Five Strange Things Stranger Things Five Got Wrong About D&D
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There’s no doubt that Dungeons & Dragons owes a ton of its recent popularity to Stranger Things, with the blockbuster Netflix series driving a ton of mainstream attention to the game. Wizards of the Coast has since jumped on the bandwagon in a big way, with recent tie-in products like the D&D x Stranger Things Welcome to the Hellfire Club box set and the Tales from the Table gamebook.
Yet for a show where D&D is front and center, this most recent season of Stranger Things had a surprising number of glaring errors that had grognards around the world foaming at the mouth. At the risk of joining this small but obnoxiously vocal nitpicky minority, we’ve put together a list of some of the biggest errors we noticed in our watch of the final season of the show.
*** WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD ***
1. Will is Described as a Sorcerer
Throughout season 5 of Stranger Things, the character of Will Byers is repeatedly referred to as a “Sorcerer,” with the character of Mike Wheeler even going so far as to say: “”In real life, you’re more like a sorcerer because your powers don’t come from a book of spells. They’re innate.” This is of course a reference to the D&D Sorcerer class, which wasn’t introduced until 3rd edition in 2000, long before 1987, which is when the final season of the show takes place.
Some fans online have noted that if anything, Will is really more of a Warlock in that he draws his power from his “Patron” Vecna rather than being born with innate power. Following this line of reasoning, others have pointed out that if the characters were D&D classes, Eleven would really be a Sorcerer.
2. The Spell Prismatic Spray Casts Blindness
In one pivotal scene, the character of Dustin Henderson mentions that in a campaign he cast the Prismatic Spray spell and rolled a 7, which resulted in the color violet which causes blindness. In the AD&D 1st edition rules that would have existed at the time, however, a role of 7 banishes the target to another plane of existence. That being said, in the new 5th edition rules, the roll does indeed cause blindness, so this mistake may have been the result of the show’s writers simply referencing the wrong edition.
3. Clerics Can’t Cast Dimension Door
In another scene in the show, Mike Wheeler gifts his sister Holly a D&D miniature noting: “She’s a Cleric, which means she has divine powers and can cast spells of protection to ward against evil spirit. Even cooler she can cast a Dimension Door.” In the rules at the time, this not a spell that a Cleric could cast (although notably in the current 5th edition rules it is possible for a Trickery Domain Cleric to get access to the spell).
4. Dwarven Forge Terrain Appears
Several times in the show we see characters gathered around the gaming table filled with terrain from Dwarven Forge, a company that didn’t exist until 1996 and which has only really taken off in the past decade or so.
It’s something that the vast majority of viewers likely never noticed, but was hard not to spot for any modern D&D player who has drooled over the company’s expensive, high-end physicals sets for use with miniatures.
5. Mike’s terrible Dungeon Mastering
In Season 5 (and really throughout the show) whenever Mike Wheeler is behind the DM screen he generally does a pretty terrible job of it. This is particularly evident in Season 5 when he essentially railroads the entire party at the end of their campaign. There’s no player choice or even die rolls, with Mike instead just narrating what happens.
For most watchers it’s a satisfying narrative wrap, but for longtime D&D fans it seems like something that even the most inexperienced DM would avoid doing.
Final Thoughts
In past seasons we’ve seen a few other minor D&D blunders (for example calling thieves “rogues”), but Season 5 seemed particularly glaring in what it got wrong. It’s surprising for a show that’s become so tightly intertwined with D&D. Yet it’s possible they were legitimately missed by the show’s writers and the Duffer Brothers, who pointed out in a recent interview that D&D was never really supposed to be a major of the series
One other possibility, however, is that these weren’t actually errors, but deliberate changes, with Wizards of the Coast perhaps insisting that any mention to rules use the current 5th edition to avoid confusing new players brought in by the show.
Whatever the reason may be, none of these mistakes are the end of the world and only the most uptight D&D grognards are likely going to be upset by them. If anything, Stranger Things has been an epic boon for the game and proof that RPGs have gone mainstream.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
