Both Needed Not just characters, GENERATIONS wanted! (Betrayal: Legacy)

[FangtasticFrau]

In the remote countryside of the New World:

The homestead sits atop a hill. The family that lived here died of a pox; father, mother, son, daughter... though the girl's body was never found. Carried off by wolves, some say.
There are also stories about the family finding a chalice while building the house. A chalice sounds valuable. Maybe there are treasures here still?
You're not the only one with this idea; other families have come exploring as well. You all claim you've come to honor the dead, but as you crowd together upstairs, the wary glances make it plain... no one is fooled.​

This is an interest-gauging post, so whether it goes forward depends a lot on how many people are excited about the concept. If there's strong interest immediately from four or more people, I might just jump right in, which should land some of play squarely in October. The best part is--even if I were (heaven forbid) in some terrible accident, someone else could carry on because the source material is easily accessible. Similarly, if someone tries a few chapters in the campaign and doesn't like it or becomes very busy, someone else could continue that family's story. The concept's pretty bulletproof.

So, there's this board game called "Betrayal at House on the Hill" which has a Legacy Edition. No no wait, I swear, this is interesting! It's a SPOOKY board game, whose story elements and physical pieces change based on the results and consequences of a campaign you play through! Imagine House of Leaves + Lovecraft + Hammer Horror movies and you've got the right idea. It'll be similar to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem to a degree, if you know that game. BL too keeps you on the edge of your seat for the characters you love, and the official campaign covers the years between 1666 and 2004.

Rather than individuals, you will create up to 14 people in a family tree; ideally one at a time, so each person can be shaped by their ancestors' experiences. They will explore an ominous mansion of dubious origin. We can have relationships between characters who survive to old age, secret family connections, tragic lost loves... there's a lot of potential for generational trauma and drama, she said cheerfully! Death traps characters as ghosts, so they could pop up in the next episode... whether for pathos and poignance, to warn their friends, or in the hopes of watching their killer face justice decades after their demise.

I will be using a virtual copy of the Legacy edition to build out a sort of Deluxe version for us, and will embellish on the original while still staying faithful to it (unless I get four people who are very supportive of infidelity to the source material). The layout of the titular House in BaHotH is unique every time you play; you discover it as you go by choosing a floor to explore and a direction to go, sort of like the old Zork text adventure games. You'll discover strange locations, encounter disturbing events, acquire powerful artifacts, and be haunted by strange omens.

One characteristic of Betrayal gives the game its name: each time you discover an Omen, you make a Haunt roll. This roll, as well as what triggered it, governs what happens next. Always, there is a Betrayal! Either the House itself betrays you, or more likely, a Traitor walks amongst you, whether known or hidden--and it's not always the person who triggered the Haunt. That is governed by the locations, and the house's mysterious Omens...

A few mechanical notes:

