How to play Cabal — free online social deduction game for 5–6
Traitors hide among the town. Survive the night, unmask them by day.
- Players
- 5–6
- Length
- ~12 min
- Type
- Deduce
- Price
- Free
Cabal is the full night-and-day hidden-traitor game — the format people know from Werewolf and Mafia — running in the browser with no cards, no moderator and nobody sitting out because they died first.
Hidden traitors kill someone every night. Each day the surviving town argues about who did it and votes to banish a suspect. The town wins by clearing every traitor; the cabal wins the moment their numbers match the town's.
The day phase is pure argument, so get on a call first — Discord, Zoom, FaceTime all work. Your faction is dealt to your screen alone.
Free, no app and no sign-up to join — players hop in with a 4-letter code on their own phone.
How to play Cabal
The host opens a room for at least five
Cabal is the one game here that needs five players, and seats six. Below five the maths of hidden roles simply doesn't work.
Roles are dealt in secret
Your faction appears on your screen alone. Nobody is told who else is in the cabal except the cabal.
Night: the traitors pick someone off
The room goes dark and the traitors choose a target privately. Everyone else waits — and pays attention to how long it takes.
Day: talk it out
The victim is unmasked and the surviving town argues. This is the game — and it's the phase that genuinely wants a call, because it's pure conversation.
Vote to banish
The town votes on a suspect, who is banished and unmasked. Then night falls again, and the cycle repeats until one side wins.
What Cabal looks like
How scoring works
Cabal doesn't score in points — it's a match with a winner, and it ends the moment one side achieves its condition rather than after a fixed number of rounds.
The town wins when no traitors remain. The cabal wins at parity — the moment traitors equal the rest of the room, they take it.
Because eliminated players are unmasked, information accumulates across the match. A banished innocent doesn't just cost the town a vote, it tells the cabal the town is reading badly.
Tips for winning Cabal
- As town, watch the vote patterns, not the speeches. Traitors have to vote too, and coordinated blocs show up faster than tells do.
- As a traitor, don't lead the accusations early. The most-suspected player on day one is almost always whoever spoke first and loudest.
- Push for a banish even when you're unsure. A day with no banish is a free night for the cabal, and parity arrives fast.
- Get on a call before you start. The day phase is nothing but argument — over text it's slower and much of the tension drains out.
Frequently asked questions
How many players do you need for Cabal?
Five at minimum, up to six. It's the largest game in the catalogue, because hidden roles need a crowd to hide in.
Is Cabal like Werewolf or Mafia?
Yes — it's that family: night kills, day arguments, banishment votes, hidden factions. The differences are that it runs in the browser with no moderator and no physical cards, and that roles are dealt privately to each phone.
Do we need voice chat?
It's much better with one — the day phase is a pure argument. It isn't a hard requirement, and a group text chat works, but this is the game that benefits most from a call.
How long is a match?
About 12 minutes, though it ends as soon as one side wins rather than running a fixed length.
Is it free?
Yes, free to play and free to host, and joining needs only the room code.
Free, no app and no sign-up to join — players hop in with a 4-letter code on their own phone.