It’s that time of year again! Christmas cheer is coursing through the veins of every boy and girl as they anticipate the holiday. Everyone’s out buying gifts for the next month, but some people are harder to get gifts for than others. Maybe you don’t know much about Dungeons & Dragons, or rpgs in general. Maybe you’re a part of their gaming group but are blanking on ideas. No matter what your conundrum is, I’ve got you covered with this guide to all the gifts that will fill your roleplaying giftee with glee come Christmas morning.
Gifts $10 and Under
This item gets a special shoutout. One reason being that I cannot resist lootbox like deals. The dopamine rush just pleases the stupid monkey part of my brain. The randomness means you can also gift this to yourself and still be surprised. The second reason this item is so great is the unbridled value. It costs $7, but the dice inside can be valued from $7 to $13! Plus the spread focuses at half of that value pool settling around the $9 range, so you’re definitely getting more bang for your buck here! A fun idea you could do with this is if you’re running a game is get each player a bag, have them open them all at once, then run a one shot with characters based off the dice they just opened.
Kraken Dice, Metal and Plastic
Kraken Dice is a name that usually gets brought up in discussions of gifts, and for good reason. Their dice are high quality, with a nice mix between inexpensive plastic sets starting at $9, and relatively cheap metal sets starting at $25. The metal sets have an added bonus of coming with a cool little charm. They also have a D2, or as it’s called in some parts: a coin.
Gifts $10-$20
Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set
The end all of beginner gifts. This set has all you need to get a group starting dnd. It comes with a base set of the rules, premade characters, and an adventure to run them in. Coming in at a whopping $12, this set has so much value packed into one box. It gains bonus points for having the ultimate power of introducing people to dnd!
This Cup of Wonders is a great rolling device for those that don’t like carrying dice towers around. The cup itself is beautiful, flashy but not gaudy. The fact that is comes preloaded with 35 dice is just a bonus. At $13 bucks this is one of the better inexpensive gifts that you can get your player.
Playing a spellcaster is great fun, but you know what’s not so great? Preparing spells, going through the books every in game day, writing them down, and trying to remember what they do. These spell cards alleviate that problem immensely. I cannot think of a single DM who wouldn’t love all of these decks, or even a player who wouldn’t want their class appropriate cards. At $17 you’re saving a lot of time with a bit of money; well worth the investment!
If you’re a parent, you want to get your kids to get on the d&d bandwagon as early as possible. After all that’s why gamer parents have kids, right? This is a sweet book that’s equally fun for the kid and parent to enjoy together. It’s amazing how they managed to distill the concepts of dnd down to a child’s sense of understanding. By getting your kid interested in dnd early, you can take advantage of the many learning benefits the genre has to offer. And at $11, it’s actually on the lower end for children’s hardcovers.
You can’t go wrong with a good t-shirt. That’s always been my fallback plan for gifts, and it’s served me well so far. The selection at Guerilla Tees is admittedly slim for dnd lovers, but the ones they do have are absolutely fantastic. Fantastically cheap too at $10. Personally I love the Carpe DM shirt.
The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel
If your intended gift target is a fan of podcasts, they’ve probably listened to at least an episode of The Adventure Zone. This comic delightfully compacts the first arc of their first campaign into one hilarious graphic novel. Even if they haven’t heard the podcast before, this book is just an entertaining read regardless. At $15, it’s a no brainer. It’s going to be amazing.
If you’re looking to build up your wardrobe and rep your dnd love, Dungeon Armory is the place to do it. They’ve got tons of shirts so there’s something for everyone. They’re only a tad more expensive than shirts from Hot Topic at $22, but you can see the artistry put into them makes it well worth it.
Gifts $30+
Elderwood Academy Rpg Accessories
Starting at $39 and topping off at a little above $100, Elderwood Academy’s accessories are a bit pricey. But what they lack in thriftiness they more than make up for in quality. Here you’ll find dice chests, towers, trays, and more. They’re all made from your choice of wood, with plenty of designs you can customize them with. Seriously, the amount of customization this site has is unreal! Whether it’s a dice chest tailored to a player’s new character, or a tower designed to fit with a DM’s campaign, you’re sure to find something here.
