Betrayal at House on the Hill Rules | Play the Traitor

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a 3 to 6 player game for ages 12 and up that runs 60 to 90 minutes, and the box to buy in 2026 is the Third Edition from 2022 at $55.99. The haunt begins when a haunt roll succeeds, one player becomes the traitor, and the traitor gets two turns a round while the monsters take the second one.

I am Spector, a dad to Alex, 7, and Emma, 10. Betrayal at House on the Hill is the game on our shelf where I have to be the one explaining why the nice lady just stabbed my son in the back, and it is the only game where Emma at 10 still asks to play the traitor a second time on a Tuesday.

Here is the honest version of what this page is. The old version of this page was a traitor psychology essay with almost no rules in it. It never told you which edition it was describing, never gave a component count, and got the single most important rule in the game, the haunt roll, wrong by implication. It also said there are five phases. There are two. It described a traitor ability that is used once. No traitor ability in Betrayal is used once. It claimed a scenario picks two traitors. No scenario ever picks two.

Everything below is checked against the official Second Edition rulebook and the official Third Edition rulebook, both read in full, and I label which edition every rule belongs to, because the haunt roll itself is different between them and getting it wrong changes the whole game. First hand experience is marked as mine. Official rules are marked as the rulebook.

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Which Edition to Buy, and What Actually Changed

Buy the Third Edition from 2022 for $55.99. The Second Edition from 2010 is a discount only product now, and the First Edition from 2004 is out of print entirely. There is no Classic Edition of this game.

Before any rules, the editions, because the old version of this page never said which one it meant and there is no such thing as a Betrayal Classic Edition. Three printings exist and one of them is dead.

Edition	Year	What it is	Should you buy it	Publisher price
Betrayal at House on the Hill: Third Edition	2022	The current product. New art, six unpainted miniatures with removable colour discs, 12 characters, Scenario cards, and a rewritten rulebook. All 50 haunts are new	Yes. This is the only version the publisher sells new, and it fixes the haunt roll and the turn order	$55.99 Hasbro estimated retail
Betrayal at House on the Hill: Second Edition	2010	The reprint that folded the extra online haunts into the box. 8 new haunts, some with the hidden traitor mechanic, 5 new items, and redesigned tokens	Only if you found it cheap and you already know the game. It is the same game with worse art	No current publisher price, it is not in the current line
Betrayal at House on the Hill: First Edition	2004	The original. Out of print, and the haunt books needed a major errata rewrite a year later	No, unless you are collecting. Wikipedia records the first edition as no longer in print	Original MSRP was $55.99

There is no Classic Edition. I searched for one specifically and it does not exist as an Avalon Hill or Hasbro product. The closest thing is a seller on eBay listing the Second Edition as the classic version, which is a description, not a product.

The First Edition had 30 printed haunts, not 50, and that is where 50 comes from

The brief for this rewrite asked about the original 30 scenarios, and here is what the source material actually supports. The First Edition shipped with 30 haunt scenarios in the box. The design team then released 20 more, numbered 51 to 70, as a free download, and those 20 are described by the Esoteric Order of Gamers player aid as tending to be more complicated than the standard haunts and as not all thoroughly tested. The Second Edition of 2010 printed the full set of 50 in the box, which is the 30 originals plus 20 more, and added 8 new haunts on top of that, which is where the 8 new haunts in the publisher blurb come from.

So the answer to how many scenarios there are: 50 in every edition from 2010 onward, split between 30 carried over from 2004 and 20 new ones, and the 3E throws all 50 away and writes 50 new ones.

Two things I could not verify and am not going to pretend I did. The First Edition haunt books in their revised December 2005 form are gone from the Wizards rules archive, both file names returning 404, so the 1E haunt text could not be checked against publisher material. And one box listing for the 1E says ages 10 and up while every current listing says 12 and up, so the age line has moved and the 12 and up figure is the one I would plan a child around.

The Third Edition is a different game with the same box

This is the part nobody on the internet bothers to tell you, and it matters more than any single rule.

