I love getting new games. That part isn’t complicated. But I was once given a game with a three hour play time, and with kids in the house that just wasn’t doable in one sitting. It’s a good game. We kept it to play later, and later took a while to arrive.
That’s the problem with buying a board game for a board gamer. It’s not that the gift is bad, it’s that a game has requirements. It needs the right number of players, the right evening, the right amount of energy left at the end of the day. If any of those don’t line up, a perfectly good box sits on the shelf waiting.
Honestly, we’d have rather been asked which game we wanted. Or been surprised with something board game related instead, which is a much easier target to hit.
So that’s this list. Not games. The stuff that goes around them.
That’s where Etsy earns its place. Almost everything below is made by someone who plays, solving a problem they hit at their own table. Dice rolling onto the floor, components sprawling everywhere, a fifteen-card hand that won’t sit in one fist. And Etsy does the one thing Amazon simply cannot: it’ll put somebody’s name on it.
Everything here works for any board gamer rather than fans of one specific game, with two clearly flagged exceptions. There’s a wide price range, from a few dollars up to proper centrepiece gifts.
Two notes before the list. If the person you’re buying for is specifically a Catan obsessive, we have a whole separate list of Catan gifts. Nothing here is Catan-specific. And if they don’t own many games yet, a gift from this list is the wrong call; start with our list of the best board games instead.
Why Etsy Instead of Amazon
Three reasons, and one honest warning.
Personalization. This is the big one. A name, a date, a family name engraved on a game board. It turns a generic accessory into something specific to the person opening it, and it’s the single clearest reason to shop here rather than anywhere else.
The makers play. Scroll enough of these listings and a pattern shows up: modular trays because one size never fits every game, magnetic dice towers because a permanent wooden tower is a pain to store, angled trays because scooping components back into the bag is genuinely the worst part of the night. Nobody designs that last one without having done it a hundred times.
Small shops. Your money goes to a person rather than a warehouse, which for a lot of people is reason enough on its own.
The warning: handmade means slower. Shipping takes longer than you expect, custom engraving adds days on top of that, and stock is thin. A listing that’s live today can be gone next week. If this is a Christmas gift, order weeks earlier than feels necessary. Buying from a small shop is the reason it’s a good gift and the reason it’s slow, and you don’t get one without the other.
Dice Trays and Dice Towers
If you’re not sure where to start, start here. A dice tray is cheap, it suits anyone who plays anything with dice, and it fixes a problem every single group has: dice rolling off the table, knocking over pieces, or landing at an angle nobody can agree on.
1. Leather Dice Tray with Case
This is the one I’d hand to someone who has never thought about dice storage in their life. It’s a plain leather tray with a matching pouch, no engraving, no theme, nothing that ties it to a specific game. It folds flat and it stops dice skittering off the table into the couch cushions. There are a couple of colour options and it was on sale when I put this list together.
2. Personalized Dice Tray with Built-In Storage
Same idea as the plain tray, but the dice holder is built into the tray itself, so the whole thing is one piece instead of a tray plus a bag you’ll eventually lose. You can get a name on it. The listing leans heavily on Dungeons and Dragons, and the photos reflect that, but nothing about a leather tray is D&D-specific — it works exactly as well for Yahtzee or any dice-heavy board game.
3. Personalized Roll-Up Leather Dice Tray
The trick here is that it rolls up. Flat when you want to roll dice on it, tight little cylinder when you want it in a bag. If someone in your life plays at a game café or hauls games to a friend’s place every other week, that’s the feature that matters. A few font options for the engraving.
4. Magnetic Wooden Dice Tower with Tray
Dice towers are the upgrade people don’t ask for and then use constantly, because they end the argument about whether a die that hit someone’s arm counts. This one is magnetic, so it snaps together and comes apart flat for storage instead of living on a shelf as a permanent wooden building. It’s the cheapest tower on this list and it has a lot of reviews behind it.
5. Personalized Wooden Dice Tower, Tray and Holder
The premium version. Wood, engraved, tower and tray and dice storage in one object, and it looks like a thing someone chose rather than a thing they ordered. If you’re buying the one main gift rather than a stocking filler, this is the dice pick.
Inserts, Organizers and Component Trays
This is the category with the highest hit rate, because it targets the part of game night everyone quietly hates. Setup and teardown. A game that takes ten minutes to lay out and ten minutes to pack away gets played less often than one that doesn’t, and organizers are how you close that gap.
