this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
21 points (100.0% liked)
boardgames
5853 readers
3 users here now
Everything boardgames
Please stick to English for posts and comments
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
IMO, no.
Assuming one bloke knows the rules, the game flows fairly smoothly. In the pre-haunt phase, you:
Once the group knows these base rules, the pre-haunt game goes very quickly, because you mostly move 2-3 squares (depending on your move points), draw a room, place a room, draw a card, resolve the card and pass on. If the group knows the game, this goes very quickly.
Once the haunt triggers, you have a builtin bio-break. Both the survivors and the evil guy have a bunch of new rules to read and understand. For my main crew, this usually takes 5 - 10 minutes to read and discuss strategies, and we usually combine this with bio-breaks, drink refills, snacks and such.
Comparing this with games like Arkam Horror, Eldritch Horror, or even worse, actual P&P games like DND, It is very smoooth and low-rule-lawyers to play.
Thank you for the description, I will check it out for sure :)
I've played a lot of Betrayal. I play tested it at AvalonCon back while I was in high school.
It's very random, and has the potential for some really great games and some real duds. I know in the later editions there have been efforts made to tighten up the scenario balance, do maybe things are better. But From my experience, maybe 1 in 3 games has been 'good', 1 just meh, and the last a steamroller for one side. So many of the scenarios depend on thr size of the house, with too large or too small of a house making it unbalanced. Or specific items being useless or over powered. And many of the scenarios have pretty loose rules.
As long as you understand that, it's a fairly light game that can have a decently large group working together.
I've enjoyed my copy, but there was a stretch where it was OOP and going for big money. It wasn't worth that, but for a regular in-print price, it's fine.