D&D General What did you think of the Stranger Things D&D game?

[jgsugden]

True. Of course, that kind of adversarial mindset was pretty common in 1E--and looking at the Hellfire Club and its DM, I would absolutely expect to find it at their table.

I think the defining characteristic of AD&D for me was diversity of styles. I played in 30 or so different AD&D groups and found they were often very different. That being said, there was a percentage of "by the book" games that were similar, but that similarity grew out of them using modules for the "book".

The homebrews, that either highly changed modules or did not use them at all, tended towards greater variety. The biggest factors were the imagination of the DM, then the willingness of the DM to let players drive the story with their decisions, and then the willingness of players to drive stories by making big story decisions. Critical Role (campaign 1) remeinds me a lot of two of the best campaigns I was in from the 1980s. In both of those situations, the players took control of the campaign by deciding to do something the DM did not expect, and the DM then creafter the adventure (and in a sense the world) around that storyline.

 

[Dire Bare]

I've been in groups where the players go out of earshot of the DM to strategize, but I think of that as a bit of a red flag. Well, not so much red ... orange flag? It shows that the players feel like the DM is the enemy, rather than the one facilitating the storyand that the players don't feel like the DM can separate what the DM knows from what the NPCs/monsters know.

I tend to see this less with DMs that try to have the monsters act like the monsters rather than like their play pieces in a strategy game. If mindless undead act mindless, if hungry beasts act like predators, if intelligent enemies try to stay alive, etc... I tend to see it less often. It isn't a perfect correlation, but when I have seen it when I am DMing, it is usually something I subtly (or what passes for subtly for me) ask about with a few of the players to see if there is something I need to realign to address. Sometimes it is just the nature of the player. Sometimes there is a player that doesn't yet trust me as a DM. Either way, I usually take it as a sign that I can make them more comfortable.

Adversarial DMing was pretty common in the 80s. Not everybody did it, but this wasn't out of place.

I've power-streamed the entire season, and Eddie, the DM of the Hellfire Club, has become one of my favorite characters. He's a controlling DM, both in game and with his social circle of "freaks", and he is an adversarial DM . . . he's not trying to kill the PCs, but he is trying to challenge them. But in true Stranger Things fashion, he goes from a seemingly one-note character to a more in-depth character with a lot of humanity.

I already love Erica, Lucas' sister! When Mike and Dustin walked into the Hellfire Club's game with Erica in tow, I knew it was going to be a fun time!

 

[Dire Bare]

There were a number of flubs from a mechanics perspective in that scene indicating the writers were modern players, not players with experience in the 1980s.

• Level 1 Dwarf?
• Rogue?
• Kukri?
• Vecna missing an arm?
• A rogue rolling percentile dice in AD&D - in combat? Maybe...
• But someone rolling a d4, a d8 and a d10 (percentile) all at once? And then a d4, d6 and d10 at the same time?
• How do the players know how many hps Venca has? Or that a powerful spellcaster in AD&D is going to be hurt, much less killed, by a weapon attack?
• Odds of success are 20 to 1 - and the PCs are rolling one attack roll each, with no need for a damage roll on the 'critical hit' (assuming they're using alternate rules for critical hits from Dragon or another source)? That makes no sense unless Dustin's attack was irrelevant.
• Most of the terrain and figures were time appropriate - but not quite all. And some of those dice did not look like 80s dice.

I'd love for someone to really get it right.

Are the details really that important? Really?

Shhh, don't tell anybody, but . . . . the story of Vecna hadn't been invented yet in 1986 when Season 4 is set. The Hand and the Eye of course did as artifacts in the DMG, but that was the extent of it.

Nothing on your list is some sort of glaring error . . . for most folks at least. Then again, reading the "goofs" section on IMDB on just about any film or series is a maddening exercise in folks obsession with trivial details.

Chalk it up to house rules and Eddie's own campaign for most of your "errors" . . . except the dice, yeah, those did look a little too modern. Didn't bother me though, even if I did notice.

 

[Dire Bare]

The inclusion of "D&D" in the show had absolutely nothing to do with promotion of D&D as a game, nor demonstrating the geek cred of anyone behind the scenes. The purpose of it being there was to provide support for why the KIDS were not only able to accept what was happening as being REAL, but able to reason out how this "unreality" actually worked, at least to a sufficient enough degree to address it where adults were failing. In that, I think it was a brilliant concept and well-executed. The actual "rules" they were using for D&D is very irrelevant.

