D&D General Stranger Things Image of a D&D Game

The new Stranger Things season 4 promo video dropped with a cool quick scene of their D&D game! Not much to see but the old classic pitted dice. Anyone have a clue about the minis depicted?

 

[darjr]

I'm just shocked they have d10s. In 1984, all my group had were d20s, and you colored in half the numbers...

D10s were in Moldvay basic in 1981.

 

[Laurefindel]

We had minis and mats in the (late) eighties.

minis were more in the style of pewter soldiers, not super detailed, much smaller than modern ones, but definitely fantasy minis.

we also had a grid mat. Well, my friend’s older brother had a battle mat, we had a vinyl tablecloth lined with thin brown lines every inch, full of not-quite-erased (supposedly) erasable markers scribbles, that we took from the local carpet and linoleum store.

 

[Yenrak]

We had a battlemap that we ruined with markers that we’re wet erase. Bought it at a NYC shop. Either Forbidden Planet or Compleat Strategist.

But what we really used was a giant piece of graph paper that we covered with a big piece of plastic that worked as a transparent wet erase board. It was fantastic.

 

[Dr. Bull]

Back in about 1982, my local hobby store had a large table with a 1" grid in the back of the store. The store owner made it for war gaming, but we used it for D&D (they had a huge collection of terrain, so we never used pens on the grid). The best memory I have was of the entire table turned into a forest (using miniature trees made for model train enthusiasts).

By 1985, I had a collection of about 50 unpainted pewter minis that I used on a regular basis. A lot of us made our own dungeon tiles using rulers, pens, and card stock paper. None of it cost very much... It just took time and effort.

When Paizo invented flip mats, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Sharpies+wet+dry erase?!? Amazing...

 

[J.Quondam]

I got a nice roll-up vinyl battlemap last year or two of high school (so, 1990ish).
Before that, I had a some large-format sheets of graph paper (hex and square at a few different counts) which i covered with transparent contact paper so we could use wipe-off markers on it.

I also had a handful of pewter miniatures which I painted (poorly. One of my old halflings still looks like he's wearing aviator shades. ).

 

[Helldritch]

We had a battlemat as early as 1980. All we needed was an access to a plotter (large printer for building plans) that my uncle had at his company. A plastic table layer to protect the gridded paper mat and walls made up of cardboards for rooms. And even with that, we would play ToTM most of the time.

 

[R_Chance]

We used minis / terrain and rulers for outdoors (we were wargamers) and cardstock square gridded sections of hallways and rooms for dungeons pretty much from the beginning (mid 1970s). For us the game always involved miniatures etc. I have layouts for building interiors too. Had a monumental melee in a cathedral once. We ended up with both paper and vinyl square grids in the 80s iirc. Still use all of the above. Of course I am getting old (I'm 62, almost 63) and my memory on when we acquired what may be getting fuzzy

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I'm just going to assume that when children have to deal with constant threats of transdimensional eldritch horror their parents are more inclined to spoil them when they ask for minis and vinyl mats.

 

[J.Quondam]

As for the dice rolling in the screencap....
Maybe they're not actually being rolled for the game, and are just moving for some other reason? They could be being telekinesed* or subject to a weird gravity effect or something.


* Yay for passive voice on invented verbs!

 

[AtomicPope]

I started in '84 and that's how we've always played. Maps and minis from day one.

I'm just curious why they're rolling a d6, d8, and a d10 together.

If it's 80's AD&D and you only have one set of dice then they're rolling initiative.