 Howdy how's it going? My name is Davy Chappie and I have a problem. I'm addicted to impulse buying any special edition rulebook for D&D that I can get my hands on. It started with Volo's Guide and then it escalated until I dropped 170 or so on the special edition rulebook box, which I already had the digital books for, so when I went to my local game store and discovered that there was a Stranger Things edition of the Starter Set for D&D, I tried to walk away. I really did. But my wallet, it just had a mind of its own. It flew out of my pocket, picked up the Stranger Things box and just went right over to the register before I could even catch up. I swear, that's just how it happened. In any case, after buying it, I perused the contents within and realized, hey, this shit's kinda cool. I should tell people about this. So, as always, prepare for my unasked-for opinion as we dive into this unpaid promotion for my sugar, D&D. So I bought the whole box for about $25 and considering the whole thing comes with the normal starter rulebook, two Demogorgon figurines, a set of dice and a super small module with five premade character sheets, I'd say that it's probably worth the price, especially if you don't already have a Starter Set. To give you a better indication of what you're getting, let's go LIVE on the field! Behold, it's Phone Davy. Look at this box. Look at it. Look at its squareness. Very sleek. You can see the Thessal Hydro- No, that's not a Thessal Hydro. You can see the Demogorgon right in here. Boom. Box opens. Bam! Look at that. Look at that. That's Stranger Things right there. Oh, this is definitely Stranger Things. They actually have two Demogorgons. I'm not sure why. They really only needed the one. If you look right here, give me that. This one has a painted mouth. This one does not, which confuses me because it makes me feel like they intended for you, for people to paint them. But if you like, look at it. This is a super rubber. This is a very rubbery model. That means it's probably not gonna break, but it's also not gonna hold any paint real easy. And even if it does, one twist and boom, you got cracked paint. So like, if you're a model painter, these are gonna be real disappointing. But if you're just someone who likes to look at cool miniatures, this is pretty neat. Now, I also want to mention that there's dice. They were in a bag. I opened them already because, of course, I did. I saw dice. But what I want to mention real quick is that there's only six of them. Now, the reason why that's weird is because most dice sets come with seven with a second D10 for percentile dye. I guess in this case, you don't need to worry about that because you're not going to be rolling any percentiles. But it is a little bit weird and my OCD for dice is just flaring up here. Okay. Now, opening it up. Boom. This is the rule book. It is a rule book. It's exactly the same type of rule book. The only difference here is that its art detail is different. You can see, bam, they've got like, it makes, it looks old, which makes it better. Another thing is they replaced all of the normal D&D art with stranger things. So, I mean, that's to be expected. Five pre-made character sheets all starting at level three, which is actually a pretty good level for starting new people out. There's an argument for whether levels one or three are the best for new players. Given that at level one, you can ease people into the game more. But at level three, they're actually strong enough where they can do anything. And the character sheets are the Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, you, and Wizard, which you might recognize as the classes that the main characters chose in the actual show. And bam! The adventure book, Hunt for the Thessal Hydra. This is exactly what stranger things is supposed to be all the way down to the Hasbro gaming logo. It looks like someone's just writing on a notebook, which is cool because it reminds me of my olden days when I was just writing in a notebook for all my campaigns. It's got some art from the perspective of Mike who drew all of it. And if this picture is to be believed, I'm pretty sure this takes place between seasons two and three, definitely after season two. I'm not going to spoil anything else in this book because it's got a whole lot of stranger things references that you're going to want to see for yourself. But I definitely think that you are going to appreciate playing the Hunt for the Thessal Hydra. Now, the real difference between the base Starisa and the stranger things version is the adventure module. And I'll say right now that comparing the two isn't very easy because it's obvious that they're made for different mindsets. The original set came packed with the Lost Mine of Van Delver, a miniature campaign that took you from level one all the way to level five. It's meant to be a nice introduction into the idea of what D&D normally is. It touches on a little bit of everything in the D&D world and it'll most likely take a few sessions to get through the whole thing. The stranger things set, however, comes packed with the Hunt for the Thessal Hydra. And that module is, no pun intended, a party game. I was surprised to open the book and not see a mini campaign that it would take me a day to memorize, but instead I found a small notebook written by a kid that didn't care about crazy lore building or the system of government in the town or how to write flavor text for the DM to read when players enter a new area. In retrospect, I don't know what else I should have expected. The booklet does a really good job of cutting out everything but the bare essentials for everyone playing. You are a group of adventures that a knight trusts for reasons in a place called Nametown and he wants you to find and defeat a Thessal Hydra that's been plaguing the land so that the kingdom will be at peace once more. Along the way you'll solve basic puzzles, get absolutely mobbed by troglodytes and enjoy some stranger things tie-ins that you can definitely predict on your own but I won't spoil for you here just for surprises sake. Now something important to note is that the whole adventure can be finished in one game session which may sound weird at first but I actually think that it's really important when you think about it. Even with the normal starter sets module if I wanted to convince people new to the hobby to try the game out for the first time I'd have to go through the notorious nightmare that is scheduling for a D&D session every week. With this box though I can make just a single day into a D&D day and give new people a taste of what the game is like without overwhelming them with any commitments. That is huge and coupled with the obvious marketing ploy of being able to say hey it's based on stranger things you know that Netflix show you all like that mentioned D&D a couple times and is now synonymous with it. Yeah that's this game let's be trendy and play it. I now have a big in to bring more people into the hobby that just otherwise wouldn't get the chance especially since without that need for commitment if someone ends up not liking the game it's no biggie. No one feels forced to keep playing for the sake of the group and no one in the group that wants to keep playing feels like they're dragging anybody along and if things work out and all the stars get aligned then I can just break out the lost mind of Fendilver or another module or even just catch a ride on the USS make shit up and have magical adventures from there. So the TLDR is that if you've got a group of players that are already hyped to play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time or are returning players trying to break into 5e the normal starter set is in my opinion the best option but if you're trying to coax nervous new players into the game who might normally be daunted by the scope or just not sure if D&D is really all that fun then the stranger things starter set is a perfect lure to pull them into the collective hive mind and although the stranger things references will obviously be lost in anybody who hasn't seen the show the adventure does a good job of not making you reliant on knowing anything about the show and although I can't confirm this because I've never played it with anybody who hasn't seen it the things you do in the game might actually make you want to try stranger things out to see if it's your cup of tea I personally really like the series and hey it's even got Samwise Gamgee in it but that'll about do it I hope you enjoy this video leave a like comment subscribe whatever you want try to stay up and not down don't try to fight interdimensional demigods with nothing but a bunch of adolescent kids with a plucky attitude and maybe support me on patreon so that I can afford more Christmas lights but yeah Davi out