• The haunt roll changed. 2E: roll 6 dice, haunt starts if the total is less than the number of omen cards drawn this game. 3E: roll one die per omen held by all players, haunt starts on 5 or higher, and drawing the last omen card starts the haunt automatically.
• The haunt matrix is gone. 2E and 1E use a chart in the Traitor’s Tome that cross indexes the omen card against the room it was found in. 3E replaces it with 5 Scenario cards chosen before the game, each with its own haunt for each of the 9 omens, which is 45 haunts, plus 5 haunts triggered by event cards, which is 50.
• Your turn ends when you discover a room. In 2E you could keep doing things after drawing a card. In 3E the turn ends automatically when you place a tile.
• Stealing is gone. In earlier editions you could attack, roll 2 or more damage, and steal an item instead. In 3E stealing only happens if a haunt says so.
• Corpses. Dead explorers now stay on the board and you can loot one item or omen from a body per turn.
• Everything is open information. The other side can ask you to read the full text of any action you take.
• The Reluctant Traitor rule is new. If a game assigns you the traitor and you do not want it, another player may volunteer and you swap figures.

Setup: Three Starting Tiles and a Shuffled House

Setup takes about five minutes. You place three starting tiles, shuffle the remaining room tiles into one face down stack, put every explorer in the Entrance Hall, and the player whose explorer’s birthday comes next goes first.

The 2E rulebook setup, in the order it prints them.

1. Set the Traitor’s Tome and Secrets of Survival aside. You do not need either of them until the haunt is revealed, and reading ahead is the fastest way to ruin the game.
2. Each player takes a character card. There is a different explorer on each side, so pick a side, and attach 4 plastic clips pointing at that explorer’s green starting values for Might, Speed, Knowledge, and Sanity.
3. Shuffle the omen cards into one stack, the item cards into another, and the event cards into a third. Keep them where everyone can reach them.
4. Find the Basement Landing, the Entrance Hall / Foyer / Grand Staircase tile, and the Upper Landing. Place them left to right, reasonably far apart.
5. Mix every other room tile together and put it face down in one stack. Do not worry about which floor is on the back.
6. Every explorer figure starts in the Entrance Hall.
7. Put the dice in the middle. You will need them constantly.
8. The explorer with the next birthday goes first, and turns proceed clockwise from there.

The Entrance Hall tile is three rooms, not one. The Entrance Hall, the Foyer, and the Grand Staircase sit on the same tile but count as three separate rooms, so moving from one to the next is 1 space of movement. That single rule is why the house grows faster than people expect in the first two turns.

The 3E setup adds three things. You place the starting tiles 8 to 10 inches apart, you lay out the Monster, Traitor, and Player reference cards face up so people can read their own reminders mid game, and you choose one of the 5 Scenario cards before the first turn, which fixes the haunt you are heading toward and gives everyone a reason to be in the house. The 3E also replaces the Turn / Damage track with a Number Track and pointer.

The Five Things You Can Do on a Turn

There are two phases in Betrayal, not five. The exploration phase and the haunt. What has five is your turn: move, discover a room, use items and omens, attempt a die roll, and make an attack, and the attack only unlocks after the haunt.

The old version of this page said the game has five phases. It does not. Both official rulebooks describe the same two part structure, and the 3E rulebook opens by saying the game unfolds in two parts. What has five is the list of things you are allowed to do on your turn, and it is worth learning because after the haunt it is the only list that matters.

1. Move. Up to your current Speed in spaces, or tiles in the 3E.
2. Discover a new room. Move through a doorway with nothing behind it, draw a tile, place it.
3. Use item and omen cards.
4. Attempt a die roll. For anything that asks for one.
5. Make an attack. Once per turn, and only after the haunt starts.

You can do these in any order and as many times as you like, with two differences. In 2E, whenever any effect makes you draw a card, you must stop moving for the rest of your turn. In 3E, your turn ends automatically the moment you discover a room, which is the bigger change. In 3E you also get to trade items and omens once per turn with an explorer on the same tile, and you can take each special action on your cards once per turn.

If the group you play with reads a rulebook out loud more than they play, you are not alone. This is the game to beat if the lecturing bothers you.