One piece of buying advice before the list: favour modular trays over game-specific inserts. An insert cut for one particular box is beautiful and completely useless unless you know for certain they own that game. Modular trays work with whatever is on the shelf.
6. Modular Magnetic Token Trays
Small magnetic wooden trays that snap together on all four sides. The point is that you build the layout to fit whatever you’re playing: two trays for a light game, eight in a row for something with a dozen resource types. Oak, walnut and olive. This is my favourite kind of gift on the list because it fits games they already own and games they haven’t bought yet.
7. HexNest Solid Wood Magnetic Hex Trays
Same modular idea, hexagons instead of squares, in solid wood. They’re about 4 by 3.5 inches and they link magnetically, so you can run two or ten. Hexagons tessellate in a way squares don’t, which sounds like a pedantic distinction until you’ve got six of them clustered in the middle of a table and nothing is sliding around.
8. Hexagon Stacking Token Trays
Stackable hexagonal bowls for tokens, coins, counters and cubes. 3D printed, handmade in the UK, and there are enough colour options that you can mix a set rather than buying six identical bowls. These are the cheap, useful, always-in-play accessory — the sort of thing that ends up on the table every single game night regardless of what’s being played.
9. Universal Game Piece Holder and Token Trays
The clever bit is the shape: the trays are angled so you can scoop components back into the bag at the end of the night instead of pinching them off the table one at a time. Teardown is the part of game night nobody enjoys, and this is a genuine fix for it. 3D printed, lots of colours.
10. Magical Athlete 3D Printed Insert
One deliberate exception to my own rule below. Magical Athlete is having a real moment right now, and if you know for a fact that it’s on their shelf, a 3D printed insert built for that exact box is a better gift than anything generic. Setup goes from tipping out bags to lifting out a tray. Just be certain they own it.
Playmats and Table Covers
A mat is a bigger, more visible version of the dice tray idea. It quiets the table, makes cards easier to pick up, and protects the surface underneath from a four-hour session with drinks on it.
11. Blue Scratches Universal Gaming Mat
Enormous. 47 by 31.5 inches, so it covers most of a dining table. Rubber backing, very plain design. A mat this size changes how a table feels: dice stay put, cards are easy to pick up, and nothing rattles. The plain look is the point. It’ll sit under any game without fighting the board for attention.
12. Custom Neoprene Mat — Upload Your Own Design
You send in the design and they print it. That’s the whole listing. Neoprene, 24 by 15 inches, which is a personal play area rather than a full table cover. Photo of their game group, art from a game they love, an inside joke — this is the closest thing on Etsy to a blank cheque, and it’s where I’d go for someone genuinely difficult to buy for.
Meeple Jewelry and Wearables
This is the section to look at if you’re buying for the partner of a board gamer, or for someone who’d rather signal the hobby than add to the shelf. It’s also the easiest category to get wrong, so pay attention to what they’d actually wear rather than how clever the piece is.
13. Silver Meeple Pendant Necklace
A sterling silver meeple on a chain. Simple enough to wear to work, specific enough that another gamer will spot it immediately. The shop has a lot of other pieces and a lot of strong reviews, so if this particular pendant isn’t right there’s plenty else to look at.
14. Carcassonne Meeple Earring Set
Twelve colours of meeple, sized to match an actual Carcassonne meeple, on sterling silver hooks. Bright and unsubtle in a good way. If you’re buying for someone whose game shelf is more Carcassonne than Twilight Imperium, these land.
15. Handmade Meeple Circle Necklace
A simple circle pendant on a braided cord, with six colours to choose from, and the choice is the joke. Every gamer has a colour they always take, and everyone at the table knows what it is. Pick theirs. Small shop, handmade.
16. Upcycled Scrabble Tile Earrings
Real Scrabble tiles turned into earrings, spelling short words like HI and QT. It’s the pick for the person whose board game history starts and ends with word games, and there are plenty of those. Upcycled, so no two sets are quite identical.
17. Unusual Dice Earrings
Dice earrings in eight colours, available as hooks, studs or clip-ons, in gold or silver. The clip-on option is worth noting. It’s rare, and it makes this one of the few pieces here that works for someone without pierced ears.
18. Board Game Genre Enamel Pins
Fifteen designs, one per board game genre. Deck builders, worker placement, roll and write. This is the gift that proves you actually paid attention, because you have to know which genre they’d pick. Good size, and the enamel quality looks solid in the photos.
