Wait, Where Was That Betrayal At Again? (Betrayal at House on the Hill review)

When you take a group of friends into a haunted house, it’s almost a guarantee that something crazy is going to happen, and one of those friends will definitely betray you all. Unless it’s you, then you’ll just betray everyone.

At least, that’s what happens in Betrayal at House on the Hill, a thematic horror game that tells the story of a foray into a haunted house, and the mayhem that ensues. But is this ghost story worth telling?

It's friday. How about a question for y'all!

In the spirit of "expanding the conversation" and all those fun marketing terms, today's question is:

What is your most memorable encounter in any RPG?


For me, it could be that time when our party was out to recover some sort of orb, which was guarded by a mindflayer, which was way beyond our characters to handle.  But then Bryan's character (name forgotten, sorry bryan!) managed to kick the mindflayer out the window... sending him falling to a much simpler death.  Phew!

Or it could be that time when the party was out to rescue the wife of my character, Obre, from a big ol' fortress.  The climactic scene involved Obre teleporting from room to room to escape Lord Krugdhaxal who was trying to steal some knowledge from Obre's brain, while the rest of the party battled guards in the underground prison that was, incentally, protected by rows and rows of towers casting magic missile every turn.  Eventually we figured out that there were amulets being worn by the guards that protected from the towers, and we all managed to regroup and Obre teleported everyone away from the fortress, one by one, before an entire army of guards overwhelmed us all. 


Leave your story in the comments!

-w

RPG Reflections Part 3: Truly, a Role Playing Game

Check out Part 1 here: RPG Reflections Part 1: The Story So Far
and Part 2 here: RPG Reflections Part 2: The Bad, The Ugly

In the initial scene, players were tasked with fighting off Kobolds in an unfamiliar town.  They had not yet met each other, so each player started in a separate part of town.  In addition to this, the characters would have had no knowledge of the other player's presence, and thus would have no reason to intentionally search them out.

Finding the Character: What Would Obre Do?

One of the things that makes DnD (and other roleplaying games) so interesting is the connection each player has to their character.

In board games, the "character" - if there is any - is generally very flat, has little dimension, and is motivated by 1 or 2 very streamlined goals.  Most of the time there is no real "character" - simply the player and his or her own abilities.  Rarely do personal experiences get brought into a board game.

In video games, characters tend to be more fleshed out (arguments of poor-quality characters in video games aside...).  They have histories, they have abilities that differ from the player.  However, everything the Player can do within a videogame is predefined.  Every ability or manuever was programmed in... every emotional plot twist is contrived by the writers.