How to play Betrayal at House on the Hill

How to play

Setup: Set the two haunt books, the number track and the cardboard tokens aside for later. Each player picks an explorer, takes that character board, figure and base, and puts four clips on the green starting numbers for Might, Speed, Knowledge and Sanity. Shuffle the Event, Item and Omen cards into three decks. Lay out the three starting tiles (the ground-floor tile with the Entrance Hall, the Upper Landing and the Basement Landing) well apart, shuffle the other room tiles into one face-down stack, and stand everyone in the Entrance Hall. Together, choose one of the five Scenario cards and put the rest away. The explorer with the next birthday goes first; play passes clockwise.

On your turn: In any order, you may move up to as many tiles as your Speed, trade Items and Omens once with an explorer on your tile if you both agree, and use each special action on your cards once. You can only pass between tiles where two doorways meet. Stop whenever you like.

Discovering rooms: When you step through an open doorway, turn over the top room tile. Its back shows where in the house it can go; if that isn't your floor, put it on the bottom of the stack and try the next. Place it so a doorway joins yours, move onto it and follow any text on it. If it shows an Event, Item or Omen symbol, draw that card and resolve it. Then your turn ends. Cards are drawn only when a room is discovered, not when you enter it later.

Trait rolls: Roll as many dice as the trait's current value and add up the dots; each die shows 0, 1 or 2. Damage moves clips down: Physical comes off Might and Speed, Mental off Knowledge and Sanity, and General off any traits you choose. Healing returns a trait to its green number. Before the haunt nobody can die, so traits stop at their lowest number.

Omens and the haunt roll: When you draw an Omen, keep it and roll one die for each Omen found so far. On 5 or more the haunt begins, and you are the haunt revealer. If the last Omen is drawn first, the haunt begins anyway.

The haunt begins: Find that Omen on your Scenario card. It gives the haunt number and says who the traitor is. Heroes take Secrets of Survival, the traitor takes the Traitor's Tome, and both read their introduction and setup aloud (heroes first) before splitting up to read the rest in private. Some haunts have no traitor, a hidden one, or everyone for themselves.

Attacks and damage: From now on you may attack once per turn, against an enemy explorer or monster on your tile. You both roll Might unless a card says otherwise; the lower roll takes damage equal to the difference, and a tie does nothing. If any trait reaches the skull, your explorer dies and leaves a corpse others can loot.

Winning: The first side to complete its haunt's objective wins and reads its closing text aloud.

Strategy

Betrayal is more about reading the moment than following a fixed plan, but both halves of the game give you real choices. Exploring together: Until the haunt, everyone is on the same side, so share what you find and spread out enough to open all three floors. A new room ends your turn, so trade and use special actions first, then step through the doorway. Items and Omens are what you will fight with later; a weapon in the hands of an explorer with high Might is worth a lot once attacks are allowed. Watching the Omens: The haunt roll uses one die per Omen found and needs 5 or more. With one or two Omens out it cannot happen at all; with three it is about a 1 in 7 chance, and by the fifth it is more likely than not. You cannot see a room's symbol before you place it, so you cannot dodge Omens, but you can see the haunt coming and stop wandering off alone. Looking after your traits: Before the haunt nothing can kill you, but once it starts, any trait on the skull means death. You usually choose where damage lands (Physical between Might and Speed, Mental between Knowledge and Sanity), so spread it rather than letting one trait sink. Events that raise a trait and effects that heal are worth more than they look. When the haunt begins: Read your whole section before anyone moves, special actions included. Heroes can plan openly: decide who carries which Item and who goes for the objective. What is in your book stays secret only until you use it; after that, the other side can ask you to read that part out. As the traitor: Damaging room effects don't hurt you, and you may ignore Event symbols on new rooms. Chase your objective rather than hunting heroes for the fun of it, and use yourself and your monsters as blockers: a tile with an enemy on it costs two moves to leave. As a hero: The objective wins the game, not revenge on the traitor. Heroes who scatter get picked off one by one; heroes who stay close can pass each other gear on a shared tile and pick up a fallen friend's Items.

Tips

- The haunt cannot start before the third Omen: one or two dice can never total 5. - Discovering a room ends your turn, so trade and use special actions before you step into the unknown. - You can't use a special action on an Item or Omen you didn't hold at the start of your turn, so hand gear over a turn early. - Pick the Scenario card together and don't browse the haunt books; reading only the haunt you are given keeps the surprise. - Before the haunt, damage can't push a trait below its lowest number; after it, the skull means death, so heal and spread damage while you can. - Stealing isn't a standard action in this edition, but once per turn you may take one Item or Omen from a corpse on your tile. - If the player named as traitor would rather not play it, another player may volunteer: swap the two figures and hand over the Omen that started the haunt. - You can use only one weapon per attack, and weapons never help you defend.

Player count & time

3–6 players aged 12 and up, in about 60–90 minutes. Haunts list their numbers for 3, 4, 5 and 6 players, so every count works as written. Four or five players is a comfortable middle: enough heroes to share the work after the reveal without long waits between turns.

Expansions and Betrayal Legacy

Two expansions add to the 3rd Edition, and both need its base box. The Werewolf's Journey: Blood on the Moon brings a new explorer with two miniatures, five haunts, two rooms, four cards and its own Scenario card. Betrayal at the Neibolt House: The Evil of Pennywise (2025) adds five haunts inspired by It Chapter Two, with three miniatures, four rooms and ten cards. Betrayal Legacy is a separate game: a 13-chapter campaign in which each game permanently changes your house, which stays playable afterwards.

Managing expectations

Betrayal is a storytelling game first. With 50 haunts and a lot of dice, some haunts will lean toward one side, and a good plan can still lose to a bad roll. The fun is in the reveal and the scramble that follows. When a rule is unclear mid-haunt, the rulebook's own advice is to decide as a group and move on.

Common beginner mistake

Playing with older rules: drawing a card whenever you walk into a symbol room, reading the haunt from a chart, or rolling against the number of Omens. In the 3rd Edition you draw only when you discover a room, the Scenario card picks the haunt, and the haunt starts on 5 or more. After the reveal, the classic mistake is heroes splitting up and being picked off one by one.