Stranger Things Dungeons & Dragons Hellfire Club Game Boosts D&D Popularity

“Something is coming. Something hungry for blood. A shadow grows on the wall behind you and swallows you into the darkness. It’s almost here.”

The first dialogue spoken in Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” 12-year-old Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) setting the stage for a fictional attack he’s about to unleash on friends Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) in his basement, immediately establishes what is undoubtedly the series’ most iconic product tie-in: “Dungeons & Dragons.”

The influence the iconic tabletop role-playing game has had on Matt and Ross Duffer’s ’80s sci-fi phenomenon is undeniable, both in terms of how often the game itself is played throughout the show, and the classic monsters and villains it has inspired within the show’s universe.

But the impact that ‘Stranger Things’ has had on ‘D&D’ over the past nine years is just as impressive as the show (along with key contributions from Critical Role, Dropout’s ‘Dimension 20’ and the 2023 film ‘Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’) turned what was largely still considered a cult classic into a mainstream pastime of the 1920s.

“I’ve been playing and running games for over 10 years now,” said “Dungeons & Dragons” game designer Justice Arman Variety. “And to see this explosion with 5th Edition and see how ‘D&D’ is bringing people together during the pandemic through gaming over Zoom, I’m really so happy to see this kind of renaissance happening. And it’s thanks in no small part to shows like ‘Stranger Things,’ to our friends at Critical Role, to all these kinds of artists who, like Eddie Munson, probably played this game when they were younger and were inspired to become storytellers and are now paying it forward.”

Last month, Hasbro and “Dungeons & Dragons” maker Wizards of the Coast released “Stranger Things: Welcome to the Hellfire Club,” a collaborative tabletop game product for 3-5 players based on “Stranger Things,” which was created in collaboration with the Duffers and Netflix. The game features the “lost adventures” created by “D&D” player Eddie Munson, the beloved Dungeon Master for the Hellfire Club, introduced in the fourth season of “Stranger Things.”

The “Welcome to the Hellfire Club” set ties directly into the show and comes with character sheets featuring the “D&D” characters played by Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will (not officially a member of the Hellfire Club, but they just had to get Will the Wise in), and Lucas’ sister Erica (Priah Ferguson), and campaigns created in the classic 1st Edition format that Eddie and the “Stranger Things” kids would have played in the ’80s. The materials are even styled to look worn and worn, as if they were discovered in someone’s attic after years of use.

“I really love this set because I think it was a really fun opportunity to not only combine what’s fun and amazing about ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘D&D’ and what those two brands have in common, but also a chance for Justice and I and the rest of the team to dive a little bit into 1st Edition history,” said Kara Kenna, creative director of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise. “We did so much visual research on fonts, reading through some of those modules that Eddie would have had. And it was a really fun deep dive, even looking at the modules that he would have played, and what we could take from that to add to this experience.”

Arman, Kenna and the team incorporated many Hawkins-specific features into the set, drawing on the lore of “Stranger Things” to make the work feel authentic to the in-universe storyline heading into the show’s fifth and final season, which debuts Thursday on Netflix.

“For the earlier seasons we walked these kind of interesting lines, we could have created these adventures just by repeating beats from the show, but we wanted to find this line between what people familiar with the show saw, in terms of theme and inspiration, even some Easter eggs, but also giving them the opportunity to tell their own unique fantasy stories around it,” Arman said. “The second adventure in this set, ‘Scream of the Crop,’ takes a lot of inspiration from Season 2. There are destroyed farms. There are tunnels under the farms. Underneath are some creatures. But the story that emerges is also one that is categorically ‘D&D.’ And that also has to do with the conceit of this couple; that Eddie entrusts these four adventures to the next wave of Hellfire Club. And there’s a beautiful welcome letter at the beginning, addressed to Dustin, basically encouraging him to wrap up his campaign and move these things forward. And we ask our people who are on set to do the same.”

While the “D&D” team wanted to make this game a love letter to the show that is itself a love letter to “D&D,” they also “wanted to make sure this was a full 5th edition experience” so that “it didn’t feel like anything less for anyone playing today’s modern “D&D” offerings.

“But with the pre-generated character sheets you can get started without having to do any homework,” Kenna said. “You can just start with those characters at whatever level you want. And then the adventures are shorter, so it’s a little bit easier to do in a night or a few nights, rather than having a big, long campaign if you haven’t done that before. It has that balance of feeling like a fun starting point, but it’s also really a full 5E experience.”

As for whether you’ll get hints about the plot of “Stranger Things 5” by playing “Welcome to the Hellfire Club,” Arman and Kenna confirmed that they were exposed to Season 5’s storylines and were given “little hints” while developing the game.

“Justice and I got to go to Atlanta and be on the set of Season 5 for a day while they were filming, which was a lot of fun,” Kenna said. “We looked at some of the costumes and things from Season 5 as inspiration and as part of the collaboration. But knowing the date it came out, the goal certainly wasn’t to ruin anything we’ll see in Season 5. We really focused on the overall tone of the entire show, really capturing that adventurous spirit that’s in both ‘D&D’ and ‘Stranger Things.’ And if there are spoilers, you will find out later.”

As ‘Stranger Things’ comes to a close, the Duffer Brothers are already planning a prequel series on Netflix. Does this mean more “D&D” collaborations are on the horizon?

“Nothing has been announced at this time, but we are always open,” Kenna said.