The truth behind the D&D cults in Stranger Things season 4

Let’s get one thing straight. We’re all Eddie Munson fans here. And those who have seen even a bit of Stranger Things know the show’s events are not the result of Dungeons and Dragons gameplay. But that doesn’t mean the series’ mention of D&D being seen as a cult in the 80s was entirely made up. In fact, the rumors about D&D cults in Stranger Things season 4 are more fact than fiction.

Starting at the beginning, D&D is a fantasy, tabletop role-playing game (RPG) created in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game is essentially a fantastical reimagining of miniature wargames, but where players can create their own characters–ranging from wizards to orcs and elves–rather than simply being one of many units assigned to a military formation, and where a Dungeon Master serves as the game’s referee, guide, and storyteller.

D&D, which has inspired numerous video games, gained massive popularity with over 3 million players engaging in campaigns around the world by 1982. And just one year later, in 1983, is the setting for Stranger Things Season 1. So it’s no surprise that the show begins with a group of 12-year-old kids playing D&D in their friend’s basement.

Though all of the lingo for the strange events that happen in the TV show are inspired by the locations and creatures of D&D and the powers they possess, it can be confirmed that the kids’ campaigns are not what causes the dark and demented creatures of “The Upside Down” to wreak havoc on their town of Hawkins, Indiana.

This is made especially clear when, in Season 3, Will Byers makes a point of bringing attention to the fact that he, Mike and rest of the gang have not played D&D in a very long time. Meanwhile, the Mind Flayer makes a return more horrific than ever before.

The rumors of D&D cults in Stranger Things season 4 are based on history

But, in Season 4, when citizens of Hawkins start to be mysteriously murdered, the public (wrongfully) believes the blame lies with The Hellfire Club, a D&D group led by high school senior Eddie Munson. Other high school students and their parents begin to believe that Eddie and Hellfire’s other members–including Mike, Dustin, and Lucas–are all involved in devil worship and human sacrifice.

The concept may be laughable to viewers and portrayed in the show to be a ludicrous accusation (after all, we all adore Eddie who is truly the real hero and heartthrob of this season), but the rumors that are spread about D&D cults in Stranger Things Season 4 are actually inspired by real controversy from the 70s and 80s.

It began in 1979 with the disappearance of Michigan State University student James Dallas Egbert III. Egbert had made the decision to run away from the college, leaving behind a note that shared not only his intention to kill himself, but also the game for which he was known of being an avid player: Dungeons and Dragons.

While Egbert was eventually tracked down by a private detective, it was publicized that D&D was the reason for the college student’s disappearance. When Egbert killed himself the next year, it gave rise to panic around “D&D suicide,” even though it was later concluded that the game had nothing to do with Egbert’s death and that the more likely culprit was the fact that the 16-year-old child prodigy was facing extreme pressure, potentially battling a drug addiction, and was mentally unstable.

Rumors also ran rampant that the steam tunnels under the university–which Egbert also mentioned in the letter and that had already been the subject of many dark urban myths–were the hot sight for D&D gameplay. The fact that another tragic suicide occurred shortly after in 1982, where Irving Pulling’s mother Pat Pulling blamed a teacher at Irving’s school for killing her son by placing a “curse” on him during a game of D&D, didn’t help matters any.

Roleplaying games soon became a scapegoat for unsettling events and individual behavior and, as D&D was at the forefront of the gaming industry at the time and covered topics of witchcraft and sorcery, Dungeons & Dragons became a deeply hated activity.

Unfortunately, this view of D&D still continued into the early 2000s, where individuals who were otherwise fans of the gaming community shunned D&D for its “lame, morally repulsive experience system” that promotes “massacre and greed.”

This is very much in line with the narrative of D&D cults in Stranger Things Season 4, where high school jocks blame Eddie and The Hellfire club for the murders happening in town and even go so far as to say that Eddie inherited the powers of the devil.

It’s a sickening notion that such rumors about a game rooted in establishing community and support for outcasts could spread like wildfire and lead to D&D players feeling isolated, hated, and alone, the very feelings that led them to find a community in tabletop roleplaying games in the first place.

But as disheartening as these facts are, the more inspiring the message of Stranger Things season 4 becomes, that those we claim to know and despise may actually be the very people who (spoiler alert) would give up their lives to save those who would burn them at the stake.

Has Stranger Things made you a fan of D&D? What do you think about the rumors surrounding D&D cults in Stranger Things season 4? Let us know in the comments below.