How to play OmertaEra

OmertaEra is a free, text-and-pictures mafia MMO set in Prohibition America, 1931, in the tradition of the classic browser mafia games. You play one gangster among everyone else’s, in real time, and when that gangster dies the death is permanent. This is the short version; the rules have every number.

1. Your first hour

You start as a Stranger in Chicago with a few hundred dollars. The quickest money is crimes: pick a local business, wait out a cooldown of a minute or two, and try again. Each success pays cash and rank points; each failure risks jail, where you sit for a few minutes unless another player busts you out. Busting strangers out of jail is itself a way to earn, so the cell block is rarely quiet.

Auto theft works the same way at four spots from the slums to the five-star hotel: steal a car, keep it, sell it, or race it later. Spend spare minutes at the gymnasium and the shooting range, which raise the stats everything else depends on.

2. Arm yourself before anyone notices you

The store sells guns and armor from the era. Buy a vest first, then the best gun you can afford, and put money you are not using in the bank: cash in your pocket is what a killer takes. A new character has a short period of protection; after that anyone who can find you can shoot at you.

3. Bootlegging: the real money

There are 9 kinds of booze and 9 states with 20 cities between them, and every state’s prices move every fifteen minutes. Buy where it is cheap, travel, and sell where it is dear. The deputies at the station take a cut of what they catch, so a bigger load is a bigger risk. This is how most gangsters make their first million.

4. Join a Family, or found one

A Family is a crew with a Boss, a Council, Lieutenants and Soldiers, a shared treasury, properties and rackets, and wars with other Families. You can join one straight away; you can found your own once you reach Gangster. Organized crimes need several players at once and pay accordingly.

5. The casino and the poker tables

Roulette, blackjack, craps, faro, keno, slots, baccarat and the race track are all here, and every table is a property a player can own. No-limit Texas hold ’em and Seven-Card Stud are played against other gangsters at tables in your city, with scheduled tournaments. Every roll and every shuffle is provably fair: you can check the numbers yourself afterwards.

6. Whacking, and being whacked

To kill a rival you hire an investigator to find which state they are in, travel there, and shoot. The odds come from guns, armor, stats and bullets. The hitlist carries public and anonymous bounties that pay on the kill. When you die you stay dead: the grave goes in the public obituaries, and your next character starts from nothing.

7. The long game

Ranks run from Stranger to Legendary Don on rank points. Seasons crown leaders every few weeks, the monthly Chronicle writes down what the players did, and nothing in the game is for sale, so the only way up is to play. Read the FAQ for the usual questions, or start a new life.