Christmas Gift Guide 2024: Tabletop Games

Tabletop games are as innovative and diverse a field as their video game cousins, and so, it can be just as daunting to find a clever gift for the roleplaying, board, or trading card gamer on your list.

Whether they’re the Game Master in their group’s RPG campaign, an avid strategist seeking the newest trading cards for their decks or collections, or just the type who likes to unwind with friends and a good old board game, CGM has compiled a list of the most exciting tabletop games we’d love to find under the tree this year.

So don’t dismay—grab your dice, shuffle your deck, and embark on a quest to your Friendly Local Game Store to find many of these suggestions!

Dungeons & Dragons: 2024 Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide

Dungeons & Dragons is far from the only roleplaying game on the market, but it does stand at the forefront as a beacon of inspiration for the genre. As such, it’s a great place for new players to break into the intimidating world of tabletop games, or for longtime players to hone their crafts. This year, publisher Wizards of the Coast marked the current iteration of the game’s 10th anniversary, and the 50th anniversary of the brand overall, by compiling new core rulebooks that refresh the entire experience.

For anyone who plays the game (or would like to get into it), the 2024 edition of the Player’s Handbook offers the core rules of Dungeons & Dragons‘ Fifth Edition in a revamped package. Players can learn the basics of the gameplay and find all the tools they need to roll new characters, choosing from reworked and rebalanced classes and using built-in tools to help develop their personalities and backstories.

“Many who play tabletop games for a long time develop a propensity for tricking out their tables with slick accessories.”

One person in each D&D group has to act as the “Dungeon Master,” or the narrator who presents the narrative and manages everything else in the game. The 2024 revamp of the Dungeon Master’s Guide does a better job than ever of explaining how all of that works. DMs can find a wealth of practical advice for planning and running sessions from small one-shot games to epic campaigns spanning years of game nights. There’s also rules for a new feature called Bastions, which help players develop their own heroic hideaways.

Many players have been debating if it’s worth making the jump to the revised rules, but they are worthwhile—the new books’ layouts are much more intuitive, the rebalanced rules generally put more power in the players’ hands, and the Dungeon Master Guide approaches “must-read” material for anyone who wants to run a RPG campaign in any game system.

They make a perfect Christmas gift for any fan of tabletop games who wants to explore this genre, as do the new Dungeon Master Screen and bundle of pre-printed Character Sheets.

Ultra Pro D&D 50th Anniversary Accessories

Many who play tabletop games for a long time develop a propensity for tricking out their tables with slick accessories. Luckily for D&D players with such inclinations, Ultra Pro has created a series of premium red and gold RPG accessories to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D&D, and to bring a touch of original artwork to your table. These are adorned with the anniversary logo, various other symbols, and a classic illustrating of a dragon breathing fire upon unlucky adventurers.

For the devout note-takers, there’s a Campaign Journal with blank lined pages and a handy pen loop; if you want to protect your most-used rulebook, slip it into the Book Cover; or, if you want one zippered binder to contain everything you need to transport, Ultra Pro offers a Book Folio that can hold a book, with wet/dry-erase and spell card sheets, graph paper, and a pocket to store notes. These all come in a classy leatherette finish.

And of course, how many tabletop games do without dice? Ultra Pro offers a set of 7 Heavy Metal dice in gold with red inlays, which are among some of the nicest metal dice I’ve tried—the satisfying solid roll of metal dice, but nicely balanced so that you don’t wake the neighborhood or break a table when they roll. Alternately, you can also pick up a Dice Scroll or Dice Tower to both store and roll them on.

Magic: The Gathering Foundations

Like D&D, Magic: The Gathering is one of the oldest and most quintessential examples of its genre; if you can learn its inner workings, you can hop into any trading card game easily. Luckily for uninitiated gift-givers this year, this popular tabletop game has a line of products designed to help ease new or returning players into its vast world.

Magic: The Gathering Foundations is a base set, designed to represent the evergreen core of the trading card game’s experience. Wizards of the Coast used to print a “Core Set” like this every year, and now the format makes a triumphant return with several beginner-friendly products.

“When in doubt, here’s one of the best tips we can give for buying tabletop games: you almost can’t go wrong by buying a TCG player more cards.”

The Beginner Box includes everything two players need to play their first Magic game—two simple, smaller decks with step-by-step tutorials on how to play them, a rules reference guide, and six additional “Jumpstart” packs that can be combined to make new decks. It all comes in a perfect little box with insertable dividers for storing it all, two playmat boards with illustrated zones, and a guide to what each of the card colours represents.

