Welcome to the ultimate Dungeons and Dragons Gift Guide. In today’s article, you’re going to learn which are the best gifts to pick up for D&D players for the 2023 holiday season.
It can be daunting to get gifts for a hobby you know little about, so I’m hoping this guide will help tons of people. I’ve been playing D&D for quite a while and taught my fiancé how to play as well, so I know what gifts to get for both new and more experienced players.
One of the first steps for gift buying is to figure out what your recipient does in these games. Every D&D game has one player that runs it, called the dungeon master. They control the villains and create the story.
The rest are players that run characters in the story. They act as the protagonists of the story. Depending on if your recipient runs a game or controls a character could affect what gifts they’ll want.
Dice
Dice are the safest gift to get someone if you want the gift to be a surprise. Every player I know loves having more dice, and as long as know their favorite colors, dice are a safe bet.
There are many materials for dice, with metal and plastic being the main ones. I highly recommend going with plastic ones unless the gift recipient mentions they like metal dice. Metal dice can damage tables, books, and hurt more when you step on them.
CiaraQ: Set of 35 Dice
Most dice sets includes seven dice. There are a 4 sided, a 6 sided, an 8 sided, two 10 sided, a 12 sided, and a 20 sided dice. The two 10 sided dice will differ, with one having single digits and one with double digits, since together they can let you roll a result out of 100.
The 35 dice set from CiaraQ has five sets of those seven dice. These are great, since it has enough dice for a party of five players, without sharing. They also look pretty cool.
However, if you want your gift to stand out, there are fun novelty dice that are extremely smaller or bigger than your average dice. Just try to avoid too big or small, since it could end up being unable to roll properly. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for cool dice, the following ones might be perfect.
Titan Dice: Nyx — High Fantasy Feel
Titan Dice: Nyx are certainly impressive. Their design is great design, with the smokey black color with gold numbers. They will add some flavor to any D&D game, as they don’t feel like most factory-made dice.
Besides, they come with a gorgeous wooden box, which makes them both easy to store and a great gift — you’ll be able to wrap them pretty easily.
Another gift idea for your craftier recipients is dice molds. My fiancé bought some recently because she loves making things, and we’re working on creating our own dice. You can find molds on Amazon.
Dice Bags and Boxes
So many people focus on dice and figurines that they forget the cute bags that keep your dice together. Here are three great suggestions you could get as a D&D themed gift.
Dragon’s Hoard Dice Bag — The Cutest One
This is probably the cutest dice bag that you can get. Just look at this cute sleepy dragon. It’ll keep dice safe, that’s for sure. You can also get the dragon in blue.
Card King Pro Dice Bag — Great to Get Dice in Order
Are you buying a gift for a D&D player, who’s always leaving dice everywhere? Well, this dice bag can help everything organized. As I said before, there are several types of dice. There’s room to keep all types of dices in separate pockets.
You can also get it in different colors, you can browse through them on Amazon.
Mimic Monster Dice Bag
Finally, my favorite bag looks like a treasure chest, until you open it, and it turns into a monster called a Mimic.
There are also boxes that can be used for storing dice. These will be sturdier, but tend to be pricier. A big plus with boxes is you can customize them with stickers and photos. Mimic Monster also comes with in a scarier box version.
Additionally, you can find more about best dice for DND here.
D&D Dice Bag – Make the Gift Yourself
If you love crafting or want to learn how to, dice bags are super easy to sew! Their designs are commonly used when someone is learning how to sew. Plus you can then sew in initials, pick their favorite colors, or add cute charms to the drawstring!
Here’s a tutorial for sewing a dice bag, if that’s something you’d like to try yourself.
Dice Trays & Towers
What’s a dice tray, you might ask. The idea is you roll in the dice tray so that the dice don’t get chucked off the table and get lost. Any flat surface with edges to contain the dice will work, but it’s nice to use something pretty and flavorful. Here are two examples, that you might like to get as a gift.
Blue Sword Dice Tray
This tray is particularly nice as it comes with a cover as well. This way it works double duty, by being both a tray and a storage for the dice. The inner material is pretty impressive, and it muffles the sound of dice hitting.
All in all, this is a good tray, but there are many more of them on Amazon, so you can find something that the recipient will like best.
