Betrayal at House on the Hill (Closed)

[Kish]

You and five other people you know are setting out to explore the deserted house on the hill. One of you has, or will discover, a private agenda; the others will have to be clever and lucky to survive it.

I’ll accept as many players as sign up for this. Each individual group will be no more than 6 Explorers. Think of the different groups as parallel timelines, or just completely unconnected games; they’ll have separate threads and almost certainly different Haunts.

At the beginning of the game, all of you are Explorers (a neutral term, which will remain throughout the game). Partway through the game, the Haunt will become active. Which horror storyline is in effect here will be determined, as will which player is either behind the evil in the House or in league with it. At that point, one player in each group will become a Traitor while the others will become Heroes. The storyline may be fantasy or sci-fi, but will definitely be horror. Which haunt is selected is random, but more complicated than a simple dice throw, depending on which rooms you’ve explored and which omens you’ve discovered at the time it becomes active. Which player becomes the Traitor is, similarly, random but determined by who has been where, who has what, and which Haunt is selected. When the Haunt becomes active, depending on what’s happened that far, which Haunt it is, and who the traitor is, the game may be balanced or it may be completely unbalanced in either direction.

This is not a Werewolf game; everyone will know who the Traitor is.

Dice used in this game are 1d3-1. If I say “roll a die,” it means roll 1d3-1. If I say “roll six dice,” it means 6d3-6.

Each of you has four statistics: Might, Speed, Knowledge, and Sanity. Each of them starts at the number currently marked in green on your character sheet (see Characters, below). If a stat improves, it will move to the left along the track; if it deteriorates, it will move to the right along the track. Before the Haunt becomes active, the furthest any stat can deteriorate is the number at the right end of the track. Once the Haunt is active, it will become possible for a stat to reach the skull marker on the track. If that happens, you will die or possibly, depending on the Haunt, suffer some other horrible fate.
“Physical damage” means adjusting your Might and Speed, in a combination decided by the damaged character’s player, to the right. “Mental damage” means adjusting your Knowledge and Sanity, in a combination decided by the damaged character’s player, to the right. So, for example, if you take 3 points of physical damage, you can: move your Might three places to the right, move your Speed three places to the right, move your Might one place to the right and your Speed two places to the right, or move your Speed one place to the right and your Might two places to the right. If the Haunt isn’t active yet, you can “negate” damage by applying it to a stat which can’t go any further to the right; this strategy may well get you killed, however, as it will guarantee you’re one place away from death when the Haunt does become active.

“Make an X roll” means to roll a number of dice equal to your current number in that stat. So if you make a Sanity roll, and the number currently in green on your Sanity track is 4, you roll 4d3-4.
When the Haunt is active, you have the ability to make a basic physical attack on an Explorer or Monster in the same room with you. You make a Might roll, they make a Might roll. The one who rolls lower takes a number of points of physical damage equal to the difference between the rolls. If the attacker rolls at least two points higher than the defender, they can declare that they’re stealing an item rather than punching; if they do, the defender takes no damage, but a transferable item of the attacker’s choice moves from the defender’s inventory to the attacker’s. Any other means of inflicting damage, you’ll have to discover or gain inside the house. A Hero probably won’t want to attack another Hero. Most Monsters do not take damage if they lose a fight, but are stunned instead. A stunned monster cannot act on its next turn and does not passively impede Heroes until after its next turn.

There are weapons inside the House. In case I don’t remember to mention it when you find one, a weapon can only be used to attack, not to defend (if you find an axe and use it, you can roll an additional die for your Might roll when attacking, but still roll your unmodified Might when defending).

On your turn, you can: use any items that have on-use effects, trade as many items as you choose to another Explorer who is willing to take them and is in the same room with you, drop as many items as you choose, and pick up as many items as you choose. You can only perform each of these actions once per turn (so, e.g., Zoe can hand the Spirit Board and the Ring both to Madame Zostra or to Father Rhinehardt, but she cannot hand the Spirit Board to Zostra and also hand the Ring to Rhinehardt; she can pick up five items that are in the same room, but cannot pick up one item, move, and pick up another item that’s lying on the floor in the room next to it; she can drop five items in one room but not one item in each of two rooms), and you cannot perform more than one of these actions with the same item (you can either stab a monster with the Spear or trade it to another Explorer in the same room with you, not both in one turn).

Each turn, you can move a number of spaces equal to your current Speed number, or until you draw a card for any reason, whichever comes first. (Monsters move differently, but we’ll deal with that later.) If there is someone opposed to you in a room (the Traitor or an un-stunned monster if you’re a Hero, a Hero if you’re the Traitor or a monster), it takes an extra space worth of movement to leave that room for each opponent there. No matter how many penalties to movement you have, if you are able to move you can always move at least one space on your turn. That does include that if you have an effective Speed of 1 and are a Hero in a room with the Traitor and five monsters, you can move out of that room even though doing so takes 7 spaces worth of movement. However, if you are immobilized by some effect rather than speed-reduced, you can’t move at all.

Knowledge and Sanity have no overt and explicit function at the beginning of the game, as Might and Speed do. That probably means you should ignore them as meaningless. (I accept no responsibility should anyone take this advice seriously.)

Before the Haunt is active, people can move in whatever order they post. If you move into an unexplored region, you’ll need to wait until I describe what’s there; I’ll try to do so as fast as possible. Whenever I post, I’ll say who has actions remaining that turn, or, if everyone has acted, that a new turn is starting and when it will end. If 48 hours pass from one of my posts and someone hasn’t acted, I’ll announce that they haven’t acted; at that point whichever Explorer posts first can move for them. If an Explorer misses two turns with no explanation, I’ll start looking for a replacement player.

When the Haunt is active, the game will alternate Hero Turns and Monster Turns. During the Hero Turn, each Hero can move in whatever order they post. If you move into an unexplored region, you’ll need to wait until I describe what’s there; I’ll try to do so as fast as possible. Whenever I post, I’ll say who has actions remaining that turn, or, if everyone has acted, that the Monster Turn is starting and when it will end. If 48 hours pass from one of my posts and any Hero hasn’t acted, I’ll announce that they haven’t acted; at that point whichever Hero posts first can move for them. If a Hero misses two turns with no explanation, I’ll start looking for a replacement player.

During the Monster Turn, the Traitor has 48 hours to resolve their actions. If it takes longer than 48 hours, I’ll start looking for a replacement player to take over for the Traitor. If I can’t find one, the game will end and I will be unhappy.

When the Haunt becomes active, I’ll set up two QTs, one for the Heroes and one for the Traitor. The Traitor’s QT will be only for communicating with me, so it will remain active for the rest of the game. The Heroes’ QT will be freely usable for 48 hours, after which I may still post information in it which is available to the Heroes but not the Traitor, but any strategy discussions between the Heroes need to take place on the game thread (where the Traitor can see them). The Traitor will post their normal actions in the game thread; if they have special abilities with hidden effects, those will be posted in the QT, but most likely everything that anyone does (if not why) will be posted in the game thread. This is a no-PM game.

The Heroes will know their win condition. They will have to deduce the Traitor’s win condition (that is, what they need to prevent lest they suddenly be told the game is over and they lost). The Traitor will know their win condition. They will have to deduce the Heroes’ win condition (that is, what they need to prevent lest they suddenly be told the game is over and they lost). When in doubt, it’s a pretty safe bet that killing you off would be better for the opposing team than for you.

These are the twelve characters who can be played in this game. Please submit your top three choices; I’ll endeavor to make sure everyone gets one as close to the top of their list as possible. In the unlikely event that I need to ask someone to settle for a character they didn’t list, whom I ask that of will be completely random.

Spoiler: Characters

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Spoiler: Heather Granville

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Age: 18
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 120 lbs.
Hobbies: Television, Shopping
Birthday: August 2nd
Heather has always been perfect—perfectly petite, perfectly blonde, perfectly polite. Perfect, perfect, perfect. If even the teeniest, tiniest thing in her life isn’t perfect, it gives Heather a headache. Sometimes her headaches get so bad it feels like something is trying to dig its way out of her skull. But even that doesn’t wipe the perfect smile off her face.
Heather’s eldest sister is friends with Jenny—why, Heather doesn’t really know. After all, Jenny’s certainly NOT perfect. Heather knows Flash and Professor Longfellow from school. Vivian is a friend of her mother’s, has been for years. Heather’s greatest fear is that she isn’t actually perfect after all.

