Betrayal at House on the Hill - Tips & Strategies

Once the villain is determined, it is essential the the rest of the group cooperate as much as possible. For most scenarios, specialize team characters by trading items as quickly as possible to make sure each character has what he/she needs to maximize their chances to roll successfully in their highest characteristics — then use them effectively. Hoarding items after the villain is determined is usually a loss for the good guys because items often provide the edge your team will need to be victorious.

So trade often during play and don’t be afraid to sacrifice a character if there’s no way he/she can survive. The player with the dead character can still participate by helping the rest of the team with tactical suggestions.

This works in the opposite direction as well. Don’t let the players know what you’re doing.

There is a reason that you have two separate books. The traitor doesn’t know everything you know or what your win conditions are (though sometimes they will know some or at least have an idea). If you keep the traitor in the dark about what you’re doing and how close you are to winning, you have an advantage over that player. If you let them know everything, then they’ll know how to stop you.

However, if you’re the traitor and there’s something about your haunt you don’t understand, I consider it acceptable to ask one person on the good team who is very familiar with the game for help on whatever you have questions on. Hopefully your play group will have somebody knowledgeable enough with the rules and honest and fair enough to not share your secrets with the rest of his team.

As much as possible, try to spread the items and upgrades around among the group, unless the Haunt has been revealed and all but one Hero is weak or dead.

More often than not, you’ll need help from everyone. And spreading the wealth around also minimizes the lost upgrades if a Traitor is revealed.

We get super frustrated with the stats markers falling off or sliding around during the game. So we replaced them with small coloured paperclips. They match the colour of the character and are a snug fit. Plus the loop of the paperclip circles the stat value!

Brandon Jaspers is the best overall character. A starting stat of 4 in all but one category gives you a very good chance of passing most rolls. His weakest link, knowledge, goes from 3 to 5 on it’s first boost. Looking at the lowest possible scores, his sanity and speed, which i consider to be the most important stats, will never be below 3.

Most players get seduced by the extreme stats of some of the other characters, but overall, Brandon is slightly above average in everything, which gives you versatility in beating almost anything the house throws at you!

When reading out the event cards, (which should be done in your best horror movie voice), stop reading when it comes to the dice rolls.

I.e. If you roll 5+ do X

Roll the dice and only then read what has happened, this helps maintain the tension of the moment and will also stop you from rooting for an outcome.

If you play often I’m sure that there are times when the haunt is one you have already played. The Esoteric Order of Gamers has put together a bunch of additional haunts. The website is http://www.orderofgamers.com/games/betrayal-at-house-on-the-hill/

The game can become unbalanced with 7+ players, but if you really want to play and have 7 or 8 people, as long as you’re willing to adjust the haunt slightly, you could make it work. You generally need a player who’s very familiar with the game and most haunts, though.

Since all characters are two sided, the extra players can pick the second side of a character so everybody is still a unique character. If you’ve replaced your warped tiles, as long as you haven’t chucked them, you could easily use those. Otherwise, you’ll need to keep track of stats on paper (keep track of how they’ll go up and down as well).

When the haunt starts, you’ll need to vary the game based on the additional players. Many haunts will introduce monsters based on the number of players. For instance, in the cat and mouse haunt (forgot the name), you have one cat for 3-4 players, and 2 cats for 5-6 players. So if you have 7-8, just scale this up and create 3 cats.

You’ll have to factor in some judgement to make sure the game is balanced, which is why I recommend doing this with an experienced player. But I know how it feels when you really want to pull out this game, and you have just one too many people who came over for game night.

Remember, this game was only meant for up to 6, and even then, not all haunts work with the allowable number of players, so don’t expect a perfectly balanced game. But Betrayal is definitely more of a game for the experience than anything else.

We’ve found the game to be a lot more fun if everyone gets in to the mood of the game. We’ll dim the lights a bit, everyone plays in character, and once the haunt begins, we’ll put on some Midnight Syndicate as background music.

Everyone still remembers my wife as the little girl who was the last survivor, near insane, and clanging her hands together as the monkey with the cymbals. Good times.

This is a variant we played when I played with my friends this past weekend. You have the player to your right read your event cards instead of reading your own. This adds to the gameplay experience in feeling like you’re in a haunted house and don’t know what’s going to happen. Don’t have the player read what values need to be rolled, and this will force the active player to decide whether or not to commit items before seeing the outcome of a roll. This house rule provides a slightly different gaming experience than without.