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

[Hex08]

There was definitely a mix. Most of the people I knew who were playing were at least avid readers.

That's usually what I was doing during class instead of paying attention. I sat in the back with my face buried in my book

 

[jgsugden]

For you. Maybe for the majority of people (care to provide evidence of such?). But obviously not for me.

Right. Because you're clearly evidincing your ability to not sweat the small stuff, here.

Here is one after a short Google search.

Story Immersion: How Can We Improve Our Readers' Experience? — Guest: Jefferson Smith

Beyond "write well," how can we increase the connection readers feel with our story? Jefferson Smith shares tips for making our stories more immersive.

jamigold.com

I also have a few books on my shelf that discuss the importance of maintaining meersion.

 

[jgsugden]

Not everyone will have the same response to phenomena. People aren't identical and don't react in exactly the same ways, they tend to react along a spectrum. Assuming someone is making a conscious decision to overlook a perceived inconsistency is not a fair assumption, they may just be more naturally tolerant just as some will be less so.

This is not as simple as you make it out to be especially with regard to involuntary responses. Instincts are more uniform.

Involuntary responses tend to be far more uniform than voluntary responses. If you step on a tack barefoot, if you touch a hot pan, if you smell something horrible ... our responses may have slight variation, but tend to follow the same strong central trend. What we elect to do right after these events may differ, but you'll pull your foot up when you step on that tack. You'll pull your hand back from the hot pan. You'll scrunch your face in the face of a bad smell.

Being pulled out of a story by something 'world breaking' if involuntary. Not everyone will notice the same things, but the response when you notice things is very similar across people on the initial, immersion breaking, involuntary response.

Now, whether you slam down the book, scream and cry - or just grimace a second and move on - is a different story. However, the initial instinctual response to the world seeming inconsistent and impact it has on your immersion is fairly uniform.

 

[Hriston]

That’s a table with a healthy dose of “Step On Up”!

 

[LordEntrails]

This is not as simple as you make it out to be especially with regard to involuntary responses. Instincts are more uniform.

Involuntary responses tend to be far more uniform than voluntary responses. If you step on a tack barefoot, if you touch a hot pan, if you smell something horrible ... our responses may have slight variation, but tend to follow the same strong central trend. What we elect to do right after these events may differ, but you'll pull your foot up when you step on that tack. You'll pull your hand back from the hot pan. You'll scrunch your face in the face of a bad smell.

Being pulled out of a story by something 'world breaking' if involuntary. Not everyone will notice the same things, but the response when you notice things is very similar across people on the initial, immersion breaking, involuntary response.

Now, whether you slam down the book, scream and cry - or just grimace a second and move on - is a different story. However, the initial instinctual response to the world seeming inconsistent and impact it has on your immersion is fairly uniform.

Nothing pointed out in this thread was immersion breaking for me. I wasn't pulled out of the enjoyment of watching them play. Fact.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The education system can all too easily fail those with additional needs. Heck, even having or not having money can make a world of difference in a student's performance. Eddie is being raised by his uncle, who clearly doesn't have a lot of money.*

These holes in the educational system still exist today and would have only been worse in a small town in the 80s.

*On the converse, I might point out that Steve Harrington, who is clearly from a more affluent family, failed to get accepted into any of the colleges he applied to.

I had quite a few brilliant players who were LD and unsupported academically if not for BOCES technical classes. Special Education was a lot of throw them in a classroom at the end of the hall out of sight in the 80s in American education or label them behaviors and send them to vocational school.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My grades in high school SUCKED. I was a slacker who barely did any of the work required except for the few classes that interested me. I barley had passing grades and was primarily the DM so while what you say may be generally true there are people like myself who were exceptions to that.

I didn't do any work at all, but still managed to get the highest grades in my year.

But in an earlier scene, Eddie points to the math and science geeks as a different clique, when I would expect there to be significant overlap between the two groups.

 

[RobJN]

*Zocchi lived/had a game store on the Mississippi coast an hour’s drive from where I live now and went to Cons at in the 80s/90s - I’ve been subjected to his dice sales pitch too many times to count. We got that d20 in California!

My wife worked with a woman surnamed "Zocchi," who found it amusing that my wife knew she was related to "The Colonel" due to a D&D geek husband (me).

 

[Erich the Fuzzy]

"Level 1 dwarf" makes perfect sense. It's a double put-down: "Not only is your character level 1, but you play Basic."

The rest is easily explained as house rules, misunderstandings of the official rules, limited access to proper dice, and the DM being a guy who has twice failed to graduate high school. The only thing that is clearly a mistake by the writers is Erica saying her character is a rogue.

Access to proper dice was an issue in the 70s and for some, in the early 80s. But by '86, polyhedral dice were pretty easy to get for D&D; even small town game or hobby stores carried dice set tubes plus premium "crystal" clear dice. I was almost exactly the age the ST kids are at those years in the show and playing D&D in a small town in Canada at the time with no local game store, but we still managed to have and roll the right dice. Plus we know the younger ST kids already had proper dice they used in earlier seasons which they'd bring to games if the DM was somehow lacking them. Not only that, but we KNOW they had a proper d20 at that table in that session because they rolled it twice in the key scene - an 11 and a 20. (And they were passing that die around.)

So there would be no reason for a d10/d6 kluge for a d20 roll, and no rational reason for the weird 3-dice combos that were being thrown in this scene - it was just for visual effect, in place of historical accuracy. I'm not a big fan of the choice they made. I still enjoy the show but I'd like it better if they made the simple choices to be accurate instead of randomly changing things just for dubious visual effect. If they wanted multiple dice they could use the 2d4 or 2d6 damage roll for glaive-guisarme or the 3d4 of a bardiche or trident vs. a large opponent (or 3d6 of a lance or 2-handed sword). They could even use the modern practise of rolling your d20 to hit and your damage dice (let's say 2d4 or 2d6) at the same time in case you hit, which would give you 3 dice of 2 different types. I don't recall anyone doing that back then but who can say they didn't? It would make as much sense then as now. They had already accurately shown rolling 2d10 for percentile when the "rogue" thief was presumably sneaking up for her backstab with her poison-soaked kukri (which I accept as a reskinned dagger or shortsword).

When being accurate is just as easy and visually stimulating as changing things randomly, why change them for no good reason?

 

[Erich the Fuzzy]

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.

1) Vecna was not a TSR-produced figure, so the DM had to come up with his own figure (to go with the stats he created), presumably by using an existing figure already missing its left arm. But technically, Vecna didn't lose his hand & eye - rather, they were all that were left after the rest of him was destroyed. So perhaps whatever process restored him was imperfect, incomplete, or unfinished.

2) I don't think they ever said the 20 was a critical hit, just that it was the number they needed to roll to succeed. Although in the case of the "rogue" (thief), her backstab damage would bump up the total damage significantly - but only if she hit. (As would her poison knife, since a 1E lich, like all 1E undead, was not specifically immune to poison).

3) As noted by others, yes. Assuming she was years ahead of her time by referring to a thief as a rogue. (The mere existence of the thief and assassin classes were part of the reason for the moral panic about D&D, so leaving out that term actually goes against the theme of the season).