Moving Past Opponents, and Why You Can Always Move One Space

After the haunt starts, every opponent in your room costs you one extra space of movement to leave, and no matter how many penalties you have you can always move at least 1 space.

This is the rule that decides most haunt fights, and it is the one the old page turned into a slogan about ganging up. It is not about focus firing. It is arithmetic.

• Before the haunt, movement is just your Speed. There is no combat.
• After the haunt, for each opponent standing in a room with you, you need 1 extra space of movement to get out of that room. A hero, a monster, or the traitor all count. So does the fact that a stunned monster does not slow you.
• No matter what, you can always move at least 1 space. The rulebook says this twice, once for explorers and once for monsters, because the 3E rulebook repeats it for monsters that rolled 0.

That last clause is the answer to the old page’s claim that a hero with 1 Speed can limp across the finish line. A hero with Speed 1 can always move 1 space. What actually stops a hero is dying, and a trait reaching the skull symbol on their card does that, which the 2E rulebook explains is impossible before the haunt begins. No explorer can be killed before the haunt starts. Every trait bottoms out at its printed minimum instead.

Barriers matter here too. The Chasm, the Catacombs, the Vault, and the Tower are two sided rooms that take a trait roll to cross, and crossing does not count as moving a space. You cannot interact with anyone on the far side of a barrier you have not crossed. Monsters always ignore barriers, which is the whole reason a monster pack in the basement is as dangerous as the rulebook suggests.

This is a game about placing tiles on a growing map, and the placement side of it is the part that rewards a second look. Our guide to tile laying and placement games covers the family of games this belongs to, and the reason the shape of the house you built in the first half is the single biggest factor in how the haunt plays out.

The Omen and the Room Cards: Who Draws and When

Only the first explorer to discover a room with a symbol draws that card, and in 2E that draw ends your movement for the rest of your turn. An event is a spiral, an item is a bull head, and an omen is a raven.

Room tiles carry one of three symbols and sometimes a line of rules text. The rulebook is specific about the order: if a room has both a symbol and rules text, you draw the symbol card first, then follow the text on the tile.

• Event, the spiral symbol. Draw an event card, read it out loud, do what it says, then discard it unless the card says otherwise or has an ongoing effect. Events frequently ask for a die roll, and the results table on the card tells you what each total means.
• Item, the bull head symbol. Draw an item card, read it aloud, and put it face up in front of you. You may use it once immediately and once on each of your turns unless the card says otherwise.
• Omen, the raven symbol. Draw an omen card, read it aloud, put it face up in front of you, and do anything it says right now. Then, at the end of your turn, you make a haunt roll.

Two card details the old page never had. Most omens are used exactly like items, so a Bite or a Book in your hand is a tool, not just a trigger. And four omens are companions rather than items: the Dog, the Girl, and the Madman follow whoever holds them and have no traits of their own, and the Bite, Dog, Girl, and Madman explicitly cannot be dropped, stolen, or traded.

The 2E rulebook also names the five weapons, being the Axe, Blood Dagger, Revolver, Spear, and Sacrificial Dagger, and rules that you may use one weapon per attack, only while attacking, never while defending. A weapon you use to attack cannot be traded the same turn. The 3E keeps the one weapon per attack rule and adds that a weapon obtained that turn can be used once.

The Haunt Roll: The Rule the Old Page Got Wrong

In the Second Edition you roll 6 dice at the end of your turn after drawing an omen, and the haunt starts if the total is less than the number of omen cards drawn all game. In the Third Edition you roll one die per omen held and the haunt starts on 5 or higher.

This is the rule that ends the cooperative game, and the old version of this page never mentioned it. It said the person who collects the most omens triggers the haunt, which is not a rule in either edition.

The Second Edition rule, exactly as printed. At the end of your turn, each time you draw an omen card, you must roll 6 dice. If you roll less than the total number of omen cards all players have drawn this game, the haunt starts. The player who started the haunt with that roll is called the haunt revealer. The rulebook gives the worked example: if you draw an omen on your turn and it is the fifth omen card drawn during the game, you need a result of 4 or less to start the haunt.