I'm not sure I've heard anyone accuse the Duffer Brothers as trying to prove geek cred or land a promotional deal with WotC . . . . the entirety of Stranger Things proves the Duffers "geek cred" without them even trying. We, of course, did get a Stranger Things D&D starter set, and some comics . . . but they were in reaction to how well received the show's first season was, and how well received it's depiction of D&D was.

I think your comments on the role D&D plays in the plot are spot on . . . . but Stranger Things is a love letter to the 80s, including (but not limited to) D&D. The Duffers included it because they are D&D players and fans.

 

[Dire Bare]

The Hellfire Club's game was amazing . . . the entire episode and it's lead up to the game was amazing! I knew guys like Eddie back in the 80s, who built their entire identity around D&D and enjoyed being "king of the geeks" and were just as controlling as Eddie, and as dismissive towards other concerns, like Lucas' b-ball game. Eddie felt very real to me.

I remember the stronger divide between "freaks" and "jocks", and the bullying . . . I remember the Satanic Panic, and the ignorant, judgmental, and fearful attitudes aimed at freaks like us. The game itself was a lot of fun, but the lead up hit me hard and took me back. Not the first time Stranger Things has done that to me . . . I'm the same age Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas would be today in 2022 . . . . assuming they all survive that long!

The Hawkins of Stranger Things is pretty darn accurate portrayal of American life in the 80s . . . but also more inclusive. It was rare for people of color to be playing D&D (at least in my neck of the woods, which was not Indiana) . . . and girls!?!?! Of course, Eddie wasn't very welcoming to Erica at first until she proved what a bad-ass she is!

The episode did make me regret something from my own time in the 80s . . . . why didn't my friends and I come up with a cool name for our D&D club? We just had "D&D night", not "Hellfire Club"!!! Missed opportunity.

I felt like this episode really sets up Eddie to be the next Billy . . . . as fun as watching the Hellfire Club's game was, I was feeling a lot of dread and tension building, and feeling both annoyed at Eddie for being so controlling, but sad that something bad was likely going to happen to him!!! I won't spoil the rest of the season yet, however . . . .

 

[Azzy]

Was vecna in 1e? I have never personally been in an adventure with the hand of vecna

Yes.... Well, in the backstories of The Hand of Vecna, Eye of Vecna, and the Sword of Kas. (All of which were artifacts in the 1e DMG.)

 

[Azzy]

It's interesting that '86 was around the time I started middle school and was introduced to D&D.

 

[nexalis]

• But someone rolling a d4, a d8 and a d10 (percentile) all at once? And then a d4, d6 and d10 at the same time?

Playing in the 80's, we would frequently use a d10 coupled with a d4 or a d6 as a substitute for a d20. If you rolled a 4-6 on the d6 or a 3-4 on the d4, you would add 10 to the result of your d10 roll. I'm pretty sure that was a thing back then. If they were rolling for damage at the same time, it would explain the use of those dice.

 

[teitan]

I've only seen the first two episodes. I really loved that scene: it made both D&D and Basketball look like great fun, and hey, both are great fun. Sucks that one character is being put in the middle like he is, but that's some real drama.

I didn't think it was necessarily a realistic depiction, anymore than the basketball game was, but it was a good cinematic presentation, and added a lot to the DM character.

That is exactly, minus the minis, what my 1e days were like! Eddie is totally my spirit animal!

 

[teitan]

1) Vecna is not missing his whole left arm!

2) was there critical hit rules in the 80's ? I always thought it was more of a houserule thing that became a rule in somewhat recent editions.

3) Can an half-elf be a 14th level rogue? If we forget that there was no rogues back then.

and....it was so great. I immediately posted the Vecna Lives! from Dmsguild on our facebook group when I finished the episode.

We used Critical hits in our game, we started in 88. We didn’t roll confirmations but it was, to my recollection, a fairly common house rule locally anyway.

Anecdotal evidence, also surveys by WOTC, before 3e came out, indicated that people didn’t observe the racial level limits. TSR in 2e really wanted to keep them so introduced their higher levels and there were options to do “higher level” demihumans of a sort by doubling XP requirements in 1e. We ignored the level limits in our local games.