19. Wooden Meeple Lapel Pin
Wooden, subtle, and sold with weddings in mind. The listing pitches it at grooms. That’s a narrower use than it deserves. It reads as a small wooden lapel pin at a glance and as a meeple to anyone who’d recognise one, which makes it the most wearable-to-a-formal-event thing on this list.
Score Pads and Trackers
Scorekeeping is the least glamorous part of the hobby and one of the easiest to improve. The rule I’d apply: buy something reusable. A pad runs out and gets binned; a book or a tracker sticks around.
20. Personalized Family Game Night Score Book
A bound score book rather than a pad, with the family name on the front. Lots of colour and size options. The reason I’d pick a book over a pad: a pad gets used up and thrown out, while a book fills with a couple of years of game night results and turns into something they’ll actually keep. That’s a better gift.
21. D&D Hit Points Tracker
It does exactly one thing, cheaply. A few colour options. This one is squarely aimed at D&D players rather than board gamers generally, so buy it for someone with a regular campaign, not for the person who plays Ticket to Ride at Christmas.
First Player Tokens and Upgrades
Small, cheap, and disproportionately satisfying. These are the stocking-filler tier: good on their own for a few dollars, better bundled with something bigger.
22. Hexagon MDF First Player Token
Everybody has lost a first player token. It’s the smallest piece in most boxes and it’s the one that ends up under the table. This is a hexagonal MDF replacement, thick and solid, and it works for any game that needs one. On its own it’s a stocking filler; in a bundle with a dice tray it rounds things out nicely.
23. Wingspan Wooden Token Upgrade Set
Solid wood, double-sided printing, made to replace the cardboard food and nectar tokens in Wingspan. You can upgrade a few pieces or the whole set. Same caveat as the insert above — only buy this if you know Wingspan is on their shelf. If it is, it’s a lovely upgrade to a game they already like.
Game Room Signs and Wall Art
Wall art is the gift that works when someone has a dedicated games room, or wants one. The pieces below range from subtle enough for an office to loud enough that there’s no ambiguity about what happens in that room.
24. Board Gamer Definition Print
Dictionary-definition print, laid out simply, available in a stack of sizes. It’s the safe wall art pick: it’ll fit a games room, an office or a hallway without clashing with anything, and it doesn’t require the recipient to love one particular game.
25. Vintage Board Game Box Art Prints (Set of 4)
Four unframed prints of classic box art: Candyland, Clue, Operation, Sorry, Twister, Scrabble, Battleship. This is nostalgia rather than hobby gaming, which makes it a good fit for a playroom or for someone whose favourite board game memories are from being eight years old.
26. Board Games Metal Game Room Sign
Heavy gauge aluminium with UV protection, so it can go outside if the games room is really a garage or a deck. Lots of size and colour options. It’s louder than the prints above, which is either the point or a reason to pick something else.
27. Board Game Mechanics Poster
A poster laying out board game mechanics, with a choice of frame colours and a few sizes. This is the one for the person who has opinions about mechanics — who’ll happily explain the difference between area control and area majority to anyone who asks, and several people who didn’t.
28. Meeples of Abbey Road Poster
Meeples crossing Abbey Road. It’s a straightforward visual joke and it works, but it needs the recipient to love the Beatles as much as they love board games. When that overlap exists it’s the best thing on this list; when it doesn’t, it’s a poster of some meeples. The shop has plenty of other designs.
Card Holders and Table Aids
The most genuinely thoughtful category on this list, and the one people overlook. Holding a hand of fifteen cards is awkward for anyone and genuinely difficult for some, and a card holder fixes it without anyone having to bring it up.
29. Oak Component Tray and Card Holder
A small oak tray that holds components and props up cards. Card holders don’t get talked about much as gifts, but they’re a real help for anyone who struggles to hold a wide hand — older players, anyone with arthritis or hand mobility issues, and honestly anyone playing a game with a fifteen-card hand. Buying one as a gift is a quiet way to make game night easier without making a thing of it.
30. Handmade Hardwood Card and Token Holder
Same function, more of a showpiece. Hardwood, a few wood options, with a separate spot for meeples alongside the card slot. It sits on the table looking like a nice piece of woodwork rather than an accessibility aid, which for some people is exactly the right framing.
Dice Bags and Game Storage
Storage that travels. If the person you’re shopping for is the one who brings the games, this is the section for them.
