Board Meeting

Board Meeting: Betrayal at House on the Hill

Acquiring Betrayal at House on the Hill involved fortuitous timing.  I had been interested in Avalon Hill games ever since I was in college; during my freshman year we played floor-wide games of Diplomacy in the lounge of our dorm.  Later on, I purchased a new version of that game and learned that Avalon Hill’s catalog and brand had been purchased by Hasbro.  The Avalon Hill website began to advertise all the new games that were going to be published, and I discovered a horror-based board game that looked almost like a role playing game.  As soon as it was available, I ordered the game and proceeded to make it a staple of game night for at least the next year.

The premise of Betrayal at House on the Hill is that the players are a group of adventurers exploring an old haunted house.  The house is gradually revealed, tile by tile, as the players move throughout.  Traps, monsters and mayhem await in nearly every room of the mysterious mansion.  Eventually, one or more of the adventurers will succumb to the terror of the surroundings and turn on the other players.  After that point, the objective of the game is to defeat the traitor and flee the house!

COMPONENTS

Betrayal at House on the Hill contains a lot of pieces and parts.  There is no traditional board, as the playing area appears and expands as the players wander through the house.  In order to give that impression, the house is made out of tiles that get added to the house when a player passes through an unexplored door.  The room tiles are detailed and relatively easy to understand; a couple of the doors and windows are hard to pick out.  Each player chooses one of six pentagonal cardboard pieces that have a characters abilities and stats.  These numbers provide for dice mechanics during play.  The cards also correspond to one of the plastic miniature characters

As with many games in Avalon Hill’s catalog, this game comes with a stack of cards that are divided into events that occur when rooms are explored, items that players can use or carry, or omen cards that can be items, events or curses.  Events can be beneficial or harmful to the player who triggers them, causing various effects such as moving the player around the house, damaging or boosting the player’s stats, or affecting the other explorers.  Items can be weapons or accessories that change the stats for the owner, and they can also be used to affect gameplay. Omen cards are a combination of event cards and item cards.  Some of the omens will immediately affect either the explorer who drew the card or everyone playing.  Other omen cards are held as items and used in the same manner.  There is a also a twist on the omen cards – they are the catalyst for the traitor.  Every time an omen card is drawn, the dice are rolled to determine if the “haunt” starts.

The game also includes a large amount of punch-out cardboard tokens.  These represent everything from monsters to effects and secret passageways.  The monster tokens are used to represent the monsters or henchmen involved in the haunt, while the effects are usually placed in a room to show that special rules apply.  Event cards usually call for those tokens.

The quality of the game pieces is decent.  High quality cardboard is still cardboard, however, and the edges and corners of the pieces can be damaged.  The character cards and the turn counter have plastic sliders that are attached that can damage the edges.  The cards are laminated and are the same weight and quality as standard playing cards.  The floor tiles are uniform (other than the special three-square long entry tile) and lay flat, though the entry tile can get warped.  I recommend getting a small tackle box or something similar to hold the tokens.  Early on I realized that the built in box dividers were inadequate to hold everything, and the dividers in the tackle box help to sort the different types of tokens to make it easier to find specific pieces.

RULES

The rules of this game are somewhat complicated, as there are a large number of situations to cover.  There are three rule books included: the main rule book, a scenario book for the explorers and a scenario book for the traitor.  The scenario books apply to when the haunt begins, which is when the traitor is revealed and the game object changes.  In each scenario book the conditions for the haunt to begin are listed, dictating which player is the traitor based on who started the haunt, which room it was started in, and what card was drawn.  The main rule book covers the basic rules for the game, as well as the different card types.

Unfortunately, the rules that were shipped at the time of printing were incomplete, contradictory, and unbalanced.  Hasbro supplied new rules and haunt scenarios, along with corrections to existing rules on the game’s website.  The game can be a little frustrating and slightly unfair, so players shouldn’t try to play without the supplemental materials.  This is the largest problem with the game in my mind, but since the company supplied corrections it isn’t a deal breaker.

DIFFICULTY

There are dice involved, but this should not give the impression that the game is random or easy.  The dice act more like they would in Dungeons & Dragons, used in combat or to tell if an event or condition applies to the player in question.  The first half of the game is very straightforward, exploring the house and following the instructions on the cards that are drawn.  However, after the haunt begins the rules become quite a bit more complicated, because after that there are combat rules and more creatures involved.  Each haunt scenario calls for different things; some require strategy, others require luck, and sometimes the traitor or explorers just need to hold on for a certain amount of time.  Betrayal at House on the Hill is definitely a game that requires time and thought, and isn’t something to be undertaken just to pass the time.

FUN FACTOR

The game stays pretty fresh in each play through, even after a lot of games, because of the haunt mechanism.  Selection of a scenario is sufficiently random and keeps the second half of the game different from the last time through.  There is a small chance to get the same scenario twice in a row, but it is a rare occurrence.  Every game really requires a group of people who are willing to play together, but it is especially important in this case.  Even though the traitor is chosen based on the luck of the draw, that player is then pitted against the rest of the players.  It is both a strength of the game and a weakness.  The haunt scenarios aren’t all perfectly balanced (purposefully) and sometimes the traitor can feel that the odds are stacked against him, just because the other players can work together.  However, it usually works out all right and the next scenario could be unbalanced in the other direction.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is one of my favorite board games.  It’s also the most played out of the newer games in my collection.  I don’t really own any other games that are like it – it is pretty unique.  Unfortunately, Hasbro only printed it for a short time, and it is out of print.  Apparently the game is popular, as there aren’t even very many used copies available.  Probably the only way to get it is to pay for the overpriced copies out there, watch for a good deal, or hope that Hasbro reprints the game.