How To Play: Betrayal At The House On The Hill 3rd Edition

How to Play Betrayal at the House on the Hill (3rd Edition)

Game Overview

Players begin as explorers investigating a haunted house. They discover rooms, find items, and encounter events and omens. Eventually, a haunt begins, changing the game’s roles and objectives. Often, one player becomes the traitor and faces the remaining heroes, though some haunts use different team arrangements. The first side to meet its haunt’s victory condition wins.

Setup

• Each player chooses one of the six double-sided character boards, takes its matching figure and base, and sets the four trait markers—Speed, Might, Knowledge, and Sanity—to the green starting values.
• Shuffle the event, item, and omen cards into separate face-down decks. Set out the dice and reference cards.
• Place the starting room tile with all characters in the Entrance Hall. Set out the upper- and basement-landing tiles, then shuffle the remaining room tiles into a draw pile.
• As a group, choose one of the five scenario cards. Read its back aloud without looking at the front, then return the other scenario cards to the box.

Exploring and Taking Turns

The player whose character has the next birthday goes first; turns then proceed clockwise. On a turn, a player may move, trade with another explorer on the same tile, and use eligible item or omen special actions. A turn ends when the player cannot or chooses not to take more actions. Discovering a new room immediately ends the turn after its effects are resolved.

• Movement: A character may move up to their Speed value, spending one point per adjacent tile. Some obstacles cost two movement points to leave.
• Discovering rooms: When moving through an unexplored doorway, draw a room tile matching that floor—basement, ground floor, or upper floor. If the top tile is for another floor, put it on the bottom of the pile and continue until you find a match. Place the tile with a doorway aligned, move the explorer into it, and resolve any printed effect.
• Room symbols: An event, item, or omen symbol means draw and resolve a card from the corresponding deck.
• Events: Read and follow the card’s instructions, including any required trait rolls, then place the card at the bottom of its deck.
• Items: Keep them face up. Their special actions can help the explorer, but an item’s special action can only be used if the character had the item at the start of their turn.
• Omens: Resolve the card, then make a haunt roll when instructed. Roll a number of dice equal to the total omens drawn so far; a result of 5 or more starts the haunt.
• Trading: Once per turn, explorers on the same tile may exchange any number of items and omens. You cannot give away an item or omen you already used for a special action or attack that turn.

Traits and Damage

Trait values may rise or fall as the game progresses. Moving a marker one space does not always change its value, since character boards may repeat numbers. A trait cannot rise above its highest value; healing returns it to its green starting value unless it is already at or above that value.

Before the haunt, a trait at its red lowest value is critical, but explorers cannot die. Physical damage can be divided between Might and Speed, mental damage between Knowledge and Sanity, and general damage among any traits. After the haunt begins, a character dies if a trait reaches the skull symbol.

When the Haunt Begins

The haunt starts when a haunt roll is at least 5, or immediately when the last omen card is drawn. Use the scenario card to identify the haunt and determine whether there is a traitor. Each side reads the relevant entry in its own haunt book—the heroes use Secrets of Survival and the traitor uses The Traitor’s Tome—and follows its setup instructions. The groups separate so they can read their rules and discuss strategy privately.

Afterward, the player to the left of the haunt revealer takes the first turn. Haunt rolls stop, but the usual explorer actions continue alongside the haunt’s special rules.

Haunt Gameplay Highlights

• Traitor abilities: The traitor and their monsters ignore damaging tile effects and may treat event symbols as optional. If they draw an event, they must resolve it.
• Opposing characters as obstacles: Characters on opposing sides count as obstacles to one another, costing two movement points to leave their tile.
• Monsters: The traitor controls monsters, which move by rolling dice equal to their Speed. Most cannot be killed; damage usually stuns them, flipping their token to its stunned side.
• Attacks: Once per turn, a character may attack an opposing character or target. The sides make competing Might rolls, unless an item or haunt allows another trait. The lower roll’s side takes damage equal to the difference; ties deal no damage.
• After a death: A player on the same tile as a fallen explorer may take one item or omen from that character’s belongings once per turn.

Tips Highlighted by the Rules

• Check your Speed before moving, and plan around obstacles that cost extra movement.
• Resolve a newly discovered room and its symbol effects before making other plans, since discovery ends your turn.
• Remember the timing restriction on item actions: you must possess the item at the start of your turn to use its special action.
• Keep track of the total number of omens, since that determines the number of dice for haunt rolls.
• Once the haunt begins, read your side’s specific objective and rules carefully; victory conditions and team arrangements vary by haunt.

The video also points viewers to page 5 of the rulebook for differences from earlier editions and mentions the expansion Betrayal at Neibolt House: The Evil of Pennywise, inspired by It Chapter Two.

Source featured: Hasbro Games.