Palermo game presentation made for "Playing Europe" Erasmus+ KA229 project

1. Palermo (aka Mafia)
Christos Koliothomas, Dimitra Sarantopoulou
Evangeliki Model High School of Smyrna
Erasmus+KA229 "Playing Europe"
school year 2021-2022

2. History of Palermo
● This game was created in 1986 by the psychology student Dimma Davidoff in the Moscow University, while
he was writing his diplomatic assignment.
● He was trying to come up with psychological games.
● His students became the first players, but his game spread in the dorms and the summer camps, too. It
became enormously famous in more and more universities.
● Palermo is considered to be one of the 50 top historical and cultural games since 1800.

3. Rules of the Game
● The Prologue: Every person gets a card and receives one of the following roles: The Two Assassins (Known and
Unknown), The Policeman and the Townies. There can be more roles like the Mad One or the Mayor, but those are
only used for a more complicated version of the game.
● The Night Phase: The players are “asleep” and they cannot see what happens. Then, when the narrator says so, the
Two Assassins wake up to see each other, and the policeman learns who the Known Assassin is. Then they all fall
asleep again and wait till the night ends. After round one, the Assassins can assassinate one person each night, and
that person is out for the rest of the game.
● The Day Phase: Everyone is awake and it’s time to discuss who every person believes is an Assassin. Nobody can
reveal his role until he’s out of the game. After the discussion, each person votes for the one they think should go out.
The Policeman tries to make the Townies vote for the Assassin he knows about. The Assassins, on the other hand, try
to make the others look more suspicious.
● The Finale: There can be two possible endings. Either the Townies and the Policeman find both the Assassins and the
good ones win, or there are left fewer Townies than Assassins alive, so the evil ones win.

4. Variants of the game
There are a lot of variants of this game. The players could even “transform” the rules so they can suit them better.
For example, some players prefer not to tell their role when they are out of the game. The number of players is
usually more than 6 persons. In this way, the players choose new and different roles, like:
● The sidekick: (also known as the bitch) who knows who the assassins are and helps them throughout the
game. However, the assassins don’t know his/her identity.
● The mayor: Before each person gets a card, the players vote for a “mayor”. The mayor has the privilege of 2
votes whenever the players need to decide who the assassins are.
Also, there are many apps (which can be easily downloaded on your phone) that are -if not the exact same- similar
to this game.

5. Video (in Greek)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd6_JsCQcSI