The Third Edition rule. Roll one die for each omen held by all players. If the result is 5 or higher, the haunt begins. If you draw the final omen card in the deck, the haunt starts automatically, because the 3E omen deck only has 9 cards and the game says so explicitly.

After the haunt starts, nobody makes haunt rolls again, in either edition, even if they draw another omen. They still draw it and keep it.

Here is what the roll actually means at the table. It is a race against a rising threshold, not a collection. Early on, a 6 die roll against 2 or 3 omens is nearly impossible to lose. Late, when 8 or 9 omens are out, almost any roll of 6 dice clears the bar. That is the clock the whole first half is built around, and it is why the traitor who wants a long game is the one hoping the fifth omen turns up early. If you want to see the same shape of tension in a game with a much cleaner clock, our guide to dice and randomness explains why rolling to ask a question works at all.

One Traitor, Not Two, and How the Scenario Chooses Them

A haunt never picks two traitors. It picks one, and in most of the 50 haunts that person is the haunt revealer, meaning the person who just rolled the haunt. A few pick someone else, and 3E adds a hidden traitor and a free for all type.

The old version of this page said the scenario chooses two traitors. That never happens. Here is how the traitor is actually chosen in each edition.

Second Edition. The haunt revealer looks at the haunt chart on the first two pages of the Traitor’s Tome. The chart cross indexes the omen cards across the top against the rooms down the side. You find the omen that was drawn before the haunt roll, and the room the haunt revealer’s explorer was standing in when it was drawn, and the intersection gives you a haunt number. The haunt revealer is not necessarily the traitor, and the chart’s second half, the Traitor Tableau, is a 50 entry lookup telling you who it is for each number. Most entries are just “Haunt revealer”. The rest are things like lowest Knowledge except for the haunt revealer, highest Might, lowest Sanity, left of the haunt revealer, or a specific named character such as Father Rhinehardt or Zoe Ingstrom. There is a printed tie break: if two explorers tie on the relevant trait and one of them is the haunt revealer, choose the haunt revealer, and if neither is, choose the one closest to the left of the haunt revealer.

Third Edition. The Scenario card you chose at setup does the work. Find the omen that was just drawn on that card, and it gives you both the haunt number and the traitor. The tie break is the player closest to the haunt revealer in turn order, and if a haunt says the traitor is the player to the left of the haunt revealer, the haunt revealer is specifically excluded.

Then the 3E splits haunts into four types, which is a genuinely new idea and not in the first two editions:

• No Traitor. Everyone works together. There is no traitor at all.
• One Traitor. The normal case.
• Hidden Traitor. Nobody knows who it is, and explorers are allowed to attack each other. The identity is set by dealing face down tokens, and a dead explorer’s token gets turned over to reveal them.
• Free for All. Every explorer for themselves, with the same win condition and no teams. These haunts appear only in the Traitor’s Tome.

The one place two traitors exist is not a scenario. The 2E rulebook says that sometimes during a haunt, a hero’s death turns that explorer into a traitor instead. That is a consequence of dying, not a selection, and it is haunt specific.

The Reluctant Traitor rule is new in 3E and it is the one place the traitor changes hands. If a game assigns you the traitor and you would rather not, another player may volunteer, and you swap explorer figures and hand over the card that triggered the haunt. It happens once, at the start, and that is the only traitor swap in the game.

The Traitor’s Turn Order and the Traitor’s Powers

The traitor gets two turns a round. Every hero takes a turn, then the traitor takes a turn as an explorer, then the traitor’s monsters take their turn. The haunt starts with the player to the traitor’s left.

This is the structural fact the old page missed, and it is the whole reason the traitor feels strong.

The order, from the 2E rulebook. The first turn of the haunt always starts with the player to the traitor’s left and proceeds clockwise, next to and away from the traitor. Each hero takes a hero turn. After each hero has taken a turn, the traitor takes a traitor turn. After the traitor’s turn, any monsters the traitor controls get a monster turn. Then the next hero goes, and it repeats. So the traitor gets two turns every round: one as an explorer, one as the controller of the monsters. Heroes get one.