For those who know the rules, there’s also the Starter Collection, an instant collection in a box. A variant to the Deckbuilder Toolkits they used to offer, the Starter Collection offers everything you need to start making and playing your own decks from scratch—16 traditional foil cards, 90 basic land cards, 250+ other cards, 13 tokens, 3 Play Booster packs, a click wheel life counter, a handbook with basic strategic info, and a storage box for it all. It’s a perfect gift for those embarking on their planeswalking journey, or returning to it after a long time away.

Disney Lorcana: Azurite Sea

One of the newer big names in tabletop games is Disney Lorcana, a trading card game featuring different incarnations of familiar Disney characters. After a year on the market, publisher Ravenburger has carved out a cozy little niche with a game that’s approachable and charming for players of most ages.

The sixth and latest set, Azurite Sea, hit stores this month with a new batch of characters, from Big Hero 6 to Treasure Planet and more. For each set there are two different Starter Deck variations to hop straight into the game, and Illumineer’s Troves to bolster their collection; some sets, like Azurite Sea, also have a Gift Set, a themed product with booster packs and special promo cards (in this case, featuring Stitch). Alternately, Ravensburger and Ultra Pro offer a host of accessories featuring the game’s art and iconography, from deck boxes to play mats.

For our money, the best value is the Illumineer’s Trove: 8 booster packs, accessories for playing the game, and a storage box. (You can never have enough storage for your TCG collection.) If the person on your list is a big fan of a character featured in a Gift Set, like Stitch, they’re also a solid bet.

Of course, when you’re in doubt, here’s one of the best tips we can give for buying tabletop games: you almost can’t go wrong by buying a TCG player more cards.

Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game: X-Men

Who doesn’t want superpowers? Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game, the latest in the long line of tabletop games based on Marvel properties, lets you live that dream in RPG format as either a known hero or an original one of your own design.

Its most recent supplement, X-Men, is a very deep dive into the world of Charles Xavier’s exceptional students and other mutants across the Marvel timelines. In addition to full-page character sheets for dozens upon dozens of well-known mutants, you’ll also find special rules for managing teams, earning reputation as a mutant, or even using the Danger Room.

Perhaps its most commendable feature for Marvel True Believers is the in-depth lore and adventure hooks offered for almost any classic X-Men team you can imagine. Classics like the core X-Men, X-Factor, and X-Force are here, but also the Exiles and Canada’s own Alpha Flight. You can even make your own Days of Future Past or Apocalypse saga with direction on other worlds and timelines.

The Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game stands out from the pack with its unique approaches to dice-rolling (the “d616” system, where checks involve rolling 3d6) and character abilities (the core stats are Melee, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego and Logic, or “MARVEL”). Thanks to the X-Men expansion, players can use this intriguing system to finally enroll at Xavier’s Academy… or make their own mutant nation like Magneto.

Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition)

As broad as the market for tabletop games is, it can still be hard to find the right middle ground when finding something to play with kids. Many games can be too dense and impenetrable for the kids, or unstimulating for the adults, and it’s all too easy to devolve into bickering over strategies and fairness. (Looking at you, every Monopoly game ever.)

That’s why Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls from Ravensburger was so refreshing. This Disney mashup recruits heroines from across the company’s history—Belle, Moana, Violet Parr, and Maid Marian—to save a fantasy realm from an encroaching darkness. Players have to work together to clear the board of threats and seal portals, while also minding personalized goals. Collaboration is important from start to finish, even in setting up the board itself.

The learning curve might be a little steeper for younger players, but the focus on cooperation goes a long way, as does the beautiful art style. We’re hoping this game sees a few additional expansions over time, similar to Ravensburger’s Villainous product line.

Queen By Midnight

The biggest names in actual-play podcasts have branched out into producing their own tabletop games. Critical Role’s own Darrington Press has not only produced two RPGs—Candela Obscura, a game of arcane horror and investigations, and Daggerheart, a contender for D&D’s crown that’s available now for preorder—but also a handful of unique new card

Queen by Midnight is a deckbuilding card game for 3-6 players steeped in an intriguing fantasy scenario. Players assume the roles of the Princesses of the Twelve Lands who, in the wake of the Queen’s death, must scheme and plot against one another to claim the crown. To win this battle royale, players must buy abilities, cast spells, and outright attack their opponents; the player at the end of the game with the most Clout and health remaining is the winner.

