Betrayal at Baldur's Gate is a scenario-based board game you can play in an hour or two.
Did you know there’s an excellent Baldur’s Gate board game? No, I don’t mean Dungeons & Dragons. I’m talking about Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate.
Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate came out a good few years ago but it’s still loads of fun to play with a couple intrepid pals. You gather up your party, each person picking a class and character, and start making your way around the city of Baldur’s Gate. Don’t worry, the game only lasts around an hour or two, you don’t need to worry about subclasses, builds, and character creators.
It’s actually a reimagined and improved version of another great board game, Betrayal at House on the Hill. In that one you get up to all sorts of escapades in a haunted house, whereas here you and your party run amok in the city streets and sewers of Baldur’s Gate.
At first, it’s just you and your party versus the board. As you and up to 5 of your pals play, the map emerges in front of you. You’re namely exploring, which means moving around and flipping tiles to discover new areas, events, and items. You can travel the streets, buildings, and even the catacombs of the city. There’s a clever system of where and how the tiles connect to one another, and because it’s random each playthrough is different to the last.
As you progress around the map, you will eventually trigger the endgame, otherwise known as the Haunt. There are a range of scenarios that kick off during the endgame, depending on what parts of Baldur’s Gate you’ve explored or items you’ve picked up.
One scenario might see you have a traitor in your midst, trying to murder the lot of you with a magical orb. Or maybe your party has to face down a crowd of cultists trying to sacrifice the lot of you to some nasty demon. You might even go face-to-face with a dragon. Gods speed to you. The scenarios are really varied. Even if you get the same scenario twice, I find they always end up going very differently. And while I must admit that some aren’t as fair or balanced as others, I’ve never failed to have a good time playing Betrayal.
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