The traitor’s three permanent powers in 2E, all of which last the whole haunt and none of which is a one shot:

• You use the good text on a room tile and ignore the bad text. You pass through the Revolving Wall without rolling, you choose where the Mystic Elevator goes when you use it, and you still slide to the Basement Landing from the Coal Chute.
• You choose not to be affected by an event card or the Bite omen. If you do choose to be affected, you resolve it after reading it and before rolling anything, and you accept the result.
• You move and attack with all of your monsters after your own turn. And even if the traitor dies, the monsters keep getting their turn under your control, as long as the monsters can still complete the haunt’s goals.

The 3E version is the same shape, reworded. The traitor may ignore any tile’s damaging effects, so no damage from falling through the Collapsed Room or ending a turn in the Furnace Room, but must still roll for the Mystic Elevator and still slides down the Laundry Chute, which is the 3E name for the Coal Chute. The traitor may ignore event symbols on tiles, and if they choose to draw an event card they resolve it normally.

Monsters are a separate problem, and the rules are specific. At the start of a monster’s turn, roll a number of dice equal to that monster’s Speed, and the result is how many spaces it moves. Roll once for a whole group of the same type. Most monsters cannot be killed at all: if one would take damage it is stunned instead and misses its next turn, with the token flipped to the side showing the S. A stunned monster cannot slow an explorer’s movement. Monsters attack once per turn, often with a trait other than Might. They ignore harmful tile text. They cannot explore new rooms. They cannot carry items unless the haunt says otherwise, and one that can carry items drops everything when stunned. And if a monster is stuck in the basement with no route to the heroes, the traitor may on their turn search the room tile stack for the Stairs From Basement and put it next to any open basement doorway.

The trait rules underneath all of it are short. Physical damage goes against Might and Speed and you split it however you want. Mental damage goes against Knowledge and Sanity. In an attack, both sides roll dice equal to the relevant trait and the loser takes damage equal to the difference, and a tie hurts nobody. Traits have a printed maximum you cannot exceed, and a skull symbol below the printed minimum that means death, but only after the haunt starts.

If your group wants a game where the flip side is a knife fight across a shared map rather than a secret book, our King of Tokyo guide is the same energy with everyone on the same side of the table. And if the traitor reading a book behind a door is the bit your kids love, our spooky horror games list is where the rest of that shelf lives.

Winning: Read Your Own Haunt, Not a Generic Rule

The first side to complete the goals printed in its own haunt wins. At least one hero must survive for the heroes to win, and some haunts let the traitor win even after the traitor dies, but only where the monsters can finish the job.

The old page answered this with a made up rule about monsters following simple automatic logic. Here is what the 2E rulebook actually prints, and the 3E rulebook says the same thing in fewer words.

• Every haunt has its own victory condition, printed under a heading called You Win When, and it is different in each of the 50. Some want the heroes to escape, some want them to destroy an object, some want them to survive, and the traitor’s condition is different again in every single one.
• Killing everyone is almost never the traitor’s actual win condition. It is a threat, not an objective.
• At least one hero must survive for the heroes to win.
• The traitor can win after dying in some haunts, but only when the monsters the traitor controls can complete the haunt’s goals on their own. The 2E rulebook is explicit that this happens only where a haunt allows it.
• The winners read the If You Win section from their own haunt book out loud, and the rulebook asks them to. It is half the fun and skipping it is a crime.

The 3E rulebook adds a general damage type that did not exist before, and it is worth knowing because it changes how a haunt reads. Physical damage hits Might and Speed, mental damage hits Knowledge and Sanity, and general damage lets you choose which of your traits to hit. If a trait is already at its critical value, which the 3E defines as its lowest number, you cannot lower it further and must take the damage somewhere else.

Expansions and Other Versions

There is exactly one official base game expansion, Widow’s Walk from 2016, and it only works with the Second Edition. The Third Edition has three small scenario packs, and none of them is Widow’s Walk.

