The Ultimate Dungeons and Dragons Holiday Gift Guide(2021)
Holidays are almost around the corner! And it's time to start looking for a perfect Dungeons and Dragons gift. Well, if you already know that your special person loves Dungeons and Dragons or wants to try it out, it's a job half done. And this Ultimate guide is the second part of the job - to tailor the perfect gift from a wide array of Dungeons and Dragons gifts available for this Christmas holidays.
Disclaimer: I wasn't endorsed by any of the products or mentioned companies down below. These products are what I use/love/would love to have for this holiday season. So let's skip the cheap and generic peddling guides and find ourselves a perfect Dungeons & Dragons gift for 2020.
best gifts for the dungeon masters
The best choices for Dungeon Masters in 2020 it's are relatively simple. It's either Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure book or Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (D&D Rules Expansion). Why? These are the newest books in the DnD, and the chances are the lowest for the recipient having these books.
If the person you're thinking of buying a gift is always in a hurry, a pre-made adventure book like Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is an ideal gift if he's a Dungeon Master. It's a great thematically for the winter holidays. It's a great product to gather inspiration for their games.
The second option is Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, an excellent choice for those who instead forge their own story than enjoy a pre-made one. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything brings new options for the game, and a person who makes their own story(Homebrew) will love the gift for that reason, expanding their ideas and making their game even better.
best DND budget gifts
WizKids D&D Icons of The Realms Booster Packs
If your DM enjoys placing miniatures on the map and thinks more visually, any of the Wizkids booster packs will be a small yet perfect gift since the monsters, and the booster packs can always inspire a new adventure.
The Handmade Leather Dice Bag
There are many dice bags with different designs. However, this one also serves a practical purpose of becoming a dice rolling "box" during the game, which is a nice bonus to the gift. It also looks beautiful, and the price is reasonable, making a budget-friendly gift.
Dice Tower
Dice towers are an excellent looking gift paired with some boxy packaging. Not to mention useful for the dungeon master that is busy rolling dices. It's perfect for DM that wants to keep the suspense while playing the game hiding the Dices and doing it efficiently. It's a bit more comfortable to use this contraption since the Dice will not fall from the table and end up in a place where the DM will have an easier way to count the dice results.
Field Notes
I love this product's aesthetics and functionality to keep DM notes. Field Journal is an excellent gift for the Notetakers and any writer types. It's always fun to look back to past notes on the campaigns you ran, recorded in hand and ink, making an excellent gift for the notetaking kind.
Condition Rings
Condition Rings a great functional gift for the Dungeon Master and its players. It's easy to understand conditions, it fits the standard DnD miniatures format, and it's just useful to have at any table. It has all the necessary conditions and serves well as a tool, making an excellent gift for combat lovers out there.
Battle Mat
Battle mat is a necessary tool for any Dungeon Master. I used both these choices two at my games, and it always served well with miniatures or papercraft terrain. The only real difference between them is the quality and the budget of the mats.
Fat Zebra Designs Battle Mat Is an excellent mat to start with. However, over time, the ink tends to go into the mat's surface layers, more than the Chessex one. If you are looking for a more durable and longer-lasting battle mat, Chessex is the better choice and well recognized in the tabletop RPG community. Both are excellent choices. It's just a matter of what kind of budget you have for this year for the perfect gift.
best gift for the crafty dungeon masters
WizKids Townspeople and Accessories
Unless your DM expressed some specific creature they would want to paint, I find this WizKids Townspeople kit one of the most essential for those that paint miniatures. This kit has everything from merchants to guards that could serve as bandits. It's almost like a small town with various miniatures that any DM would love to paint.
best gift for dnd worldbuilders
The Worldbuilder's Journal of Legendary Adventures
Worldbuilders love to develop their worlds, and one of the most useful ways to do so is the ask questions about the world they're building. This product contains a systematic way to do so and to create a perfect world. It also serves another need for the worldbuilder by writing into the book, it makes the world even more real and grounded, making it the perfect gift for the worldbuilder type of Dungeon Masters.
best gift for d&d players
Player's Handbook
Look, if your players don't have a Players Handbook, well, it's the first thing you should get your players for Christmas this year. If you have a worn-down player handbook or see that the group would benefit from the second one, you will not miss this gift.
best gift for those that take notes and are meticulous beings.
Officially Licensed Embossed Dungeons and Dragons Journal
This Journal is one of the most beautiful, official Journal that I've seen. One downside is 17.99, and if you're planning on a group gift, that will cost you a bit, but there are more options outside the official Dungeons and Dragons products that also look rather neat.
best gift for the whole DnD party
Chessex Dice
Look, no matter what DnD edition you play, there cannot be enough Dices, and there are infinite reasons why any D&D player would enjoy getting a new set of Dice.
To make everyone happy(maybe except your wallet), I would recommend the Chessex Dice, which could prize themselves as the best choice. It has great looking patterns, plays well, feels well, and are relatively durable to scratches.
Top cutest D&D gift
Ultra Pro Dungeons and Dragons Mimic Dice Bag
If you're looking for a dice bag that looks cute, you still don't have that many dices, and this is a perfect gift for anyone that is a dice-head. It's probably the cutest gift on the list with a cute plushie Mimic, a beloved creature of the DnD community.
best gifts for new dnd players
Many people are coming into this hobby, and the best way to give them a starter set. There are two of them that come to mind for this holiday, and both of them are great options for gifts.
Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit (D&D Boxed Set)
This set is a great starting set, with extra small neat things. Dice, item cards, sidekick cards, and a well-written adventure module. What's also great it's thematically great for the holidays, with an Ice Dragon inspired story that will go well with the cozy cold winter evenings and a group of friends.
Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set
This set is a classical choice, maybe even better for the adventure reasons and pure introduction to the hobby, it's more straightforward, fewer things in it, but it's worth as much as the previous one and still makes a great present.
WizKids Icons of the Realms Starter Set
Look, maybe just a box containing only the paper sheets will not cut it for a good gift to sell Dungeons and Dragons' excitement. This set provides six miniatures of different classes and races that will be indisposable in future games. It lets the players immerse themselves more, and the tactical aspect of the game becomes way more comfortable when you can see the combat on the table.
Dungeon Masters Screen
In means of the screens, there is a sizable variety. However, I would always go with this official D&D DM screen for a couple of reasons, one being that it has all of the available DM information I would need. The second one is that many other screens are tailored to different adventures that do not contain the knowledge that the Dungeon Master needs. Unless you want to pair a book with a DM screen, I believe this is the best budget choice for D&D game screens.
Top gifts for the D&D collectors
Top Pick for the "Oh thank you, you REALLY shouldn't have..."
I mean, ask the recipient's spouse before buying this. But I mean, it's pretty neat if this gift is for game shop owners, people that have dedicated game rooms in their house or love D&D.
Top Pick for the D&D Collectors
Curse of Strahd is one of the best adventures Dungeons and Dragons 5e have to offers. This is also arguably the best looking premium edition I have seen in a long time, making it a perfect gift for this holiday season.
Top Pick for Dice Bag - CardKingPro Dice Bag
Look, this is the crème de la crème of the Dice Bags. Separate rooms for every type of Dice needed for D&D, superb capacity, decent medieval-game-treasure-bag inspired design with some modern touches. A perfect gift for those that have too much dice.
best gifts for the Bards and the D&D Art Lovers
Top Pick for Art Lovers - Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana a visual history
I mean, if the person you're playing DnD with, and somehow he's into the graphical design, character design or loves art books, graphic novels, comics, this gift is pretty great in choice. It's a talking piece on the coffee table. It's an inspiration for the artists out there. Overall, it's an excellent product portraying the art style of Dungeons and Dragons and a bit of its history almost three times cheaper than the special edition.
Best gifts for those that are thinking of getting into Miniature Painting
Miniature painting is a hobby in itself and a bit intimidating at first glance. Yet with these two sets, that's is how I got into the hobby. They have everything needed in the paints and provides an additional miniature to practice the new hobby. The two sets are both useful. Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments for Monsters is a great set providing 36 different colors, which will be more than plenty at the start of the hobby. In contrast, the Adventurers paint set offers the most necessary colors that you would need right at the beginning for a reasonable price and quantity for many miniatures to paint.
Best gift for the Miniature Painters
I think there are two best brands for Dungeons and Dragons miniatures - WizKids and Reaper. WizKids would get my Pick almost every single time for their pre-primed models (Ready to paint) and more detailed looks, so that makes it a perfect gift for anyone that paints miniatures. Browse around since WizKids to have a wide variety in their models, ranging from monsters to adventurers.
Best gifts for the Travelling DMs
If you're planning on a gift for those that go places to run Dungeons and Dragons, these gifts will be perfect for anyone that receives them.
This year's Top Pick is the traveling Dungeon Masters is Forged Dice Co. Dice Box and Dice Tray. It's durable and holds many dices needed for any traveling Dungeon Master of Player. It looks excellent and straightforward, making it a perfect gift for those that travel.
The second Pick for the adventuring ones is USA GEAR Compact Travel Bag. One of the reasons is that it has a decent amount of space for any DnD related books and accessories while not looking too clunky, like with many other bags on the market.
Best apparel gifts for those who love Dungeons and Dragons
Best D&D hats and caps
I chose this one because I started to like snapbacks and because Difuzed brand provides quality goods, many companies like Disney trusted the company with making licensed merchandise. +1 charisma + gives proficiency in DMing
I mean, it's winter, it's D&D, and it's an excellent gift for the colder climates. Provides resistance to cold damage.
best dnd t-shirts gifts
Look, I know that some of the generic phrases like "I'm the DM that's why" is a better gift than a t-shirt with Smaug from Lord of The Rings thinking it's D&D, but these phrases are cheesy, and I think it doesn't have what it takes for a perfect gift unless the recipient enjoys them. For this, I choose the closest things I think look best in the merch department that has the style and quality to make it a decent gift for this year.
best d&d socks
Fantasydice socks
Even though it's a little bit steeper for the reasonable price, but it's ideal DnD socks that you could give this holiday season. It has the quality and references to the hobby with a proper design.
top picks, because this year was a tiny bit different.
Best DnD Face Wear
Well, this year was a wild ride, and it's still going. At least now we have a reason to prop up the Face Wear style and while protecting others. Look, I'm not a style guru, but I think neck gaiters look way more superior than your regular mask. I fell in love with gaiters during my snowboarding days since that would mean a total cover of the face, no sunburns, and no oily cold face. It looks great, it's functional as heck, and you look like a western bad guy, and the gift is not as depressing as a cheap face mask with a D&D logo.
Webcams
Webcams are a great gift overall this year because of the distancing and increased need for video calls. It also serves as an excellent gift for those that lack the opportunity to meet in person to play Dungeons & Dragons. A decent camera helps with the immersion and, at least for the DM, is almost necessary because it provides a clearer view of the DMs emotions and face/body gestures.
Top Pick for Webcams - Logitech C922X
For Top Pick, this is an easier one. For the price of 125$ and the quality produced by this webcam, it's one of the better choices, if the group gift for players wants to see their DM's better this year.
These were the top Dungeon Goblin picks for 2020. I hope this guide provided you with the perfect gift ideas for this year. What will be your pick this year?
And Happy Winter Holidays, Adventurers!
