Source
r/boardgames•
7_Lab

Has anyone else experienced this in Betrayal Legacy? (Spoilers)

SpoilerQuestion

My friends and I played a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill Legacy last night, we were on chapter 5 and did Haunt 44. We ran into a pretty large disagreement on the rules, and I was wondering if anyone else has run into this, and how you ended up ruling it.

Here is the situation that we ran into:

!In this hunt, there is a portal in the basement that is sucking up the house (removing tiles). It removes tiles from farthest to closest. The traitors monster can also expedite the process using the same rules. we were at the end of the game, so all tiles had been removed except for the basement tiles. Our portal token was on an outside edge room, as the basement was a 3x3 layout of rooms. The traitor then proceeded to use their monster to remove the portal room first, before removing the other 7 rooms (Landing was in the center and had to be last) which ended the game and counted as a win for the Traitor. The Heroes didn't think this was correct since The portal is what is consuming the tiles, and the monster can only expedite the process. It would make sense that the last tile to be removed would have to be the portal. However, the rules did not explicitly say that the portal room had to be last, but the lore does, and thus began the debate!!<

So here are the rules for the hunt basically:

!Basically, a portal token is placed on an item room in the basement, this portals function is to suck up the house, from the outside in. Once the portal has been placed, rooms start being removed from gameplay. Tiles are removed from the edge of the board, and you cannot remove tiles that would otherwise leave a tile unreachable. Tiles can only be removed from one region at a time. Once all tiles except the landing tile for the region have been removed, remove the landing tile and start on the next region. The order of the active region goes as follows: Outside, Upper Landing, Ground Floor, Basement. (So from the furthest most from the portal to the closest).!<

For clarity, here are images of the actual rules for the haunt. This way you can see the specific wording. The lore is at the top of the page and explains what is happening while the rules layout the specific mechanics for it. >!I believe that there was an oversight when writing the rules and that it should have been specified that the portal room is the last room to go.!<

Hero Rules:

!https://imgur.com/NLplMBy !<

Traitor Rules:

!https://imgur.com/LpexZPj !<

Please let me know what y'all think!

Posted Sep 1, 2019, 1:43 AM UTC

95
jeffnhl•

Hiding reasoning due to spoilers... however tldr we did this haunt and I believe the traitor had it right and it is by design.

!My group did go through this haunt, as memory serves the heroes had some flexibility (and a game impacting choice) on where he Portal goes on setup - certainly its possible it could be forced and a convenient place for the traitor to win, but that sort of set of circumstances can happen in any haunt (having the right gear, or a favorable map setup).!<

!I would highlight the fact that the win conditions are in Bold All Caps and uses the words "Portal Collapses" rather than saying when all house tiles are consumed. There are already so many fire-gaps against the traitor - Outside tiles, upstairs and main level first and the ancestor can only go on a rune tile space (and can be stunned by diligent heroes). Also with the collapse rules the portal will always be on a room tile, which would leave the basement landing as there is no mechanism to destroy that tile and the portal can't be on that space. With all the changes that would be needed to preserve that view of the lore seems more intentional than an oversight.!<

!That being said I hear the theme point - but if that was the key why not also skip the outside tiles and just do the house itself?!<

3
7_LabOP•

That is how we ended up ruling it, as the rules regarding whether a tile can be removed only state that removing a room can't cut off other rooms. And the word difference between collapse and close for the traitors and heroes win condition. It was just weird because heroes all assumed the basement would work the same way the other floors did and that we had more time. It blindsided us as we could have ended the game earlier, we were just trying to give ourselves the best chance we could, and we thought we had more time left than we did because we thought the other rooms had to go first. Glad to get some confirmation on how we ruled it tho!

1
Cobalt32•

I'd say the traitor had it right, as their winning condition is "when the tile when the portal collapses", and the heroes had 4 other regions of cushion in order to fulfill their win condition.

The placement of the portal tile is part of the game, if ti favors one group over the other, well that's how it goes.

3
7_LabOP•

That's a good point, you can just end up getting unlucky in this game a lot lol.

1
jppbkm•

Traitor had it right. The tile COULD be legally collapsed and he caused it to do so.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1