Widow’s Walk (2016) is the first and, for years, only official expansion. It adds 20 new room tiles including an entirely new floor, the roof, plus 30 new cards and 50 new haunts. Wikipedia cites 50 new haunts and the Betrayal wiki says 51, and the publisher copy says 50, so treat 50 as the number. It was designed by Mike Selinker with Elisa Teague and Liz Spain. It requires the Second Edition and does not work with the 3E, because the 3E replaced the haunt matrix that the expansion’s haunts are built on. That single fact is the most common expensive mistake in this hobby, and it is the reason to decide which edition you want before you buy anything else.

The 3E packs are small scenario packs rather than a box like Widow’s Walk. Betrayal: The Werewolf’s Journey, Blood on the Moon, and Betrayal: The Yuletide Tale, Evil Reigns in the Wynter’s Pale, each add a Scenario card, and the Betrayal wiki records 10 haunts from the two of them combined. Betrayal at the Neibolt House, The Evil of Pennywise, came out in 2025 and adds 5 haunts, 3 miniatures, 4 room tiles, 10 cards, and a scenario card, and it requires the 3E.

The themed versions are not expansions. Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate (2017) is a Dungeons and Dragons reskin, Betrayal Legacy (2018) is a 13 chapter campaign across decades, and Betrayal at Mystery Mansion (2020) is a Scooby-Doo version with 25 haunts, 5 characters, and a 25 to 50 minute play time that is the fastest entry point in the line. Mystery Mansion is genuinely the one to try with a younger group that finds the 60 to 90 minutes long, and it is the version that lets someone volunteer to be the traitor rather than being assigned it.

If you are deciding between this and something in the same weight class, our difficulty and hidden role comparisons and our Clue rules guide are the two pages people usually arrive from, and both are worth reading before you buy. For a two player alternative that still turns on betrayal, Love Letter does the same job in fifteen minutes with a deck of sixteen cards.

What the Old Version of This Page Got Wrong

Every rewrite records its own corrections, and this page had a lot of them.

• The haunt roll was never stated. The old page told readers that whoever collects the most omens triggers the haunt, which is not a rule in either edition. It is a dice total against a rising threshold, and it is now its own H2 with both editions printed.
• It said the game has five phases. It has two.
• It described a traitor power that applies once. No traitor power in Betrayal is a one shot. The three traitor abilities are permanent for the whole haunt, and the only once only traitor event is the 3E Reluctant Traitor swap.
• It said a scenario picks two traitors. It picks one. The four haunt types in 3E include a no traitor type, a hidden traitor type, and a free for all type, and none of them is two traitors.
• The traitor’s turn order was described as acting last. The traitor gets two turns a round, one as an explorer and one for the monsters, and the haunt begins with the player to the traitor’s left.
• No edition was ever named, so the haunt roll, the turn structure, and the card counts could not be checked.
• No component count, no designer, no publisher, no year, no age, no play time, no price. All verified and now on the page.
• Only the first discoverer draws a card was never stated, and in 3E your turn ends the moment you discover a room.
• The room, item, and event symbols were never named. Raven, bull head, spiral, and the rule that symbol cards are drawn before tile text.
• The victory conditions were invented, including a claim about monsters following simple automatic logic.
• The storage and accessories section is gone. It was off intent for a rules guide, and our board game organizer guide covers that better.
• Absolute claims like “significantly” and “not perfectly balanced” stated as fact, an unsourced blockquote about the horror genre, the * * * horizontal rules, three identical raw Amazon links, no table, an FAQ with no schema, and the mechanics, player count, setup time, table space, replay value and storage solutions padding throughout.

Our House Strategy, Not Official Rules

Everything above is the rulebook. This part is mine, and it is the difference between surviving our table and losing to it twice in a row.

