The Game Doesn't Celebrate It, But I Do!

The summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, there’s this game I learned to play. It’s called Mafia (no, not the one you play on your PS2, an even better one).

Essentially, the game is a role-playing card game. Poker cards are distributed out to each member of the game. Prior to the start of the game, certain cards are designated as “mafia,” “citizen,” “cop,” “doctor,” and so on. Depending on the card that you get, your role is determined. No one tells the other people in the game what card they pulled from the deck. There is a narrator who is, with respect to the game, omniscient once the first “night” is completed. The narrator will tell everyone to go to “sleep.” Sleeping only requires that you close your eyes and keep them closed until the narrator indicates that you can “wake up.”

“Alright, everybody go to sleep,” the narrator typically exclaims. Now, during the night, the narrator will ask certain members of the “community” to wake up, and then go to sleep. When mafia wakes up, they get to “kill” someone. Killing someone merely necessitates pointing at any individual in the circle. Mafia then goes to sleep, and in a short game, the night is over, and everyone can “wake up,” except for the chosen victim. At this point the deliberations begin and someone has to be voted off before the next night can begin.

Now, the basic goal of the game is for the citizens (including the cop and the doctor) to vote off all the mafia members in-between nights. At the same token, the mafia’s goal is to help vote off all the citizens, and to kill them during the night. When mafia outnumbers the citizens, then mafia wins. If the citizens vote off all the mafia, then citizens win. For a more in depth look at the game, check out this website (the rules and game-play are not exactly the same, but similar to the way I learned it).

If you’ve never played before, I’d suggest it as great fun when you’re just chillin out with a group of friends. It’s also a great icebreaker in case you want to get acquainted with a large group of people quickly. Trust me, you’ll know most, if not all, of the people in the room after just a couple games.

Beside the sheer excitement of playing the game, there are many things that intrigue me about it.

It was the one game that college students would get together and play on the weekends, into the early morning hours, that didn’t involve alcohol (we often played in the dorms where alcohol was prohibited). Honestly, I recall weekend after weekend when many of my peers and many strangers would gather just to play Mafia, as opposed to going out and partying.

I couldn’t believe the mass numbers of people that would come out just to play. I recall nights when forty plus people would show up, and sit there and play for 5 or 6 hours straight. One time, there were like ninety people for three nights in a row, so we broke up into three separate games. Get the picture?

Maybe the allure to the game is that you get the chance to become something you are not, like a killer. Maybe the randomness of the game is intriguing; this round you could be a “killer,” and the next round you might be the doctor. Perhaps the shock of finding out that your best friend is the one that “picked you off” during the middle of the “night,” attracts people to the game. I’d imagine that these reasons, along with some others, all play a role in the fascination with the game.

People that you typically wouldn’t be inclined to talk to would show up and, after awhile, you might walk out of the game with a new buddy. The people that you met through Mafia seemed to be just as cool the next day at lunch as they were the previous night during the game. So many times, if you played Mafia with someone, you were easily assimilated into their world and they into yours. While on campus, I honestly met hundreds of people that I probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet had we not played together. I'm really good friends with many of them to this day.

Along that same vein is what ultimately interests me the most about Mafia.

When I first began playing, one of the funny phrases that seemed to be a statute of the game was that “mafia doesn’t celebrate diversity (or relationships or gender or religion...).” To translate: Anybody is fair game once mafia begins to point their fingers. As a result, you often find that your girlfriend or boyfriend might be instrumental in voting you off, or may have actually killed you during the “night.”

The irony in a statement like “Mafia doesn’t celebrate diversity,” is that if you looked around the room, you couldn’t tell. One of the biggest reasons I am an avid fan of the game is that it is the only time that I see such a variety of people willingly coming together in a recreational setting. Nobody is forced to come and play, and yet they do.

Fraternity types, and Sororities alike, often play. As aforementioned, boyfriend/girlfriend pairs frequently play, only to turn on each other just to win one round. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Agnostics, Atheists, etc., all come to play. Indians, Latinos, Native Americans, Whites, Asians, Blacks (and the list goes on) are all likely to make an appearance. I’ve seen Israeli’s and Palestinian’s, Democrats and Republicans, Engineers and English majors, all get along as if there was no difference to speak of.

I don’t know if anyone else does it, but when I see and recognize the incredible range of diversity that is represented in each game of mafia, I sit back, marvel, and smile.

I wish that each day could be like this. I wish that when we meet someone, we could leave our prejudices at the door, and peaceably come together. Before there were Communists, Terrorists and Criminals, there were people. You can’t know what a person is before you meet them. I've never read "Green Party" on anyone's forehead. Hearing someone's religious affiliation isn't a measuring stick. Skin color is certainly no thermometer either.

I recognize that there are some inherent PC concerns with the game, like the notion of what the Mafia (the real one) is and does. And though I kind of take issue with the some of the concepts of the game (mainly that we are “killing” people), I do appreciate that this game can accomplish for a few brief hours what people can’t seem to do in a whole lifetime.

-Maelstrom