Board Gaming - Betrayal at Baldur's Gate

ratticus (58)in #gaming • 6 years ago

Betrayal at Baldur's Gate

First up, it's pretty obvious that this is a re-skin of the 2004 game Betrayal at House on the Hill. This is not a bad thing, since the original game, once they'd released all the errata, was quite a good game, and the expansion to it added even more replayability to the game.

In this take on the game, there is 50 new possible stories going on, which are all (at least loosely) based on things from D&D's township of Baldur's Gate, and all the tiles fit towards the theme of building the town, with the 3 levels of the haunted house being replaced with Building and Street tiles for the ground level, and catacombs tiles for the underground level.

Betrayal Baldurs Gate - Town and Catacombs.jpg
^{2 characters are off exploring the catacombs (right) while the other 2 are still in town (left)}

The game starts as an exploration game, with all the players starting in the tavern (because where else would RPG explorers form a party?) and uncovering more of the city as you each have your turn. As you go you will gather items and deal with some random events, as well as collecting omen items. Every time one is collected, that player needs to resolve a roll to see if the triggering event has happened. They've changed the method of the roll from the original game making it impossible to happen on the first roll, and possibly the second, but still increasingly more likely as more omens are discovered. I think I prefer the new method, though I think it leaves it possible for no even to happen with all the omen cards drawn (incredibly unlikely though), while the original method meant that it was impossible to avoid the last card triggering the haunt.

When the event happens, a table in the front of one of the books is checked and then the party is split into 1 (or more) traitors, and the rest of the party. Each group goes off briefly to consult their respective book (Survivor's guide or Traitor's guide). From this point, the game has changed from being non-lethal and co-operative exploration to a 1 vs many game where there are various types of possible objectives you could have. You might need to get to a few specific rooms and discover some items, or you might need to defeat the traitor and/or their minion monsters. It all depends on which story you end up in, which is dependant upon which omen item and room tile were the combination that the failed roll came after.

Betrayal Baldurs Gate - larger Catacombs.jpg
^{We were just about to die as we fail this story in the catacombs.}

As with the original game, the various stories can be quite variable in how easy or hard they are, and that can be made easier or harder for some if they are triggered earlier or later in the discovery phase of the game, so even if you end up in the same story, it might not be anywhere near the same play as the first time through.

One thing they could have improved on the original game with though is the masses of little tokens. There are so many individual tokens that you might only need in a single story, or as a result of a single event card. It's a nice touch, but when it comes to playing the game, finding the right token can be quite a hassle. It would be nice for them to mention (with a symbol) on the card what shape it is at least! Even the most well organised sets I've seen it takes a while, and when it comes to creatures/monsters, we usually just pick a type of tile rather than digging around for the exact one mentioned.

I've been quite a fan of the original game, and was pleased when an expansion came out for it giving more variety to the haunts available in it. I'm quite happy to see this use of an existing IP to provide a re-skin, though it would have been nice if a little more was done to bring the D&D feel in to the game, as it still feels more on the 'horror' side of things than most of my RPG experiences.