Mafia (also known as Werewolf) is a social deduction game, created in 1986. The game models a conflict between two groups: an informed minority (the mafiosi or the werewolves), and an uninformed majority (the villagers).

Dmitry Davidoff is generally acknowledged as the game's creator. He dates the first game to spring 1987 at the Psychology Department of Moscow State University, from where it spread to the classrooms, dorms, and summer camps of Moscow University. Wired attributes the creation to Davidoff but dates the first game to 1987, with 1986 being the year in which Davidoff was starting the work which would produce Mafia.

He developed the game to combine psychology research with his duties teaching high school students. The game became popular in other Soviet colleges and schools and in the 1990s it began to be played in other parts of Europe and then the United States. By the mid-1990s a version of the game became a Latvian television series (with a parliamentary setting, and played by Latvian celebrities).

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