At a recent gathering of friends, I was introduced to the party game “Mafia.” (In the first round I was killed off whilst tweeting about Dracula.) My first thought, of course, was “how can I make a vampire version of this game.

Here’s what I’ve got:

Initial players

1-2 vampires (akin to mafiosos in the original)
1 slayer (akin to the sheriff)
1 doctor (akin to the nurse or angel)
townspeople
1 narrator

As in the original, the vampires awaken at night and choose their prey, the slayer tries to find out who is a vampire, and the doctor tries to save someone. The first “day” plays out similarly as well, one person is dead (unless saved) and the townspeople choose suspects, then stake and decapitate one.

The difference comes on the second “night.” Before saying “vampires, wake up,” the narrator says “dead, arise” at which point the person killed the night before looks up. The narrator decides (based on coin toss or the number on the player’s card) if he or she becomes a vampire. This is signaled silently to the player.

So each “day” the townspeople not only have to choose suspects, they have to choose whether to use their one “kill” of the day on one of the suspects or on the recently deceased.

One other change is that after the townspeople stake someone, they get to find out if that person was a vampire or not.