Maybe your gifting target is a player who’s always on the go? Then a dice bag might be exactly what they need. Dice Pouch offers bags that you can customize with embroidered letters and emblems. You may personalize it with their name for sake of ownership, or their character’s for coolness, or even some inside joke for laughs! At $35, this is a relatively cheap option with access to customization to make that gift feel special. As a bonus, they also have bags ready to go with other fandom stuff on them, in case their geekiness spreads across multiple fandoms.
Halfling’s Haversack Bulk Dice
No player can ever have enough dice, and every player wants more unique dice. This should be rule 1 of gift giving for any rpg player. Following that rule we’ve got this bag of 140 dice. That sounds like it could take a lot of room right? Actually this bag holds unique dice, made for halfling hands, or maybe just a child’s hand. Each dice is a diminutive 10mm tall! This bag has flavor and style that any collector of dice will love. And at $30, that means you’re paying 20 cents per dice, not even including the bag itself.
This bag of dice is a bit more conventional, but that just means it’s more likely to fit a player’s gaming needs (and be easier to find if they roll under the table). At $30 for 140 dice you’re still getting the same great deal, so this one comes down to player preference.
Maybe your gift givee is a fan of heavy metal? Nothing beats the feeling of rolling a metal die; you can feel the force of fate intervening as that crit shows up. Die Hard Dice offers a huge variety of metal dice, all of which look fantastic. The true beauty of this site is the multitude of ways they help you search for the perfect dice. Popularity, color, styles, and even by appropriate class! They even have a few handy guides that teach you how to take care of your new dice, why pick metal over plastic, and more. Starting at $30 and topping of at $50 they can be a bit expensive, but it’s worth it once you realize the difference between metal and plastic. As an added bonus, they have some neat dice trays that go perfectly with the new set of dice you just got from them!
If you know what your DM is missing from their library of books, then that is the perfect gifting opportunity! Odds are they’re missing the latest book, which as of now is Dungeon of the Mad Mage. This adventure is particularly special because it’s the first official adventure that runs players to the max level 20. All 15 levels take place in this huge mega dungeon. You can even pair it with the Dragon Heist adventure for a full 1-20 campaign! This book prices at $32, like most other dnd books.
If your gifting target is more art minded, or just interested in the history of the game, then Art & Arcana is just the right book for them! At $34, this book is packed from cover to cover with over 700 pieces of art that span all iterations of the game. And if you’re new you should know that the art in these games are absolutely gorgeous! Not only are they beautiful, they offer up more inspiration than a bard for DMs running games. This gift is even so good you could gift it to a fan of fantasy in general!
Death Saves is a heavy metal themed apparel line helmed by geeky actor extraordinaire Joe Manganiello. Each shirt runs about $35, which is what you could expect from a shirt you’d get on tour with a band. The shirts are designed to take a beating, with beautifully bad ass art on both sides. I’m a personal fan of the Lord Soth shirt, whith the deathknight being one of my favorite classic villains.
Critical Role is the gateway to dnd for a lot of people. Matt Mercer has crafted a beautifully rich and immersive world. This book shares that world with us in great detail. It recounts the history, the people, and even classes of Exandria. This campaign setting will allow your players to delve into the world and play for themselves with classes, items, and even feats all designed by the big man himself. Even the history is a delight to read and worth the price of admission alone. How do you want to gift this?
The ultimate gift. This bad boy prices at $170, easily topping the price part of this list. However the price is well justified. Ignoring the limited nature of it, you’re still putting $100 of it that you would’ve already spent in normal books anyway. The key point of value is that these books mark the new print that contains edits that clarify the game and in some cases straight up changes it. Not having to look online for these changes is a bit more convenient, and having the latest edition of something is always nice. This is a particularly nice gift for gaming groups that want to thank their DMs. If you split the cost between the 5 players that the game suggests having, that’s only $34 each. That’s essentially like buying a book for them. This set only just came out too, so the chances are great that they don’t have this yet. What better way to thank your DM for running the game!
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