Spoiler: Jenny Leclerc

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Age: 21
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 142 lbs.
Hobbies: Reading, Soccer
Birthday: March 4th
Jenny is a quiet girl. She loves soccer, but sometimes she’s too shy to cooperate with her teammates the way she should. Jenny’s greatest pleasure is curling up alone in a tiny place reading a gigantic book—the older the book, the better. The books keep her from dweling on her mother’s disappearance, that day fourteen years ago when Mom went to the store and never came back, leaving Jenny alone. Alone forever.
Jenny’s only real friend is Caitlyn, Heather’s older sister. Jenny also knows Ox, since she grew up only a few doors away from him on Mulberry Lane. And Jenny knows Madame Zostra from the library, a place they both adore.
Jenny’s greatest fear is being trapped in a crowd or lost out in the open.

Spoiler: Ox Bellows

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Age: 23
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 288 lbs.
Hobbies: Football, Shiny Objects
Birthday: October 18th
Ox Bellows was always a big kid. Never got beaten up. Always did the beating up ... but only when he had to do it. (Well, except for that one time.) Ox doesn’t like to think about that, but the blood and screams creep into his dreams on cold, lonely nights.
Ox has known Jenny since they were kids growing up on Mulberry lane. He met Professor Longfellow at Greenwich University. Ox has known Father Rhinehardt all his life. He’s been confessing his sins to the priest since he was small (except for that one sin he doesn’t like to talk about).
His greatest fear is of the dark.

Spoiler: Darrin “Flash” Williams

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Age: 20
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 188 lbs.
Hobbies: Track, Music, Shakespearean Literature
Birthday: June 6th
Flash isn’t the most original name ever for someone as fast as Darrin. But he likes it. It’s comfortable and it fits him, just like his favourite pair of track shoes. Darrin lives to run, and runs to live. When he’s not running, Darrin feels like there’s something coming for him ... something Not Good. Even when he runs, the wind sometimes whispers in his ears, and he swears he can hear the Not Good Thing coming up behind him—fast. No wonder he’s the star of the track team.
Flash knows Jenny from the neighbourhood. She’s okay, but she’s real quiet. He’s known Madame Zostra for his entire life. After all, he’s her nephew. Zoe’s his little cousin, but he’s only met her a couple of times.
Darrin’s greatest fear is that he’s going to be caught by the Not Good Thing (whatever it is).

Spoiler: Vivian Lopez

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Age: 42
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 142 lbs.
Hobbies: Old Movies, Horses
Birthday: January 11th
Vivian’s perfect day is to get up late, have coffee and doughnuts, and then ride one of her horses all day. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get to spend too many days like that, since she’s so busy trying to keep her little used book store from going under. Some days she gets so frustrated she just feels like burning the place down, or maybe just burning the little shed out back ... or the school. But she’d never do anything like that. Still, sometimes she has nightmares about striking the match ...
Vivian is a friend of Heather’s mother, Sarah. She also knows Madame Zostra and Father Rhinehardt as cutomers at her little book store, Something Written. For extra money, Vivian has been babysitting Missy Dubourde at least once a month for the past few years.
Vivian’s greatest fear is of fire ... and her fascination with it.

Spoiler: Madame Zostra

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Age: 37
Height: 5'0"
Weight: 150 lbs.
Hobbies: Astrology, Cooking, Baseball
Birthday: December 10th
Madame Zostra (she never tells a potential client that her birth name is Beth), has been a tarot and tea leaf reader since college. She started out working part-time sitting in the window of an occult bookstore, but now she has her own home astrology business. Although Madame Zostra reads cards for a living, she won’t ever read her own cards. She is terrifed that she’ll see her own death in the cards, something she can’t bear to think about.
Madame Zostra is familiar with Vivian and Father Rhinehardt from seeingg them at Vivian’s bookstore. Flash is her nephew, and she never fails to buy him birthday and Christmas gifts. She sees Jenny regularly at the library. Zoe’s mother comes to Madame Zostra for tarot readings.
Madame Zostra’s greatest fear is death ... particularly her own.

Spoiler: Missy Dubourde

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Age: 9
Height: 4'2"
Weight: 62 lbs.
Hobbies: Swimming, Medicine
Birthday: February 14th
Missy can’t remember wanting to be anything except for a doctor. Her favourite gift ever in the whole wide world was her frst doctor’s kit. She practices ‘medicine’ on anyone who will let her. She even cuts up dead frogs and stuff she finds in her yard. But sometimes that gets bad, and she dreams of dead frogs hip-hopping into her bed at night and smothering her. Then she screams.
Missy knows Peter (and his gross bug collection) from school. She knows Father Rhinehardt from Sunday school (he talks funny and smells like chocolate). Missy lives in the same neighbourhood as Brandon. He delivers her family’s paper, but she doesn’t really know him. (She thinks he’s cute, though.)
Missy’s greatest fear is of dead things coming back to life and hunting her.