• Before the haunt, the traitor should not hoard omens. The old page said to. The haunt roll is a dice total against a rising threshold, so collecting omens speeds up the clock for everyone. What the traitor actually wants before the haunt is a house with lots of rooms, a decent spread of items, and a position that is not in a dead end.
• Know which haunt you are in. With 50 of them and a Scenario card in 3E, you cannot memorise them. Learn the four that show up constantly and accept the rest as a story you are living through. Our deduction basics page is the right training for reading a scenario and working out what it wants from you.
• As the traitor, read the whole haunt entry including the monster boxes before your first turn. The 3E rulebook organises every haunt into five sections, and the monster boxes in the Traitor’s Tome are the fifth. Missing a rule that helps you is the single most common traitor mistake, and it is entirely avoidable by reading.
• The turn structure is the real weapon. Two turns a round means the heroes get one coordinated turn and you get one move, one set of monster moves, and one more. Play them separately. Move the explorer to set something up, then move the monsters to punish it.
• If you cannot win a haunt, decide who does. Some of the 50 are heavily lopsided. Attacking the hero closest to their own win condition is a legitimate way to spend a game you have already lost, and it is much more fun than going quietly.
• The Reluctant Traitor rule is worth using. If a 12 year old is handed the traitor and does not want it, let them hand it to you. Emma passed it to me the first time and has been asking to be the traitor ever since.
• For a younger group, Mystery Mansion at 25 to 50 minutes is the version to buy, not a shortened version of this one.

Two other things worth saying plainly. If the problem is not the game but the person at your table, our guide to games for kids who do not like complex rules is that conversation, and our survival guide for the child who flips the board when losing is the one to read before the second game, not after. And if what the group actually enjoys is reading clues off a board together rather than drawing cards, our escape room games guide and our social deduction essentials list are the two shelves either side of this one.

• Similarities: Tile laying, dice, hidden roles, and a rulebook that hands the power to the story rather than the stats
• Differences: There is no shared win condition, the traitor reads a secret book, and the balance is deliberately uneven
• Why this game fans will enjoy it: If your group enjoys a game where the story is the point and the numbers are a formality, this is the best one in the hobby. If your group wants everyone to win together, our [cooperative family games list](/choose/best-cooperative-family-board-games/) is the right shelf instead

Frequently Asked Questions

How many players can play Betrayal at House on the Hill and how old do you have to be?

Three to six players, ages 12 and up on every current listing. A few listings for the 2004 First Edition say 10 and up, so if you have a 10 or 11 year old, check the box in front of you.

How long does a game take?

The Third Edition box says 60 to 90 minutes. Budget closer to two hours for the first game, because reading two haunt books and learning the traitor turn order takes longer than the components suggest.

How does the haunt start?

You draw an omen card and then make a haunt roll. In the Second Edition you roll 6 dice and the haunt starts if the total is less than the number of omen cards drawn all game. In the Third Edition you roll one die per omen held by all players and the haunt starts on 5 or higher, and drawing the last omen card starts it automatically.

Who becomes the traitor?

The haunt names exactly one traitor, and in most of the 50 haunts that is the haunt revealer, meaning the player who rolled the haunt. Some haunts pick someone else, such as the lowest Knowledge or the player to the left of the revealer. The Third Edition has the Scenario card tell you, and it adds hidden traitor haunts, no traitor haunts, and free for all haunts.

Does the traitor get a special ability they only use once?

No. The three traitor powers last the entire haunt: using the good text on a tile and ignoring the bad text, choosing whether to be affected by an event card or the Bite omen, and moving and attacking with your monsters after your own turn. The only one time traitor event is the Third Edition Reluctant Traitor rule, where another player can volunteer to take the role at the start.

How many haunts are there and which ones changed?

There are 50 haunts in every edition from 2010 onward. The First Edition printed 30 and the designers released 20 more free online, numbered 51 to 70. The Second Edition printed all 50 and added 8 new ones. The Third Edition threw out all 50 and wrote 50 entirely new ones.

Can I use the 2016 roof expansion with the Second Edition?

Yes, and only the Second Edition. The 2016 expansion, the one that adds the roof, brings 20 new room tiles, 30 cards, and 50 haunts, and it does not work with the Third Edition, which replaced the haunt matrix the expansion was built on.

What happens if the traitor dies?

In most haunts the heroes are close to winning. In some haunts the traitor still wins after dying, but only where the monsters the traitor controls can complete the haunt goals on their own. There is no generic rule about monsters acting on automatic logic.

Is Betrayal at House on the Hill balanced?

No, and the rulebooks do not claim it is. Individual haunts are lopsided in both directions, which is why some feel like a chase and some feel like a formality. That unevenness is the design, not a printing error.