperson, but then won as a member of the mafia. In a sense, if the mafia can protect their identity well, they may have a somewhat edge because they know who's on their team. And depending on the numbers, the mafia is usually one or two people shorter than the townspeople I think. This is how the game went last night:
Total people = 10
host = 1
townspeople = 4
mafia = 3
angel = 1
cop = 1
We were real cop haters, we killed the cop right off the bat both times. Lets just say there wasn't much a criminal justice system in our town.
Anyhow, another thing is that if it's even (ie 3 mafia to 3 towns) the mafia wins. So the game can be real quick or real long. Last night the games went sort of quick, but it's a good game that way. It doesn't last too long usually, so if you're voted off right away you can get the ball rolling with another game right away. Games usually don't go right down to the wire, although they can. Wow, that really wasn't a brief explanation, ah well.
Anyways, my friend Luke Mayba introduced the game to me. He works at the McLean Mill in town here as a member of the Tin Pants Theatre, no their pants aren't made of tin, but they are a theatre group which performs at the mill site all summer long, it's pretty cool. Anyhow, he lives out at Sproat Lake, a lake close to town and had a BBQ last night, that's when I learned the game. It was interesting.
Anyhow, not much outside of the world of "MAFIA", just been working and keeping busy with tennis when I get the chance. My parents get down here on Friday and we're going camping to Ucluelet for the weekend.
Last night I experienced the game of "Mafia" and I have to say that it's a cool game. If I can remember all the rules we have to play this game in the Fall during college. Okay Meghan, Melissa, Mike, Shaun and anyone else reading this who will be in Kamloops come September? Are you reading this? I'll briefly desribe the game right now.
To put it simply, although it is fairly complicated before getting a hang of it, you have a group of people, and within that group there is the Mafia, Townspeople, an angel and a cop. The mafia is the minority group and are trying to take over the town, the townspeople are trying to save the town, while the cop has the power to kill members of the mafia and the angel can bring whoever the mafia kills back to life, if in fact he/she manages to guess the right person. That's right you have to guess, and you never really know in this game that's the thing. You just have to base your decisions on evidence.
The game is started when the team names are placed in a hat, there is a host of the game by the way who makes sure nobody cheats and supervises, ect. The host carries the hat around the circle, each person picks a paper out of the hat, which will read "Townsperson", "Mafia", "Cop" or "Angel". Nobody can say who they belong to or else they lose. People then close their eyes and only members of the mafia open their eyes to figure out whos on their team. Only the mafia knows whos on their team the whole game and must protect their true identity throughout the game, because the majority(townspeople) will vote out a mafia person once the identity of who the person belongs to is revealed.
Then the eyes are closed again, and only the cop opens his/her eyes, and after that it's likewise with the angel. Then everybody opens their eyes. After that the first round begins and everybody goes in a circle saying their name and a profession, trying not to make it obvious that you might be a mafia member and looking out for the towns health. I was Ed the engineer once, and then Leonardo the artist. Other people went as a teacher, a butcher, librarian, foot doctor, veterinarian, stuff like that.
After everybody goes in the circle the questions can continue to take place until somebody gets the ball rolling by accusing somebody as being mafia, and if a majority supports that decision, which will be determined by the number of hands raised, then the vote stands, and after the person is officially voted off, he/she says who he/she truly is. It's like "Survivor" in this sense. After that the mafia can open their eyes again when everyone else's is closed, and they chose somebody to kill, by basis of hand and eye signals since any noise will be heard by everyone else. Remember, they aren't leaving the circle, they just have their eyes closed. After that everyone except the angel closes their eyes. Then the angel can save that person, and give him/her the life back if he/she choses the right person. The cop has the power to kill a mafia person if he/she choses the right one, or something like that. There's a few details I don't fully understand but I plan to get rules to this game straight before I go back to school, and we'll have a game. It is really a cool game, but it involves the total cooperation of everybody involved. I ended up losing the first game as a townsperson, but then won as a member of the mafia. In a sense, if the mafia can protect their identity well, they may have a somewhat edge because they know who's on their team. And depending on the numbers, the mafia is usually one or two people shorter than the townspeople I think. This is how the game went last night:
Total people = 10
host = 1
townspeople = 4
mafia = 3
angel = 1
cop = 1
We were real cop haters, we killed the cop right off the bat both times. Lets just say there wasn't much a criminal justice system in our town.
Anyhow, another thing is that if it's even (ie 3 mafia to 3 towns) the mafia wins. So the game can be real quick or real long. Last night the games went sort of quick, but it's a good game that way. It doesn't last too long usually, so if you're voted off right away you can get the ball rolling with another game right away. Games usually don't go right down to the wire, although they can. Wow, that really wasn't a brief explanation, ah well.
Anyways, my friend Luke Mayba introduced the game to me. He works at the McLean Mill in town here as a member of the Tin Pants Theatre, no their pants aren't made of tin, but they are a theatre group which performs at the mill site all summer long, it's pretty cool. Anyhow, he lives out at Sproat Lake, a lake close to town and had a BBQ last night, that's when I learned the game. It was interesting.
Anyhow, not much outside of the world of "MAFIA", just been working and keeping busy with tennis when I get the chance. My parents get down here on Friday and we're going camping to Ucluelet for the weekend.
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