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If you have a friend or family member that is interested in Dungeons and Dragons, I’m here to walk you through some perfect gifts for D&D fans and how to buy gifts for them that will actually get some use! I am a professional dungeon master, a game designer with a specific focus on D&D, and a YouTuber doing this thing for a living. Before I get into the gift suggestions, I want to give you two pieces of advice when shopping for D&D gifts:
Quick Tip #1 – Don’t Buy Miniature Booster Boxes
My number one tip is, if you are shopping for a D&D fan, you may see online people recommending that you pick up some minis (miniatures). Not every table actually plays with minis so unless you know for sure that they do, they may not get any use out of them.
If you’re looking around at gift guides, you’ll likely see some websites suggesting miniature booster boxes as a good gift for D&D fans. These aren’t worth getting unless the gift recipient specifically asks for them. The reason being is that some D&D tables play “theater of the mind” and don’t use them. If they ask for a specific mini, there are websites out there like Troll and Toad and Miniature Market where you can pick up the specific mini from that set.
Quick Tip #2 – Don’t Buy Official D&D Books Randomly
Unless specifically requested, don’t just go and grab a random D&D book off the shelf. Unless they specifically call out a certain title like Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, stick to a gift card from a bookstore you know sells Dungeons & Dragons books.
The Gifts for D&D Players and DMs
These are gifts that I or someone I know uses. They can help players and DMs to play the game more efficiently, have fun, or just enjoy.
Office Supplies
Price: $
Now, here’s the fun thing; if you’re looking for gifts for a DND player, one of the best things that you can do is go to an office supply store. I’m going to be so excited if someone is filling up my stocking with a box full of highlighters for marking up my books, wet-erase markers for battle maps, pens, and pencils. Office supplies like this aren’t a lame gift to D&D players, trust me.
Pocket Legal Pads
Price: $
The next thing is going to be these miniature legal pads I use all the time to track initiative and take notes. For players, I found these 2.5 x 3.5 inch dot-gridded notebooks on Amazon. If they want to take notes or draw maps, these are actually pretty high-quality for the price.
Card-Sized Calculator
Price: $
Really handy–specifically for DMS–is a pocket, card sized calculator. Very simple, this could run you like two or three dollars for a decent Casio, but it will go a long way for DMs when tracking hit points in combat. Every millisecond shaved off from running combat ups the pace of the action.
Spell Effect Template
Price: $
Something I feel every person playing with miniatures needs, DM or player, is a Spell Effect Template. You can find these on Amazon for like $10-15 USD, and they save so much time when judging distances on a battle mat. These things are absolutely priceless when trying to determine those sometimes tricky shapes like breath weapons.
Battle Mat
Price: $
For any D&D player interested in playing with miniatures, they’re going to most likely need a battle mat. Even if someone already has a battle mat, having another is always welcome. I recommend getting a wet erase mat, because it’s never fun to accidentally erase a section of wall in the middle of an intense combat. The best bang-for-my-buck I’ve ever found was the Chessex wet erase mat. Just be sure you only get wet erase markers for it!
If you’re crafty, you can also buy blank poster paper, draw a grid on it, and laminate it. This can be used with dry-erase markers.
Beginner Miniatures
Price: $
There is a set of miniatures for beginners that I would highly recommend that I found on Amazon. This is a real basic, low-detail set of hard plastic minis that are perfect for any level of play. They cover a basic load-out of hero characters and various basic fantasy monsters, and you can easily prime these and paint them up should you choose.
Condition Rings
Price: $-$$
Anyone that does play with miniatures needs to have a set of these like, yesterday. It’s painfully easy to forget what conditions a creature is afflicted with in the middle of combat. Due to this, people have been using the rings off of milk bottles for years. Recently, companies started making incredibly polished condition rings to help with this problem, and they’ve become the industry standard. Seriously, I have no idea how to play D&D without these anymore. Your options for look and material are pretty wide here, but I prefer the flexible rings by Lynx if you can afford them. If not, the ALIZEROs on Amazon are also fantastic. I just wouldn’t recommend 3D printed ones because they tend to be significantly more fragile.
Combat Tiers
Price: $-$$
If you want to take combat into the third dimension, combat tiers are the best means of simulating verticality and flight. These plastic platforms will raise miniatures up above the battlefield and allow ground units to move underneath. The Combat Tiers by the “Combat Tier” brand are the go-to tiers for this, and can be seen used to ridiculous effect in the final battle of Critical Role campaign one.
PocketDM Tokens
Price: $-$$
PocketDM tokens are coin representations of various creatures or points of interest on a battlefield. These are perfect for quick encounters if you don’t have miniatures to represent monsters, and they’re way more durable than bulky plastic minis. They’re very reasonably priced, but the ones I’ve seen everyone show off are only available through Etsy. These tokens are great substitutions for minis that you may not have at the time, especially if you like running random encounters.
Chessex Dice
Price: $-$$
Chessex dice make for the best bang-for-your-buck, and no one is going to be upset about getting another set of dice. Even if it’s a duplicate or one of the cheap $5.00 sets, I’m going to be happy having more dice. I’ve never had a Chessex set show extreme balance issues, and the swirl sets have tons of personality.
Inspiration Coins
Price: $
Arcane Goods makes solid metal inspiration coins for under $5.00. These are a fantastic immersion addition and reminder of an oft-forgotten bonus at the table. These heavy, metal coins are cheap enough that I’d recommend picking up a set of four just in case a player decides to take one home by accident. These aren’t a “must-pick-up” like Condition Rings, but they’re a real handy luxury item.