A new expansion, Quarter Past, functions as an add-on to the core game or a standalone experience, adding four new Princesses and a host of additional cards. Both products are immaculately designed, with some of the most rich components we’ve seen in all the tabletops games we’ve played—the Clock Tower alone is stunning.

Queen By Midnight, along with Darrington Press games and other products for Critical Role fans, can be found directly on the Critical Role shop.

Munchkin: Critical Role

Munchkin itself is a contender for the Mount Rushmore of tabletop games, with a quintessential design that’s easy to learn but long to master, and a parodical perspective on the RPG genre. Like any paragon in the board game market, it’s received a handful of licensed spin-offs—but few may be more on-brand tonally than Mighty Nein Munchkin.

Themed after the heroes of Critical Role’s second campaign, players become the Mighty Nein with the use of character cards, then kick down doors in search of treasures like Nott’s Flask of Perpetual Booze or the Dagger of Denial. The goal remains to level up (primarily) by defeating monsters, such as Kylre, the Devil Toad or Gelidon, the Nightmare in Ivory. Luckily each character has a unique bonus, and there is aid in the form of special Role and Drive cards.

The chaos of the Mighty Nein is a perfect fit for the light-hearted adventure of Munchkin, and this is an excellent standalone iteration for a Critical Role fan, or if the core version (and its many, many expansions) have grown a little stale.

LEGO D&D Minifigures

This year LEGO partnered with one of the biggest names in tabletop games to produce a set of 12 minifigures based on Dungeons & Dragons characters, available in blind boxes. Four of the batch are well-known NPCs from the game’s lore—Tasha the Witch Queen, The Lady of Pain, Szass Tam, and Strahd von Zarovich—while the rest form an eclectic combination of different player options.

They make great, outside-the-box gifts for D&D and LEGO fans alike, with the vibrant array of props that accompany them and the unique details on each minifig. Kids can work them into their own imaginative play, or they can decorate your desk or cubicle and remind you of the adventures you embark upon outside of work hours.

Better still, D&D players could use the minis to help pick a character for a campaign or one-shot—turn that Tiefling Sorcerer or Dragonborn Paladin minifig into an actual character sheet, then use the mini to represent yourself on the battle map. (Or, do what we’re inspired to do, and run Curse of Strahd using the Vampire Lord’s minifigure.)

Boss Monster: 10th Anniversary Edition

Brotherwise Games is one of my personal favourite developers for tabletop games, and it all started with Boss Monster. In this competitive card game, players become the sorts of villains you might find in an old NES or SNES video game. The goal is to construct diabolical dungeons using a variety of room cards, lure would-be Heroes into them, and destroy them before they can deal damage to you.

This now-classic card game was reprinted in a 10th Anniversary Edition this year, revamped and rebalanced to be the ultimate introduction to the game. With these changes, it’s still a fitting gift for those who may already own the original game, or only its later updates, The Next Level or Rise of the Minibosses. Alternately, you might seek out Overboss, a spin-off from the Boss Monster approach.

(If you’re super enthusiastic about the game but don’t mind waiting a little bit, Brotherwise is producing a truly ultimate edition called Super Boss Monster via Kickstarter; there’s still a brief chance to get in on late pledges and receive the entirety of the game and its expansions.)

Doomlings

In Doomlings, 2-6 players compete to score the most points before the world ends (as you may find is the case in a large number of tabletop games, come to think of it). Those points are earned by playing “traits” (like “Ephemereal,” “Late,” or “Toe Beans”) on your turns; each trait in play has a point value that adds to your total.

Rounds are known as Ages, and at the start of a new one, a new rule card is drawn, adding a complication for that round/Age. However, there are Catastrophe cards hidden amongst the Age cards, which cause an immediate effect. The game ends once three catastrophes have triggered—and with 167 unique cards in the base game alone, repeat games are bound to stay fresh.

Doomlings falls into the category of light, short, and fast-paced tabletop games that I like to have on hand for game nights. These are the perfect thing to bust out when your “main” game ends early and people don’t want to go home prematurely—a “nightcap” game, if you will.

Qwirkle

Licensed or fantastical tabletop games are a booming industry, but sometimes you want a more traditional, old-fashioned board game for your family’s quality time. Qwirkle is a great option for 2-4 that requires no reading or math, only matching tiles by colour or shape to make lines and score points.

This makes it perfect for younger family members who may not have the skills or patience for more complex games—and it’s also not as evergreen and perhaps tired as “old standards” like Connect 4 or Monopoly (yes, I will throw shade at Monopoly twice in one list).

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