For a 10-player game of Mafia, use 2 Mafia. That gives the town enough votes to recover from a mistake while the Mafia still have a real chance. Move up to 3 Mafia only if the town has a Doctor and a Detective and your group has played before. With 3 Mafia and no power roles, the town usually loses.
Below is the reasoning, a sample 10-player setup, and a table for every group size from 5 to 20.
A 10-player Mafia setup that works #
This is a balanced list for 10 players:
| Role | Count | Team |
|---|---|---|
| Mafia | 2 | Evil |
| Doctor | 1 | Town |
| Detective | 1 | Town |
| Bodyguard | 1 | Town |
| Civilian | 5 | Town |
That’s 2 evil players against 8 town. Three town power roles give the majority tools to find the Mafia, and five plain Civilians keep role-claiming from taking over the day.
For a harder game, swap in a third Mafia member for one Civilian and drop the Bodyguard: 3 Mafia, Doctor, Detective, 5 Civilians. This works for groups that already play well together.
Why 2 Mafia and not 3? The math of a 10-player game #
Mafia is a race. Each night the Mafia remove one townsperson. Each day the town removes one player, hopefully a Mafia member. The Mafia win once they equal the number of town players left alive. Here is what happens if the town misses every vote and nobody is saved:
With 2 Mafia (2 evil, 8 town):
- Night 1 kill: 2 Mafia, 7 town
- Day 1 vote misses: 2 Mafia, 6 town
- Night 2 kill: 2 Mafia, 5 town
- Day 2 vote misses: 2 Mafia, 4 town
- Night 3 kill: 2 Mafia, 3 town
- Day 3 vote misses: 2 Mafia, 2 town. Mafia win.
So the town gets three votes and has to land two of them, with each Doctor save buying an extra round. That’s a fair fight.
With 3 Mafia (3 evil, 7 town):
- Night 1 kill: 3 Mafia, 6 town
- Day 1 vote misses: 3 Mafia, 5 town
- Night 2 kill: 3 Mafia, 4 town
- Day 2 vote misses: 3 Mafia, 3 town. Mafia win.
Now the town gets two votes before parity and has to find three Mafia. The Detective gets only a couple of checks before the end. Unless the Doctor saves someone early, 3 Mafia at 10 players is tough on the town.
What the game’s creator and later designers recommend #
The original rules from Dimitry Davidoff, who created Mafia in 1986, suggest that a third of the players, rounded to the nearest whole number, be Mafia. Andrew Plotkin, who added the Werewolf theme in 1997, recommends exactly two, whatever the group size. Both come from Wikipedia’s article on the game.
For 10 players, Davidoff’s rule gives 3 and Plotkin’s gives 2. The difference is that Davidoff’s early games had no Doctor and no Detective. Once the town has power roles, a third of the table is too many for most groups. A common modern rule of thumb is one evil player for every three or four town players.
How many Mafia for every group size #
This table uses one evil player per three to four town players, with power roles scaled to size. It lines up with the presets in the Mafia Helper app, described further down.
| Players | Mafia | Town power roles | Civilians |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 1 | Doctor, Detective | 2 |
| 6 | 1 | Doctor, Detective | 3 |
| 7 | 1 | Doctor, Detective | 4 |
| 8 | 2 | Doctor, Detective, Bodyguard | 3 |
| 9 | 2 | Doctor, Detective, Bodyguard | 4 |
| 10 | 2 | Doctor, Detective, Bodyguard | 5 |
| 11 | 2 | Doctor, Detective, Bodyguard | 6 |
| 12 | 2 | Doctor, Detective, Bodyguard | 7 |
| 13 to 20 | 3 Mafia + Godfather | Doctor, Detective, Bodyguard, Vigilante, Miller | The rest |
At 12 players, 2 Mafia starts to feel light for experienced groups. Many hosts go to 3 there. At 13 and above the Godfather and Miller are added as a pair, so the Detective’s results are no longer perfectly reliable.
Small tables need extra care, so we wrote up how to play Mafia with 5 players separately. Big groups get their own guide too: Mafia for 15 to 20 players.
Setups that break the game #
- No evil at all. The town wins before anyone speaks.
- Evil equal to or larger than everyone else. With 5 Mafia in a 10-player game, the Mafia already control every vote and win on the spot.
- More than a third of the table evil. Not an instant loss, but the game becomes a short massacre. At 10 players that means 4 or more Mafia.
- Too many power roles. When every player has a power, the day turns into a contest of claims and counter-claims. Keep at least half the town as Civilians.
- Two killers at small sizes. A Serial Killer plus 2 Mafia at 10 players means up to three deaths a day cycle. Save the Serial Killer for 13 or more.
Let the app do the balancing #
If you don’t want to work this out every game night, Mafia Helper has presets for 5 to 7, 8 to 12 and 13 to 20 players, in both Mafia and Werewolf themes. The 10-player preset is the setup at the top of this page. If you customize seats, its balance checker blocks setups where one side would win instantly and warns you when evil roles fill more than a third of the table. The Role Guide suggests the same one-evil-per-three-or-four ratio used here.
Frequently asked questions #
How many Mafia should there be for 8 players? #
Two Mafia with a Doctor, a Detective and a Bodyguard is a good 8-player game. One Mafia at 8 players tends to be found by the second vote. If your group is new, 2 Mafia with just a Doctor and Detective is also fine.
How many Mafia for 12 players? #
Two or three. Two Mafia with three town power roles suits newer groups, and three Mafia suits experienced ones. At 12 players, the town has enough votes to survive one early mistake either way.
How many Mafia for 15 players? #
Three or four evil players. A common setup is 3 Mafia plus a Godfather, with a Doctor, Detective, Bodyguard, Vigilante and Miller for the town. The Vigilante helps keep a big game moving.
Is it better to have too few or too many Mafia? #
Too few is more forgiving. A game that’s slightly easy for the town still gives everyone plenty of arguing, while a game with too many Mafia can be over before the Detective learns anything. If you’re unsure, pick the lower number and add a Godfather next time.