Spoiler: Zoe Ingstrom

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Age: 8
Height: 3'9"
Weight: 49 lbs.
Hobbies: Dolls, Music
Birthday: November 5th
Zoe likes to play in her room with her dolls. Each doll has its own name, family, history, pets, and everything else a doll needs to be happy. Zoe helps her dolls play out little dramas, mostly happy ones, but sometimes the dolls get mad at each other and hit. Not that Daddies would ever hit Mommies. That doesn’t happen. Leastways, you’re not supposed to talk about it. So, Zoe plays with her dolls.
Flash is Zoe’s cousin, but she doesn’t know him real well. Zoe’s mom goes to Madame Zostra for tarot card readings. Zoe likes playing with her dolls under the table there. Zoe’s family sometimes goes camping with Brandon’s family. But Zoe doesn’t like it, so she mostly stays in the tent and plays with her dolls.
Zoe’s greatest fear is the boogeyman ... whoever he is.

Spoiler: Peter Akimoto

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Age: 13
Height: 4'11"
Weight: 98 lbs.
Hobbies: Bugs, Basketball
Birthday: September 3rd
Peter’s two favorite places in the world are the basketball court and under his house. He likes the basketball court because that’s where he can play his favorite game. He likes being under the house because it’s a great place to hunt for bugs, plus it’s a good place to avoid his fve older brothers. Sure, all older brothers pick on their younger siblings, but Peter’s brothers really pick on him. But what’s a few broken bones among family? Peter loves bugs and wants to be an entomologist when he grows up—an entomologist who never has to speak to his brothers.
Peter earns extra money taking care of Professor Longfellow’s yard (and finding cool bugs—bonus!). He knows Missy from school. She likes to do pretend medical exams on him and check out his real broken bones, but she doesn’t like it when he shows her his bug collection.
Peter’s greatest fear is that he’ll get trapped somewhere and never be able to escape.

Spoiler: Brandon Jaspers

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Age: 12
Height: 5'1"
Weight: 109 lbs.
Hobbies: Computers, Camping, Hockey
Birthday: May 21st
Brandon loves computers and camping. He takes his new laptop with him wherever he goes. That way he can program AND camp at the same time. Cool. Brandon’s never liked playing with regular toys, action figures, or that kind of thing. In fact, he hates puppets. He had a clown puppet when he was little, and some mornings when he woke up, he’d find it had moved closer to him. Brandon’s pretty sure his big brother, Chris, was messing with him. But he still hates puppets.
Brandon sometimes sees Zoe’s family when they go camping. Zoe usually hides in the tent with her dolls, though. Yuck. Brandon delivers the newspaper to Professor Longfellow (in his big old freaky house) and to Missy’s family.
Brandon’s greatest fear is of puppets, particularly clown puppets.

Spoiler: Professor Longfellow

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Age: 57
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 153 lbs.
Hobbies: Gaelic Music, Drama, Fine Wines
Birthday: July 27th
Professor Josiah Longfellow is very proud of his aristocratic roots. His family used to have money ... at least until his father lost it all on gambling and alcohol. The Professor still lives with his aging mother in the rundown Victorian that used to be the finest house in town. His father disappeared one day. Ran out. His mother has a rather large life insurance policy, but of course, he doesn’t want to collect on it any time soon, no matter how nice the money would be.
Professor Longfellow knows Ox, Flash, and Heather from the university. Brandon is his paperboy. Peter mows the yard and takes care of other petty chores around the house.
The Professor’s greatest fear is that he will lose everything he has, proving to everyone that he’s no better than his deadbeat father.

Spoiler: Father Rhinehardt

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Age: 62
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 185 lbs.
Hobbies: Fencing,
Gardening
Birthday: April 29th
Father Rhinehardt was born in Munchen, Germany (or Munich, as Americans call it). He moved with his family to America when he was 15 ... and then got beaten up for the next three years. Father Rhinehardt turned to religion for the reasons why people treated him so badly. Eventually, he entered Seminary and became a priest. Since that day, long ago, many people have confessed their sins to him. But there is one man who haunts him, every few years, a stranger who sits in the confessional and whispers of murder and madness. In recent years, Father Rhinehardt has found he’s starting to agree with the madman’s arguments. Blood, pain, death—they are all a part of life, of God’s plan, are they not?
Father Rhinehardt is familiar with Vivian and Madame Zostra from seeing them at the Something Written bookstore. He knows Ox from hearing him confess his petty sins. He also knows Missy from her appearances at Sunday school.
More than anything, Father Rhinehardt fears going mad.