Quest Decks
Price: $
The Quest Decks by Dice Dungeons are a mainstay in just about every D&D YouTuber’s dungeon master kit I’ve seen. These are like having a notice board on-hand if you need some random quest prompts. I used them on a livestream to inspire an adventure that Ross Leiser and I published on the Dungeon Masters Guild. Each deck is themed from Lovecraftian quests, quests involving Royalty, horror plot hooks, and generic fantasy encounters. You can pick up every deck of theirs for about $120.00, but they run about $15 a piece and you’ll get a lot of love out of just two or three decks.
Magic Item Tracking Pads
Price: $
Arcane Goods also created these interesting Magic Item receipt pads. If you come up with random loot in a dungeon and need help remembering what you gave to your players, these carbon receipts are perfect for quick referencing that information mid-session. You write down the information on the white receipt, and the yellow receipt behind it carbon copies the info you wrote. Super quick, simple, and extremely useful for dungeon masters.
JBL Go-3 Speaker
Price: $$
This is the absolute best portable bluetooth speaker for dungeon masters. It’s also one of those weird products where the critic reviews were way less kind than the customer reviews. I will guarantee you, as an audiophile myself, JBL made an incredible little speaker here. It fits comfortably in any backpack or dungeon master kit, taking up about the same space as two decks of cards. The subwoofer bumps in this thing. If you’re making use of an app like Syrinscape, you need to have this thing in your kit.
Lynx Potion Tokens
Price: $
Lynx continues to make high-quality tabletop gaming accessories. These potion tokens are a fun way to track these healing consumables, and includes a series of potion tracking tokens, 24 potion-shaped d4s, and magic item cards for each rank of the potions of healing, An absolute bargain at $25.00 and perfect for any D&D fan.
D&D Book Tabs
Price: $$
This year, WizKids put out these plastic, adhesive book tabs that are remarkably high-quality. Each has over 50 tabs to organize the books with quick-reference tabs. They’re not fantastic for box-set books, as the tabs are going to have to get bent to fit the books in. I’m also curious how well they’re going to travel in a backpack, but they’re ideal for open-back bookshelves and coffee table copies.
Campaign Cases
Price: $$
These are the “upgrade” from the PocketDM tokens mentioned earlier. Wizards of the Coast put out these campaign cases of plastic tokens with monster cling “stickers.” I have not personally held these in hand or played with them, but I did want to mention them here as an alternative to miniatures. In the worst-case scenario, I could see myself using these with a wet-erase marker to have some token representation on the battle mat.
Warlock Tiles
Price: $$-$$$
When WizKids initially released the Warlock Tiles, reviews were pretty mixed. The clips they came with were incredibly hard and lead to many of the tiles snapping from normal use. A few months later, they released alternative blue clips that fixed so many of these issues. These tiles are on the upper-end for cost, but they’re the cheapest and easiest means of 3D-terrain without crafting. The boxes vary in price from $30.00 to $100.00, and I feel the $7.99 EZ Clips are a must to use them.
Akro-Mils Storage Drawers
Price: $$-$$$
If you’re looking for miniature and dice storage, these are perfect at-home game piece storage. I’ve had my two sets for over a year now and they have helped to keep my miniatures organized and dust-free. They’re not great for Huge and Gargantuan miniatures, but most of your Large and smaller ones should fit these like a dream.
Blue Yeti Microphone
Price: $$$
Online TTRPGs are becoming more and more frequent. As such, it’s worth it to invest in a decent USB microphone. Blue set the standard in the industry with their Yeti series, and they continue to be the most-recommended microphone for nonprofessional day-to-day use.
Logitech C922 Webcam
Price: $$$
Less necessary than a good microphone but still useful for online games. The Logitech C922 webcam is the webcam I use to shoot my YouTube videos. With some basic ring lights, the C922 gets you incredibly clear and crisp 1080p 60 fps video with no hang-ups. Having this for online games where everyone can see each other’s faces is such a huge boon.
D&D Supplements from Third-Party Publishers
- Dungeon Master’s Guild (affiliate link)
- New Classes by Third-Party Publishers (article)
- New Content for DMs and Players by Third-Party Publishers (article)
- Alchemy Almanac (article)
Official D&D 5e Books to Consider
If you’re shopping for official books despite my caution against it, here is a list of books you might be looking at. Just keep in mind that you only should buy these if you know your giftee wants one specifically.
- Acquisitions Incorporated
- Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus
- Candlekeep Mysteries
- Critical Role Presents: Call of the Netherdeep
- Curse of Strahd
- Dungeon Master’s Guide
- Dungeons & Dragons Rules Expansion Gift Set
- Eberron: Rising from the Last War
- Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount
- Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons
- Ghosts of Saltmarsh
- Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica
- Monster Manual
- Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse
- Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
- Mythic Odysseys of Theros
- Out of the Abyss
- Player’s Handbook
- Princes of the Apocalypse
- Rime of the Frostmaiden
- Spelljammer: Adventures in Space
- Storm King’s Thunder
- Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos
- Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
- Tales from the Yawning Portal
- Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
- The Rise of Tiamat
- The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: A Feywild Adventure
- Tomb of Annihilation
- Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
- Volo’s Guide to Monsters
- Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
- Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
- Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
Your Favorite D&D Gifts
What D&D products have you loved? Cast Message in the comments below so we can spread the word for the best tools for DMs and players!