Dice Tower Castle
For dice towers mobility can be an issue so think if you want a nice large wooden one or one that folds up and is made of a lighter material. So it’s a better gift if your recipient mostly plays at home and doesn’t transport their stuff somewhere else.
D&D Dice Tray – Make the Gift Yourself
My fiancé and I’ve been making our own dice trays and it’s tons of fun! So if you want to make a gift yourself, you can definitely try to make a dice tray.
You can find a Dice Tray Making Guide on Fauxhammer.
Figurines & Painting Sets
Figurines are generally a cool gift for the people that run games, but if you’re a player, extra figurines tend to not be as useful. For example, if you’re playing an Elf Archer in your friend’s game, you can’t really use figures of Dwarves, Goblins, so on. You’re just going to want an Elf that will match your character.
There are several sites that design custom figurines, which are an amazing gift. The downsides for this are price and the recipient totally can’t be surprised since you need their input to design the figurine.
If your recipient runs games, talk to them about their previous games, and maybe get them figurines of monsters you feel they’d enjoy using. You can also get them random elves or dwarfs or whatever if they mention several characters that look like those figurines. You can also just find tiny plastic dragons or such online and at tons of craft stores.
D&D 36 Figurines in a Protective Case — Great Gift to Wrap
If you know that they are a Dungeon Master (they run games) or if they would simply like to own some figurines, you can get these 36 miniatures along with a protective case. The case is especially nice, since it makes it easy to wrap the gift.
The figurines (or miniatures) represent enemy minions, so monsters that the player will fight against. There are six different boxes that come in the set: Orcs, Dark Elves, Zombies, Skeletons, Bandits, Goblins. They are of fine enough quality, especially considering their price.
They are unpainted, which can actually be a plus, if your giftee likes to paint them. Speaking of which, you might want to consider the next gift.
D&D Official Monsters Paint Set — Great Gift for Crafty D&D Players
So if the recipient likes to paint, there so no such thing as too many acrylics. This official D&D Paint Set contains 36 water based, non-toxic Warpaints:
- 28 acrylic paints
- 3 metallic paints
- 3 washes
- 1 effect paint
In addition, there’s also precision dropper bottles and an Owlbear Monster miniature.
This is an expansion set. If the giftee is a newer to the whole painting process, it might be a better idea to get them either Adventurer’s Paint Set or a bundle of three Painting Sets.
Maps
If your recipient runs games, maps are always a must. If they run the game online, you can find several sites that sell PDFs of battle maps and city layouts. City layouts can super useful as a visual aid, especially ones without city names, so they can use it for any city with a similar visual.
If they run games in person, there are several companies that sell tiles that can be used to build maps. Some companies also sell cutouts that a dungeon master can place on a map to represent buildings, trees, rocks, landmarks, etc. This is a great to improve the maps even further.
Here are a couple of suggestions for D&D map products they might like.
D&D Tactical Maps
This is a collection of twenty full color maps. They are selected from some of D&D most exciting adventures, they can also be used in campaigns that the dungeon master comes up with.
Players can use them for close combat during the campaigns, to better understand their surroundings and make the best tactical choices. It’s a great gift, but probably better for a dungeon master, than players.
The same is true for the next D&D gift idea.
D&D Battle Grid Map
These game mats can also serve for the same purpose as the maps I mentioned before. To better display the close combat situations.
While these aren’t official, they come with a big benefit. You can write on them end them easily erase it. This way, the dungeon master can indicate some changes to the terrain as well.
D&D Gift Guide: Books
Books are always a great gift, and most of the D&D crowd loves to read. I prepared various suggestions for what your recipient might like.
If your recipient runs games you can check if they’d be interested in books on how to world build and books on different mythologies and folklore. Not everyone has the time to create their own fictional world, but for those that do, this is such a useful gift!
Several official D&D books set in the official D&D world also exist, so that’s a very good gift idea. Just be warned – picking a book can be extremely overwhelming since there are so many books written over decades by dozens of authors. If you shop online you can read reviews and usually people will mention previous books needed to fully understand the story.
Those warnings aside, books are a good idea if you talk to your recipient ahead of time, and they give you a list with details on where and how to obtain them.
The Dark Elf Trilogy
- Author: R. A. Salvatore
For the official D&D stories, Drizzt is one of the more famous characters. A lot of players start with reading his stories, and I’ve personally enjoyed them.