• There are five families. If you have a roleplaying friend, you can share; collaborate to take turns creating descendants if desired. Working with other players to establish past connections is also great. I'm going to explain how stats work, but I'll be managing logistics, so the important thing is just to have some idea of how it all works, and what your family's good at.
• You begin each chapter of the story as a probably-new character, choosing name and age, and those who survive will be told how many years passed between chapters. Sexual themes could happen as I plan to run this in the Dark Alley forum due to its horror, but of course only for adults. A cutesy kid-on-kid romance which blossoms into more some decades later is A-okay, though.
• You can flesh your character out as much as you like, but just bear in mind--none of us (including me) will know their fate in advance. Any of the characters could be cast in the role of hero, traitor, a mere survivor of the horror, or a tragic victim taken too soon who prompts the others to get revenge. If you do meet a fairly quick fate, I'll try to make the chapter still feel worthwhile for you.
• Dice rolls are important in the game. Each die has three possible results: 0, 1, or 2. Sometimes you'll take "one die" of damage. This means you may take 0, 1, or 2 points of damage to a stat. If you take mental or physical damage, you can sink it into either of your mental or physical stats. If you take "general damage," you can sink that damage into any of your stats.
• You have four stats: Knowledge and Sanity, your mental stats; and Might and Speed, your physical stats. These stats range from 2-8. They govern how many dice you can roll, and can be improved or reduced from their starting value within those 8 slots, or settle on the skull value, which means you are dead. I will warn you when your character is at critical status in a trait.
• No trait can hit the skull value until after the Haunt begins! During the exploration phase, you are protected from decreases past your traits' lowest values. You can only die during the Haunt.
• Example of trait ranges: Your Speed stat range looks like this: 4 4 4 6 7 7 8 8. The lowest value of any stat is always between 2-4, so this is a strong trait for you. Even if critical, you still roll 4 dice for Speed. You only need 4 stat increases to roll max dice. On the other hand, your Sanity range is 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6. On critical status, you roll only two dice; when maxed, you only roll 6. Your Sanity trait is weak, but unlike your Speed your Sanity is resilient, meaning it can decrease 3 times instead of the usual 2.
• Each family crest card has a separate trait list which you can consider your family's genetics. The Blue Owl family excels in Knowledge and struggles a bit with physical stats. The Purple Wave family is weak in Knowledge, resilient in Might, strong in Sanity, and alongside the Blue Owl family has the highest starting values. The Golden Sun family is more of an all-rounder, with Speed being its most resilient trait. The Green Bird family is strong in Speed and good with Knowledge. Sanity and Might max out at 6. The Red Stag family has the weakest starting values. Knowledge is its weakest stat. Physical stats are resilient and it excels in Might. So in short, Blue is smart, Purple is sane, Green is fast, Red is strong, and Gold is balanced.
• Items you find can be heirloomed. This means that it will either have a bonus when used by your family, or any penalties on its operation will be reduced.
• When someone dies, their ghost can manifest to the living in the room where they perished. This ghost can affect events and items which take place on the tile. You're welcome to roleplay any past characters if someone enters their death room. Ghosts can talk to each other as well, but shouldn't try to affect living characters' stats.

Note that even if you've seen or played this game before, like watching the colorful Smosh playthrough, the first three chapters after the prologue have 2 possible Haunts, while 8 other chapters have 3 possible Haunts. There's almost no chance you've already seen everything the game has to offer! Especially because I'll be adding so much flavor text not in the original story, attempting to tie all the elements together even more.

So, any interest? Feel free to respond right here if your questions might be helpful to others! DMs are fine as well if your thoughts are more private; like if you know a lot about the story already and you'd rather talk with someone who knows the game where no one else could be spoiled. If you're sure this game's for you, tell me which crest you'd like to choose and what ideas you have for your first character and their family. Should I get a lot more takers than expected, I might ask for writing samples or character concepts to narrow it down to those who'd be the best fit, but that seems like a longshot.

And hell, if enough people don't make it into the first round or like the concept but just won't have time anytime soon, maybe I'll run this again in fall of 2027. (Damn, I hope this doesn't become horribly ironic after I meet some ghoulish fate. Writing this out has made me paranoid.)

Well anyway, cheers! Thanks for reading, and blessings upon us all. May we not run afoul of the judging wolf. (If that sounds weird, it'll make sense later, I promise!)

 

[Martzi]

I'm interested! I LOVE the board game (though I've never played the legacy version) and always thought it would be cool as more of a roleplay. I'd love to hear more about how you're thinking you'll transition it to a written roleplay. I'd also love to know if you have any rules or preferences for the rp like post length, frequency, etc.

If anyone else is interested in doing so, I'd love to collaborate to share families. I might be interested in blue or green for my first character but honestly I'm flexible. If it's okay with you, I might design my character later when I have a better sense of the group, which house I am, etc. Though since the setup has a specific time period it could be interesting to lean into what's happening during the mid-60's while creating my character (ie the civil rights movement, the cold war, the vietnam war). Given that, I'd probably be inclined to make a political activist of some sort as my first character.

 

[FangtasticFrau]

I'm interested! I LOVE the board game (though I've never played the legacy version) and always thought it would be cool as more of a roleplay. I'd love to hear more about how you're thinking you'll transition it to a written roleplay. I'd also love to know if you have any rules or preferences for the rp like post length, frequency, etc.

If anyone else is interested in doing so, I'd love to collaborate to share families. I might be interested in blue or green for my first character but honestly I'm flexible. If it's okay with you, I might design my character later when I have a better sense of the group, which house I am, etc. Though since the setup has a specific time period it could be interesting to lean into what's happening during the mid-60's while creating my character (ie the civil rights movement, the cold war, the vietnam war). Given that, I'd probably be inclined to make a political activist of some sort as my first character.

Hey, thanks for your interest! I've got someone in DMs as well, so that's 2 so far. The Legacy Edition of Betrayal already has something of a plot, so it'll in some ways just be expanding on what's already there. It'll be something like a TTRPG; I'll just be rolling behind the scenes and presenting the results like elaborated flavor text.

One note, since I think there was a misread going on somewhere--the first session takes place in 1666, not 1966! So for perspective, this would be back in the times when people were just surviving off the land and things were largely lawless, meaning civil rights wouldn't be the vibe, more "thirty years before the Salem witch trials began..." and 110 years before America became a country. The first group of people would just be citizens in a small rural town struggling to survive in the New World before it was truly the US.

For a complete overview, the timestamps on each piece of the story are 1666, 1694, 1729, 1763, 1797, 1830, 1849, 1876, 1890, 1901, 1947, 1969, and 2004. So your character concept is totally possible! They would just have to be either your last or second-to-last character, is all. :)

 

[rifersouli]

Hello! I am very much interested as well - maybe I'm the one you mentioned from the DMs!

I think my main question is similar to Martzi's; I am curious about how progression will be made - will we be kind of moving in turns? For example (supposing all of this chapter's characters have already been described by their players): You make a chapter/round introduction -> First player posts their move in roleplay fashion: where they go, how they act, if they interact with another character -> You post what happens after with your combination of game's original events and personal additions -> Second player posts their move that same way -> You announce the results -> Cycle forms and all players keep on roleplaying until chapter ends. Of course, big events such as Haunts would happen and the cycling could change, like giving a player the chance to write their character's death if it comes to happen. Is this somewhat close to what you had in mind? If so, this sounds great!

And much like Martzi too, I'd enjoy to share families and play different ones through different chapters - it sounds especially interesting because a character probably doesn't know their predecessors all that well, and we players would know them fully, having written them whole. My favorites were probably Green and Golden, but I'd be fine with getting out of my comfort zone as well. Hell, I could even go with randomizing families every chapter!

I still do have some questions, mostly about the stats and dice system, but I'll probably ask them later down here too. I want to think a little about characters! I never wrote a 1600's North American before, so I'll need to do some research.

Edit: 1666 North American > 1600's North American, figured it made a lot more sense

 

[FangtasticFrau]

Yup, I did mean you! :) And great questions!

A normal turn looks as follows: untapping any cards you used in the previous round, then moving a number of spaces equal to your Speed (unless the tile you discover prompts you to draw a card; then you stop moving). Until then, you can take 1 of each action type along your movement route: Give, Take, Drop, Pick Up, Attack. If relevant, you can also Eat, Drink, Invoke, Operate, Search, Study, Talk, or Wear, but that tends to relate to specific tiles and haunts and I would then prompt the player. For instance, if someone else discovered the Vault tile earlier, and already drew an Event card for it which landed them in another room or region, a player then moving onto that tile would not draw an Event. This would have me saying something like: "You have just moved into the Vault. No one has searched it yet. You may Study the door: Use your Knowledge. A roll of 6+ will gain you a couple of items." (Or if preferred by players, I could make it more immersive than technical.) If the same player still had movement and then moved into another room with the Study option, they could not use the Study action until next turn.

For turns, the idea currently is just balance all across the board. Pre-Haunt, I'll probably let everyone kind of use their resources as they please in rounds, and just make sure everyone has a chance to use everything they have available. Once the Haunt begins, I'm thinking we'll have more structured turns--typically all the heroes go before the Traitor does, so maybe I'll ask one at a time while leaving any conversational roleplay as mere flavor.

I don't think I'd want to count dialogue or story interactions as part of someone's turn unless it was egregious; like long, deep talks and excessive drama after the exploration has already begun. I do want to give ample room to set the stage. I was thinking we'd have something of a story intro, where everyone gets to establish their personality a little bit if they want to with 0 pressure. After that, I'll probably let people sprinkle their movement and actions into their posts--possibly by bolding everything that the Storyteller should pay attention to. Then I'd probably prompt everyone with any remaining actions or resources at their disposal, and finally inform everyone that the round has ended.

What I mean by dialogue being sprinkled in: if you're in the same room with someone, even if just passing through for a bit on your way somewhere, you can converse with them. If you remain in the same general area and within a few rooms of them, you should be able to call back and forth while they're nearby--but if that person then triggers an Event card, I might end up interrupting their conversation. As an example, let's say two characters have been talking awhile, and then this happens.

Shenandoah chuckles at Aiyana's joke, glancing off to the west. "You're a strange one," he tells her, not unkindly. He throws the door open, and his curiosity drives him forward over the threshold.

So, the player would be telling me their character wants to move west and discover a new tile. Assuming the room tiles haven't been depleted (which is technically possible, though I might just make things up if it feels right) I then draw a tile for the character which matches his region, and consume 1 of his movement. If it's just a normal chamber or corridor, then I might say something like Shenandoah has 3 moves left. But in this case, let's say the tile has an Event Swirl symbol on it, so I draw an Event for him and read the card. If there's a roll, then I roll to discover the result and describe what happens. Otherwise, if there's no roll, it might go somewhat like this:

Moments after chuckling at Aiyana's joke, Shenandoah takes a step over the threshold into the next room. After a few moments, only silence meets the girl's ears, and she can no longer see anything but darkness where he was. After a few minutes, if she continues staring, she suddenly sees light fill the room. She hears his voice then, along with a terrible crash...

This is Shenandoah's experience:

At first, it seems like you've just wandered into an empty, boring room. It's too dark to see much detail, but other than that, everything seems mundane at first.

Suddenly, to your horror, you can feel a terrible lurching sensation. The ENTIRE chamber is shifting, dropping whole--it is plummeting through the ground with you inside! You are falling, falling all the way to the core of the earth... or is it hell?

Glowing embers around you illuminate a figure, far too close for comfort. It is a raving, frothing madman, grinning at you as if he doesn't feel the sick sensations you're suffering. "THIS WILL ALL BE OVER SOON!" he gibbers.

A vision comes to you: Aiyana and the others, fleeing in terror from--themselves? Not quite, but the resemblance is uncanny...

You become aware of something in your hand--it feels familiar. A spear, forged; it's your only hope... your only chance to save the rest!

When the vision is over, you find yourself lying on the floor of a perfectly normal room. You can feel that this terrible waking nightmare has taken its toll. What part of you has been harmed by what you've seen? Did you crash too hard to the floor? Did you acquire a new caution that will slow your movement? Has confusion taken away some of your ability to reason? Or can you feel a trace of your sanity slipping away?

This would be code for, where do you want to take the 1 general damage this Event caused? Hopefully a little more immersive than the original. ;) For reference, here's the original card. Essentially the same, just a little more personalized.

And then of course I'd leave room for the two characters to talk about what he just experienced and what it could mean. I might have to prompt them if the others finish their actions and want to continue into the next round, but I don't want to be too harsh on that, just keep some momentum.

Hopefully, that helps clarify things a little bit! Feel free to ask anything that comes to mind. Come to think of it, I'll be doing some research about the 1600s as well.

 

[rifersouli]

All right, that sounds amazing. Definitely count me in!

It didn't occur to me at all that we could have multiple things happening and being narrated at the same time with different characters - you made it all seem very natural! I don't know if this makes any sense, but since the game's progression will be defined by the Storyteller and the game's rules, I think maybe having shorter replies that focus on character's interactions, relationships and personalities really could work well. This way we can have fleshed-out personalities without you having mountains of text to read constantly. I guess in the end it boils down to everyone's style.

In any case, this seems genuinely great. I believe I still just need to understand better how the rules work effectively; so I'll give your mechanics rundown another read while picturing them in something closer to this scene example you just gave. Will be around! - I hope we get enough players soon!