Role Games

In this group of games, cards are used to assign secret identities to the players, normally by dealing just one card to each player. In the course of the game, players can carry out various actions, according to the role assigned by their card. The aim is usually to identify the player(s) with a particular role or to eliminate other players from the game.

• Murder is perhaps the simplest game of this group, where one player, the murderer, tries to eliminate all the others by discretely winking at them while avoiding exposure. See the Wikipedia page on Wink Murder.
• Candyman or Drug Dealer is a similar game featuring a cop who tries to identify who is selling candy (or drugs) to the other players.
• Mafia, also known as Werewolf, is a more complex game in which there is a team of mafia (or werewolves) who kill villagers by night while the surviving villagers try to expose and eliminate the killers by day. It is said to have been invented by Dimma Davidoff and here is an archive copy of his original rules. The Wikipedia Mafia page describes many variants.