Once I attended a math olympiad training camp, and was told a story explaining why we were not allowed to play "Mafia":
The previous year, students had arranged a real-time version of the game, so that, each night, the mafia would vote and eventually someone would go knock on the victim's door. At some point, a maid found a piece of paper in someone's dorm, listing a "God", the names of people who had been "killed", who was to be killed that night, etc. The police were called.
The matter was eventually cleared up, but from then on, the camp imposed a strict policy of no "Mafia". People were free to play equivalent games, as long as the vocabulary of the game was not something that could conceivably lead to a repeat incident.
Ha! In my family we play the Mafia game by the book but with alternative themes. My father-in-law used to work as a fireman, so I created the game of "Pyromaniac" for a family weekend trip. And for a party of one of my children, I rewrote the game towards "Wolf in sheep's clothes". They loved it (and would not understand the mafia references).
Hopefully the police is not alarmed by bits of paper with labels as "wolf" (mafia), "dog" (guardian angel), "shepherd" (detective) and "sheep" (civilian)...
Comments
And there is this great story in Wired on the history and popularity of this game, especially at tech conferences: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/03/features/wer...
Once I attended a math olympiad training camp, and was told a story explaining why we were not allowed to play "Mafia":
The previous year, students had arranged a real-time version of the game, so that, each night, the mafia would vote and eventually someone would go knock on the victim's door. At some point, a maid found a piece of paper in someone's dorm, listing a "God", the names of people who had been "killed", who was to be killed that night, etc. The police were called.
The matter was eventually cleared up, but from then on, the camp imposed a strict policy of no "Mafia". People were free to play equivalent games, as long as the vocabulary of the game was not something that could conceivably lead to a repeat incident.
Ha! In my family we play the Mafia game by the book but with alternative themes. My father-in-law used to work as a fireman, so I created the game of "Pyromaniac" for a family weekend trip. And for a party of one of my children, I rewrote the game towards "Wolf in sheep's clothes". They loved it (and would not understand the mafia references).
Hopefully the police is not alarmed by bits of paper with labels as "wolf" (mafia), "dog" (guardian angel), "shepherd" (detective) and "sheep" (civilian)...
I believe the proper term is `isomorphic' games?