31. Personalized Leather Dice Bag
Leather, customizable, and available in a few sizes and leather finishes. A dice bag is one of those things people don’t buy for themselves and then use constantly, because the alternative is the little plastic bag the dice came in.
32. Custom Engraved Leather Dice Bag
A step up in finish, with custom engraving and a shop with a strong review history. If the person you’re buying for owns dice they care about, and dice people do care about their dice, the bag matters more than you’d think.
33. CavernHold Keep Portable Game Bag
Not a dice bag. This is a full carry bag with compartments, made for hauling games to someone else’s house without stacking three boxes in your arms and hoping. If they’re the one who always hosts elsewhere, or who brings games to a café night, this solves a real weekly annoyance.
Mugs, Coasters and Drinkware
Every gift list needs a mug section, and board game mugs have the advantage of a genuinely deep well of jokes to draw on. Coasters get a mention here too, because a drink next to a board is a slow-motion accident waiting to happen.
34. Customizable Board Game Coaster Set
You pick which games appear on the set, and how many coasters you want. Laser engraved and good quality. Drinks near a board are a permanent low-level hazard, so a coaster set is a gift that’s genuinely useful and still personal, because you chose the games on it.
35. Vegan Leather Board Game Coasters
Two vegan leather coasters, engraved, with a few designs and colours. Smaller and cheaper than the set above and easier to slip in alongside another gift.
36. Rainbow Meeple Mug
The classic. A meeple on a mug, and you pick both the meeple colour and the mug colour. Match it to the colour they always play and it stops being generic.
37. Board Game Person Definition Mug
Definition-style joke mug, microwave and dishwasher safe, with size and colour options. Worth knowing that several shops sell a near-identical mug, so if this exact one is out of stock or slow to ship, the design is easy to find elsewhere.
38. “Tears of My Board Game Opponents” Mug
Straightforward and funny, with a name printed on it and writing on both sides so the joke works whichever way it’s sitting on the desk. Size and colour options.
39. “It’s My Turn” Mug
For the player who takes eleven minutes on every turn. Every group has one, everyone knows who it is, and there’s a decent chance they’ll think it’s about somebody else. Two sizes.
Personalized and Custom-Engraved
I’ve saved these for last because they’re the whole argument for shopping Etsy instead of anywhere else. Nobody on Amazon will put a family’s name on a game board. These are also the listings with the longest lead times, so if you’re reading this in December, order today rather than tomorrow.
40. Personalized Player Dashboard
A personalized player board with their name on it, a slot for cards and space for their pieces. It solves a real table problem, everyone’s stuff sprawling into everyone else’s, and it does it with their name engraved on it, which is the thing Amazon can’t do. Colour and font colour are both up to you.
41. Personalized Family Farkle Board Set
A wooden Farkle board with the scoring printed on it, the family name engraved, six dice and a velvet bag. It’s a complete game rather than an accessory, so it’s the pick when you want the gift to be playable the moment it’s unwrapped. Farkle is easy to teach and hard to get bored of, which is why it keeps turning up at family gatherings.
A Few Buying Notes
- Order earlier than you think you need to. Handmade plus personalized can mean weeks. This is the mistake people make every December.
- Check the shop’s reviews and recent activity. A listing with a long review history is far less likely to go quiet on you mid-order.
- Read the “ships from” line. A shop on the other side of the world can blow a deadline that a local one would make comfortably.
- Triple-check the spelling on anything personalized. There are no returns on custom work, and a misspelled name is a gift nobody can use.
- Skip game-specific items unless you’re certain. Two items on this list are tied to particular games, the Magical Athlete insert and the Wingspan token upgrade, and both are only good gifts if you know that box is already on their shelf.
Final Thoughts
The pattern across every good gift on this list is the same: it makes game night smoother without asking anyone to learn something new. A tray means dice stay on the table. Modular organizers mean the game hits the table more often, because setup stopped being a chore. A card holder means the person who’s been quietly struggling with a wide hand all evening stops struggling.
If you want one recommendation, make it a set of modular trays or a dice tray. Both work with games they already own, neither requires you to know their collection, and both get used every single session. And if you know the collection well enough to get specific, the personalized pieces at the end are the ones people keep.
Buy the thing that goes around the games. The shelf is already full.
Still shopping? Our older board game gifts that aren’t board games list covers different ground, and the Catan gift guide is there if you’re buying for someone with one very specific obsession.
Thumbnail image artificially generated for illustrative purposes.
