Dungeons & Dragons Stranger Things: Welcome to the Hellfire Club – A Review
If you are a fan of Stranger Things, this starter set will bring back the joy of watching your favorite TV show. It is also a great introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re a D&D player who’s never watched Stranger Things, it might lead you to binge watching the show. If you are both a D&D player AND a fan of Stranger Things, you are in for a treat!
When you open the box, and see the postcard-like card featuring a picture of Eddy Munson and the rest of the Hellfire Club, you’re immediately pulled into Stranger Things territory, and it will feel fantastic to anyone who misses the show.
The release of a new Dungeons & Dragons boxed set is always an exciting event. OG players get the chance to discover something new about the game they love. New players get to experience that unique feeling, not unlike the thrill of opening a treasure chest at the end of a D&D adventure.
Even after Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adopted hardcovers as the new format for its rulebooks, boxed sets continued to pop up over the course of the game’s many editions. They came in all forms: starter sets, mega-size adventures, world settings, tie-ins with other intellectual properties, etc.
D&D Starter Sets
Fifth edition D&D saw the release of several starter sets over its more than 10-year run, including the 2014 Starter Set, the 2019 Essentials Kit and the 2022 Dragons of Stormwreck Island Starter Set.
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) hit on a great idea when they came up with starter sets. They provide a convenient introduction to the game, not only for people who have never played D&D before, but also for players who have not played the game in a long while. They also represent an opportunity to try out the game without having to invest in the more expensive rulebooks. They even make great birthday or holiday gifts.
Following the release of the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 rulebooks (the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Monster Manual), a new starter boxed set was to be expected. The Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set was released in September 2025 (you can read the review here). Not unlike the Stranger Things and the Rick and Morty sets, a new themed set just had to follow the release of the 2024 rules, and WotC really hit it on the nail with Welcome to the Hellfire Club.
The Welcome to the Hellfire Club Starter Set is not to be confused with the Stranger Things Starter Set released in 2019 for 5th edition. Stranger Things fans
have been playing their unique brand of D&D ever since its release. Long out of print, the set remains a very sought-after item. For anyone who missed it, Welcome to the Hellfire Club is your chance to get your Stranger Things fix, courtesy of Dungeons & Dragons. I am glad that WotC decided to release another set based on Stranger Things for the new 2024 rules.
Which Starter Set to buy: Stranger Things or Welcome to the Hellfire Club?
Some players who purchased the 2019 Stranger Things Starter Set might feel they don’t need to buy Welcome to the Hellfire Club. After all, the two sets are good entry points to both editions of the game. However, Welcome to the Hellfire Club, taking its cue from the recently released Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set, has so much more to offer. I also think that Stranger Things fans will absolutely have to own both sets.
Something for the Pain
This boxed set is the perfect remedy for the Stranger Things blues that fans feel in the wake of the landmark series’ finale. Stranger Things was not merely a television show; it was a television event. We all miss our favorite TV shows when they wrap up, and there are a good number of Stranger Things fans who are wondering what to do now that the show is over. The answer is simple: Play D&D.
A Hefty Box
Welcome to the Hellfire Club shares a few things with its immediate predecessor, the Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set. First off, it’s a BIG box. There are a lot of things rattling around in there, and just like a Christmas gift, you simply can’t wait to open it.
In format, content and approach, it is very much like Heroes of the Borderlands, which is a very good thing. Welcome to the Hellfire Club is what I like to call a “super boxed set” (like Curse of Strahd Revamped or 1st edition’s Battle System). Fifth edition starter sets all shared the same basic components: a rulebook, a short adventure and a set of dice, everything you need to play D&D. Starting with Heroes of the Borderlands, players got a lot more, and Welcome to the Hellfire Club is perpetrating that trend.
Lots of Nice-to-Haves
You don’t need much to start playing D&D, as the previous starter sets have shown. Here, though, there’s icing on the cake. A lot of it. Beside the mandatory 
rulebook, adventures and the ubiquitous dice set, there are a lot of playing aids that really add to the experience of discovering D&D. In many ways, this role-playing set looks a lot like a board game.
There are spell, equipment and monster cards. While such cards are not new, they are usually marketed by third parties. This set saves players and DMs the trouble of finding or creating them.
Then there are the tokens. If you like a little 3D thrown into your tabletop D&D, these tokens will add an exciting element to your gaming sessions. They are printed on fine, glossy cardboard stock, and they are illustrated in gorgeous black & white. While some players might be puzzled by the choice of black & white, the monochromatic palette adds a very strong first edition nostalgic feel to the tokens. They are reminiscent of the illustrations from the Basic and Expert boxed sets released in the ’70s and ’80s. Their Larry Elmore-esque quality will strike a chord with OG players.
The Combat Tracker Sheets are a very useful inclusion. (They were also included in Heroes of the Borderlands.) There is a whole pad of them. They will greatly help track each player character’s initiative, hit points and conditions. They also track death saves.
The world setting for this set is unique. Rather than setting the adventures in the customary Forgotten Realms, the designers created the world of Greyhawkins that obviously was inspired by both Greyhawk and the town of Hawkins where Stranger Things is set. The flip side of the map is a poster featuring art from the box cover. The map belongs on the gaming table; the poster belongs on the gaming room’s wall… that poster is bound to get dog-eared really fast.
The highly customized Dungeon Master Screen is (arguably) the best playing aid in the box. It ranks right up there with my other two favorites, the Acquisitions Incorporated and Rick & Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons screens. This is as much a collector’s item as a playing aid.
Character Leveling Made Easy
The set is designed for player characters levels one to three. WotC obviously wanted to make sure players could navigate character creation and leveling effortlessly. The box includes pre-rolled characters that will go a long way toward speeding up preparation for the game. Character creation (including race selection, rolling stats, selecting a class, etc.) can be intimidating for first-time players, especially when you factor in a new DM as well. But that’s not all. There are also “pre-leveled” player character sheets. So, once your character reaches level 2 (and then level 3), you do not have to worry about updating the character sheet. Those sheets are also provided.
While some players might feel that this removes some of the fun of playing the game, nothing prevents them from rolling and leveling their own characters. This genuine approach merely makes it easier for new players to get introduced to the game.
The player character sheets are printed on a yellowish-orange paper stock, but not just any yellowish-orange… it’s “OG yellowish-orange.” Some players will recognize it as the bright, neon color (or something very close to it) of original 1st edition player character sheets. Get ready to be hit by a strong wave of nostalgia.
Adventures in the Best D&D Tradition
The set comes with four separate adventures. They are rather short, but there is a lot of good to be said about these adventures. First off, the overall design is
beautiful. It’s a genial mix of classic D&D designs and Stranger Things elements.
The art includes both black & white and full-color illustrations. There is a strong, retro feel to these adventures. Looking at the covers takes me back to the days of BECMI (for the original Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal rules of the game) D&D adventures such as Blizzard Pass, Horror on the Hill, Test of the Warlords, Quagmire and many more. If you fell in love with D&D while playing these adventures, you will get to relive those great moments here. If you’re new to D&D, you’ll get to experience what made it great to begin with.
Conclusion
There are many ways for a person to get introduced to Dungeons & Dragons, and Welcome to the Hellfire Club is certainly a good one. It is a great introduction to D&D whether you’re a Stranger Things fan or not. It’s a worthy follow-up to the 2019 Stranger Things set, and a great way to perpetuate the fun and excitement of watching Stranger Things and playing Dungeons & Dragons.
