‘Something is Coming …’: the Screenwriter as Dungeon Master of Stranger Things

Of all the nostalgic cultural references and “easter eggs” populating the Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things, the archetypal roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons is key to the series’ cult appeal. This is as clear in its narrative foregrounding as it is in the reports that the game’s popularity soared after the show’s 2016 premiere, with a reported 40 million players worldwide at the time of ST3’s release. However, Stranger Things’ application of Dungeons & Dragons does not simply operate at a metatextual level. This chapter proposes that the nature of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign—an exercise in interactive storytelling masterminded by the ‘Dungeon Master’ over the course of a number of sessions of gameplay—can be detected in both the “eight-hour movie” structure of the series, and the Duffer Brothers’ and other series writers' authorial voice at script level. Applying paradigmatic feature screenplay structure to the series’ televisual format to more deeply illuminate the “eight-hour movie” format discursively explored by pop cultural critics during the "golden age of TV", it then examines the accompanying scripts through the lens of Claudia Sternberg’s “modes of presentation”. ‘On the page’, the Duffer Brothers’ use of scene text speaks directly to the reader with an enthusiasm and knack for storytelling, rather than solely, per Sternberg, technical report mode. Whether employing onomatopoeic sound cues, asides, or frowned-against exclamation marks, the Duffer Brothers repeatedly defy the expected norms of screenwriting practice and—in striving for the “readability” through rhythm suggested by screenwriter William Goldman—recalls the D&D Dungeon Master’s addressing of the players.