[Ramsus]

I shall be in.

[Celticbear]

Yeeeeeesssssss i love this game!!!!

[Ramsus]

Minor thing to note Kish, last I checked this part of the forum doesn't allow rolls. I don't know why. Now would be an excellent time to petition someone to change that.

[Kish]

No? Inconvenient. I think the odds of them revising the code in time for the game are negligible, even if they agree without hesitation that there's no reason to keep rolls disallowed here, so we'll have to use links to a thread in the die rolls forum then.

[Ramsus]

Just to test...
[roll]3d3-3[/roll]

Sorry I didn't do character picks before, the game showed up right before I went to sleep so I hadn't actually read through it at the time I signed up.

Character Choices
Zoe Ingstrom
Missy Dubourde
Ox Bellows

[Celticbear]

I always go with Longfellow but if I can't then I'll go with his opposite Rhinehardt.

[Kish]

Three choices, please. So for Celticbear that'll be:

Longfellow
Rhinehardt
?

[Celticbear]

Whoops, missed that bit in my basic skimming of the text. Let's say... Madame Zostra? Sure, we'll go with her.

[Ronnoc]

I adore this game, and am very much in. Character picks will be up when I get something other than my phone to type on.

*edit*
Father Reinhart
Jenny
Flash

[Felandria]

In.

Jenny
Ox
Flash

[Rocks_Fall]

In

Brandon
Peter
Zoe

[JbeJ275]

So very in.

Ox
Peter
Vivian

[Reinholdt]

I would like to be in.

Heather Granville
Darrin Williams
Madame Zostra

[Deathslayer7]

I enjoy this game as well.

Though it seems I'm a bit late to the party.

Professor Longfellow
Darrin "Flash" Williams
Father Rhinehardt

[Kish]

Definitely not late; I'll be closing recruitment and starting the game in the first few days of December (I would say specifically December 3rd, but I might not be able to that particular day).

[Celticbear]

Sweet. So excited.

[Logic]

Count me in. I'll make my character choices by Monday.

[Xihirli]

Sanity doesn't go below 2 and that makes me sad.

[GrayDeath]

Sounhds weirdly interesting (lets see if we can do a better horror than and then all but Main Char were dead, the End" Hollywood.

Choices:

Heather
Vivian
Father Rinehart

[Kish]

Sanity doesn't go below 2 and that makes me sad.

I count four characters whose Sanity can go down to 1 before they die: Jenny, Flash, Missy, Longfellow.

[Xihirli]

But the green ones are their starting sanities.

[smuchmuch]

I'm familiar with the game but I'm not sure how exactly playing it s a forum game without the board and tiles and all will work, especialy for the exploration phase ?

Still if it's still possible to join, I would be interested.

[Kish]

I'm not closing recruitment until sometime in early December. Please let me know your character picks.

[Logic]

Alright! I know I am a few days late, but I have my preferred character choices.

Professor Plum Professor Longfellow
Colonel Mustard Ox Bellows
Miss Scarlett Heather Granville
Actually, pretty much anything is acceptable to me. Put me on the random list 1st.

[Deathslayer7]

I'm still curious as to how you plan to do the map exploration part.

[Celticbear]

I'm still curious as to how you plan to do the map exploration part.

He could have a betrayal game set up at home, moving the players along then taking a picture after movement. Or use excel. Or do any number of things. Okay, I'm curious now too.

[Kish]

You'll find out soon.

smuchmuch, character picks? I'll be closing recruitment within about 36 hours now.

[GrayDeath]

Lookjing forward to this, must be ages since I played the game its based on or something similar (dont know if it was that exact one, given games ove rhere are often msitranslated^^).

[Kish]

Recruitment is closed. Game threads are submitted, and will hopefully be approved soon; I'll PM a moderator as soon as I finish writing this. up.

Group 1
Celticbear	Madame Zostra
Felandria	Jenny Leclerc
JbeJ275	Ox Bellows
Ramsus	Zoe Ingstrom
Ronnoc	Father Rhinehardt

Group 2
Deathslayer	Professor Longfellow
Graydeath	Vivian Lopez
Logic	Ox Bellows
Reinholdt	Heather Granville
Rocks_Fall	Brandon Jaspers