The Dark Elf Trilogy features the first three books of The Legend of Dritzz series, which contains 23 books. However, the first three are a good place to start and a great gift for D&D players who like to read. Just make sure that the recipient hadn’t read them before.
You can also get the trilogy in a boxed set.
The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel Boxed Set
- Authors: Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, Carey Pietsch
If your recipient likes comic books, there are several D&D graphic novels. Critical Role and The Adventure Zone are D&D podcasts publishing graphic novels, and there are hundreds of others inspired by fantasy role playing games.
The one you see above comes from The Adventure Zone. You can also find the ones from Critical Role on Amazon.
Random Encounters
- Author: Jeff Ashworth
This book is a great gift for a dungeon master. It contains over 500 customizable maps, tables, and story hooks — everything they need for a perfect adventure.
Even though this isn’t a regular story type book, most D&D fans will happily read it from the first to the last page, as it’s just so well written.
Player’s Handbook — Great Gift for D&D Beginners
- Authors: Wizards RPG Team
Every role playing game has several books that explain the rules and contain campaign stories. It would be tempting to buy one, but it can be risky. Dungeons and Dragons may be the most well-known role playing game, but there are many similar games, and even D&D has numerous editions with different rules.
I personally prefer running D&D 5th edition rules. There are players, who prefer to play by 3.5 edition rules, like a friend of mine.
Another great gift for a brand new Dungeons and Dragons player is The Essentials Kit, which has most of the stuff one would need for a first D&D game.
Heroes’ Feast — Gift for D&D Players Who Like to Cook
- Authors: Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, Michael Witwer
This official D&D Cookbook contains 80 recipes inspired by the world of Dungeons and Dragons. I actually got this book as a birthday present from my fiancé, who also took the picture above. (You can find more photos like this one on our Instagram profile.)
Anyway, the book features everything from snacks (like Elven Bread and Iron Rations) to hearty main vegetarian, meaty and fish mains (Amphail Braised Beef, Drow Mushroom Steaks and many more).
For everyone who has a sweet tooth, desserts are also included, as well as cocktails — such as Potion of Restoration.
If your D&D giftee likes to cook, this seems like a perfect hand. Even if they aren’t the best cooks, you can nudge them in the right direction with this book. Hopefully, they’ll repay the gift back to you in the form of delicious snacks. Bon appétit!
Finally, there is also book formats to think about. I prefer having physical books, and my fiancé loves digital books using D&D Beyond. A friend of mine also loves digital books, but he buys them through the Roll20 site since the books can be used with the site for easier playing.
Board Games
There are several D&D board games. These can get expensive, but it’s a great idea if you want to split a gift with a friend or family member. Here are a couple that your giftee might like.
Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate
Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate is a game for 3-6 players, aged 12 or more. The average play-through takes around one hour. Players work together, until someone becomes a traitor.
It’s certainly one of my favorites, and is a big hit when I introduce it to fans of D&D. So if you decide to go with a board game, this one is probably the safest pick.
The Legend of Gritzz — Great Value & Single Player Option
The Legend of Gritzz is another great D&D board game. It has quite a few things going for it. First, it comes with 42 figurines. That would already be a good deal for its price, but you also get a whole board game with them!
The game focuses on a cooperation between players, it has multiple quests and scenarios, so it won’t get boring quickly. The game can be played with up to five players, and it’s probably at its best with four.
However, the game The Legend of Drizzt offers a single player option. You know how it goes with board games. Sometimes it can be hard to get a whole play group together. That’s why a single player campaign is a very nice option.
More D&D Gifts
There are also tons of D&D gifts that don’t fit into defined categories. For example, I own a cake mold that is shaped like a dragon and a waffle maker that makes waffles that look like 20 sided dice. There are tons of novelty gift ideas for gamers, and you can be more creative or silly when going this route.
For example, you could get:
- Wooden D&D themed coasters
- Fun D&D shirt
- Leather-bound journal (to keep track of adventures in style)
- and plenty more
D&D Gift Guide — Any Questions?
If you would like help to find fun gifts or share great gift ideas with others, please leave some comments! You can check casual_clerics_play_mtg on Instagram, where my fiancé and I share our geeky crafts and gifts we get each other.
In case you are looking for a gift for a new DND player, you might want to check our other article on What to Buy for DND Beginner. If you want to learn about this amazing game, you can check my DND Beginner’s Guide.
Additionally, here are some more gift guides that might interest you: