Are you looking for the perfect gift for your duet partner but not sure where to begin? Or are you trying to convince a friend or significant other to play D&D with you but aren’t really getting anywhere?
Maybe this Valentine’s Day holds the key!
In this post, I cover a few D&D and D&D-adjacent gifts to consider for your loved ones. As I’ve said many times before across the blog, one of the things I love about duet play is the chance to express affection and thoughtfulness for the people you care about.
That’s also why not all of these gifts will be directly related to D&D—let’s also think about ways we can bring fun memories from the table into our day-to-day lives!
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For the GM/DM/Storyteller
ambiance-enhancing gifts for D&D sessions
These are some of my favorites gifts to bring into duet-ing sessions, and the price ranges are so flexible, you can pull them in on non-holidays too!
When we’re talking about enhancing the ambiance and immersion at the table, we’re talking about the five senses. This could be anything from preparing a cheese platter or charcuterie tray for your next session that thematically matches wherever your party is traveling to candles to creating a playlist, which is totally free!
And you know we can’t talk about candles here without me recommending my favorite candle company, Cantrip Candles! One of their most recent additions is Realm of Shadows, and I love it so much! I’ve been burning it every day while writing a story about a vampire and a siren—it’s absolutely perfect!
You might also check out the D&D cookbook and promise to make a recipe together! Or if you’re feeling extra fancy, purchase the ingredients for something you know they’ll like and gift them the ingredients alongside the cookbook!
tools and resources to inspire them!
GMs work so hard to come up with new stories for us and to take us and our characters on amazing adventures! But there are times when even the best GM gets in a rut or runs out of fresh ideas. This is where gifts of inspiration can help!
alternative settings, systems, and genres
One of my favorite things to get Jonathan at holidays is new ttRPG books, and this year, I got him a copy of Candela Obscura by Critical Role. We’ve been playing around with different genres in our duet game, and I thought he would like the freshness of a new system and a new storytelling approach.
We’d also just finished watching Bodies on Netflix, and this seemed appropriately on theme!
Other favorite GM resources of ours are the monster resources books by Kobold Press. (links to Creature Codex; we also love Tome of Beasts and Tome of Beasts 2) Their creatures are so unique and interesting in their design, and it’s a great way to bring more inspiration to the table and flesh out (quite literally!) new settings and environments!
deepening their research & lore interests
Is there a particular religious history or cultural practice your GM is interested in? Jonathan has been interested in Norse mythology and also wanted to learn more about tarot, and I was able to find a new deck that brings together both of those things!
helping them log their ideas
I’m going to admit straight-off that this is going to sound silly, but one of my favorite gifts I’ve ever received is one of those shower note-pads with a pencil where you can capture all of your amazing shower thoughts without losing them down the drain. Your GM will appreciate you trying to help them capture all their best schemes!
Another possibility would be an Ember mug that keeps their coffee hot if they’re a warm beverage drinker during session prep!
for your duet partner
And of course we would be remiss to not clue you in to all the goodies you can acquire for new adventures with your duet partner!
First things first, we would love for you to pledge for our new Kickstarter and embark on a full-length one-on-one 5e campaign with your duet partner! While the adventure text won’t be available on Valentine’s Day itself, we’ve designed a special line of Valentines that you can present to your duet partner!
for the cleric or druid in your life
(or adventurers who appreciate shiny objects)
This gift idea is on the pricey side but if you’re looking for something thoughtful and shiny, my newest obsession is Awe Inspired! It’s a woman-owned jewelry company based in the US, and they make goddess pendants across many different pantheons as well as symbolic jewelry such as crescent moons.
They have a new line of element-inspired pendants—you’ll see earth and water in the pictures below.
My new favorite piece is the manifestation locket with moonstones, blue quartz, and white topaz.
(If you’d like to use my shopping link that I can redeem for future jewelry purchases myself, please click for your shopping, with my thanks.)
other ways of getting into character!
If you’re looking for something in the $50-$100 range and are interested in attending a Renaissance Faire, Holy Clothing has some wonderful items to serve as a costume base! Their shipping times tend to be pretty lengthy, so your items won’t arrive before Valentine’s Day, but they’ll still make for a thoughtful gift!
And for a more down-to-earth present, literally and figuratively, consider crystals and houseplants! If there isn’t a plant shop near you, check out plant delivery companies like Horti, Pistils Nursery, and Bloomscape.
duet-adjacent activities and dates
I’m working on a post about away-from-table immersive experiences and things to do when you need a break from your duet game but, for the moment, allow me to toss a few more options out for you!
Is there anything your characters do on a regular basis that you don’t find yourself doing in real life (aside from weapons-related things of course)? Our characters were always attending festivals, especially during Covid, and so they would often be dancing. Last year, Jonathan surprised me with ballroom dancing lessons! They were more expensive than we could keep up with over a prolonged period of time, but maybe a studio near you is doing a February special!
The D&D movie would also make for a fun date night!
duet-adjacent games
We’ve talked before on the blog about how playing Diablo III was integral in me starting to play D&D, and we have just gotten back into playing Diablo IV together again in the evenings. We play in a couch co-op, so we can RP as our characters, but we don’t have to come up with the story, so it’s reminiscent of our duet game without the prep work!
And speaking of D&D-inspiring games…
I couldn’t leave out a community-wide obsession that is so much fun!!! I’m working on a post about our experience trying to play BG3 in a duet (which didn’t go so well, possibly or primarily because I don’t play many video games) versus sitting in the same room and playing together but in our own campaigns AND how much fun and how inspiring we’ve found the gameplay to be overall! In short, we love Baldur’s Gate 3, and highly recommend running through it with your duet partner if not by your side then at least in the same room as you.
And I don’t know if your duet partner is as interested in a Steamdeck as mine is…but I had to mention that here too!
There are of course so many more Valentine’s Day possibilities, but I hope this has helped you get started!
We’d love to hear your thoughts and questions!