Betrayal at House on the Hill LEGACY

It was just announced at Pax Unplugged, apparently coming Fall 2018 from Rob Daviau.

This idea excites me, since it's one of my all-time favorite games, and the chance to escalate its insanity over multiple plays is intriguing.

Ten years too late for me.

I'm curious but not excited. The original Betrayal was unreliable fun. I always liked the exploration during the first half of the game, but the second half of the game is a short, not-fun stomp about half the time. Even a good scenario can be undermined by a bad layout to the house. If a Legacy game started out weak, players might be stuck with a bad house layout for the whole campaign. Or if the house layout still changes every game, it seems like the legacy aspect would be diminished.

My amount of excitement is directly proportional to the degree to which the legacy aspect of the game is able to explain away and incorporate the curb-stompings. My prediction is that they'll sand off the rough edges of the design (fewer scenarios, much less chance of an early haunt like the D&D version, etc.) to make the game more balanced but ultimately less memorable.

Will there be character elimination? How can a character be the traitor in one session and part of the team in the next? Or will the first traitor be stuck in a permanent traitor role? Or will they just toss the horror aspect of the game and everybody gets a reset (and resurrection if needed) after each game?

I like the legacy concept in general, but it seems like a poor fit for this game.

Once the game breaks, it’ll stay broken forever? Sounds good.

Perhaps the legacy part is less about characters but more about the properties/abilities the house takes on over time.

They have said that each player is essentially a family, and you may age if you survive or become a descendant. The game takes place over decades, with your family evolving based on past exploits.

hotseatgames wrote: They have said that each player is essentially a family, and you may age if you survive or become a descendant. The game takes place over decades, with your family evolving based on past exploits.

Okay, that actually makes sense and sounds cool. But is the house going to keep changing shape over the course of the campaign?

*coiugh* Seafall *cough*

This is exactly the kind of game Legacy could make insanely good.

Is “ Legacy “, as a mechanic, patented?

Shellhead wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: They have said that each player is essentially a family, and you may age if you survive or become a descendant. The game takes place over decades, with your family evolving based on past exploits.

Okay, that actually makes sense and sounds cool. But is the house going to keep changing shape over the course of the campaign?

Sounds like they're going the Castlevania method where Dracula's castle appears every 100 years and someone from the Belmont clan has to go in and show him what's up. And since it's a magic castle, the layout changes every time.

ufe20 wrote:

Shellhead wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: They have said that each player is essentially a family, and you may age if you survive or become a descendant. The game takes place over decades, with your family evolving based on past exploits.

Okay, that actually makes sense and sounds cool. But is the house going to keep changing shape over the course of the campaign?

Sounds like they're going the Castlevania method where Dracula's castle appears every 100 years and someone from the Belmont clan has to go in and show him what's up. And since it's a magic castle, the layout changes every time.

Usually a legacy game involves permanently altering the game components, or at least the map. What would be the legacy aspect of this game aside from characters sometimes surviving from one game to the next?

Aside from unlocking new cards, tiles or tokens locked away in the dossier or whatever, you could place stickers (or maybe have some be scratch offs) on the tiles to permanently alter some rooms? So the layout is still different each game but now there's new rooms and some rooms have been "upgraded"? Obviously you couldn't have piles of stickers on tiles, but one or two small ones shouldn't be too big a deal.

This sounds like the perfect game for Rob to make. He needs a collaborator and/or a proven fun game system. Seafall didn't have this, but Betrayal will. I expect this game to murder.