Mafia is an explosive mixture of psychology and a detective story, usually played with a deck of cards. Unlike many other card games, this one has a known year of creation—1986—and a known author—Dmitry Davidov, who, not surprisingly, was a psychology student at Moscow State University. The Mafia quickly gained a following and spread worldwide.
Our edition of Mafia is the only one blessed by its godfather. It’s totally legal to use breaks between Mafia sessions to play anything from solitaire to poker with the same deck.
The Mafia’s rules are, shall we say, flexible and are passed around by a word of mouth, resulting in a vast variation of code. This official edition includes such nice extras as the story of its creation, a set of rules, roles from the author, and some popular variations.
The game comes with a deck of 54 plastic standard playing cards plus eight special cards and a brochure.