In this variant, the moderator determines the number of Mafia, angels, archangels, etc., before the game begins. He can throw in a bulletproof vest or not. He shall call out the parts for these roles during the night whether he has included them or not. The civilians will be in ignorance of how many Mafia there are, or how many angels, etc., or even if there are angels.

Adrian Banner has suggested another variant of this, in which the moderator starts with a pool of cards greater than the number of players in the game and randomly deals them out. This is very useful for small games, if combined with the variant that the Godfather does the actual killing and the Mafia do not know who each other are.