Giving Gifts to your Heroes
Happy holidays! ‘Tis the season to bring your friends together, tell them how much you appreciate them in your lives, and – if you’re feeling particularly nice – to give them gifts.
In my campaigns, I make it a yearly tradition to give gifts to my players’ characters. These often involve partaking in some light-hearted, low-stakes adventure, alongside a kindly old man with white hair and a flair for subtle, peaceful magic. Regardless of the details of the adventure, though, at its end, the Heroes of my games receive gifts. Not just random tchotchkies, either – things that are really ‘picked out’ for that particular Hero.
Below, I’ll talk a bit about the kinds of gifts you can give your Heroes in your Reclaim the Wild campaign.
General Tips
Know what your Heroes need. After all, nobody enjoys getting duplicate gifts, or things they won’t use. You may even want to ask your players for a wish-list, though make it clear that they won’t necessarily get everything they ask for, or exactly what they’ve written.
It’s okay to go a little above and beyond. Homebrewed items and Feats are a great giveaway this time of year; their “hand-crafted” nature adding to the special-ness of the gift. However, try not to give your Heroes gifts that totally break the game’s challenge over its knee! This is a fun holiday treat, not a wish-fulfillment frenzy.
Get things they’ll be thankful for, again and again. It’s better to give a gift that the Hero has to actively use – that way, they’ll have a chance to remember that it was a gift, and be thankful for it.
Weapons & Armor
The most obvious type of gift to give Heroes, of course, would be new arms & armor. While it’s unlikely a Hero will look for a gift receipt for their new sword or sabatons, these also don’t make terribly satisfying gifts to receive, particularly in Reclaim. Weapons eventually break, and a Hero is likely to have at least a couple of weapons on their person to deal with various situations; armor is relatively passive, simply giving the Hero a bonus while worn.
If you want to give your Hero some new combat equipment, though, you can focus your attention on the item’s Enchantment. Even without going above and beyond, and creating a new Enchantment to put on the gear, you can tailor the equipment to something the Hero needs – or will need. If you know your party’s going to face the trials of the Fire Temple soon, give them some water-enchanted weapons and some fire-proof hats. That way, they can feel thankful for their new gift every time they take a hit from a lava-monster.
Recommendation: If you want to give a Hero some new arms or armor, we recommend giving them an item that’s one Rank above their usual loadout, pre-loaded with a suitable Enchantment. For instance, a Hero who’s got mostly Rank 3 armor would likely enjoy a Rank 4 headpiece, already enchanted to handle their next adventure.
Tools
A holiday gift more in line with our modern-day sensibilities, Heroes are likely to appreciate getting a new Mundane or Magical Tool! They’re useful, they don’t wear out, and they enable Heroes to do more things and get more resources in the long run.
When giving Tools, try and think of a situation the Heroes recently had trouble with, that could’ve been solved with a clever application of the right Tool – even if the players weren’t clever enough to think of that use in the moment. For instance, if they had trouble with a cliff-climbing adventure a few weeks ago, a brand-new Rope or Hook would be most appreciated (and perhaps a little groaned-at).
Giving Magical Tools may be pushing the boundaries of what is and is not “too good” as a gift, since they can be used to solve a wide variety of challenges. They’re also relatively “expensive”, since each Magical Tool needs to be hand-made by the GM. However, given their cachet and importance in Zelda games, it’s hard to resist their allure! Just be aware of their increased stature and value when you give them.
Recommendation: Much like with armor and weapons, try to give Heroes Mundane Tools that beat their usual loadout by one Rank, and befit a challenge they will face, or recently did face. When giving Magical Tools, we suggest giving just one Magical Tool to the whole party as a ‘group gift’.
Materials & Rupees
A simple gift, useful for just about everyone, but relatively boring to receive. Gifting a player Materials or money is, basically, the equivalent of giving them a gift card – “I didn’t know what you wanted, so I got you the ability to buy yourself something.”
Recommendation: Nobody will turn up their nose at more resources, but it isn’t exciting to receive. Keep the idea in your back pocket, for if you just can’t come up with anything else – or use them as stocking-stuffers, small gifts to whet players’ appetites while they wait to open their presents.
Ammunition
Ammunition (Arrows and Bombs) are decent small gifts, so long as the Hero in question will use them. Because not everyone uses them, you’ll want to be very particular on who you give Ammunition to – after all, the sword-swinging Hero may never pick up a Bow to use the cool arrows you get them.
One exception, though, is the Powder Keg. Giving your players one Powder Keg – just one, for the whole group! – will put a devilish smile on their faces, as they consider just what kinds of shenanigans they can get up to with a potent explosive. Even if they never use it (for fear of there being some even bigger, badder thing they could use it on), they’ll always want to, and that alone is enough to warm any adventurer’s heart.
Recommendation: Much like weapons, if you want to give ammunition, give ammo that you think the Hero will likely find useful in an upcoming adventure, generally in a small ‘stack’ (10 units or so). Much like money, they can make a good stocking-stuffer.
Buildings
A gift for the Hero who has everything. Using the rules in Rebuild the Wild, Heroes can own buildings of all shapes and sizes, from humble houses to full-blown castles – and you can easily put the deed to a building in a box, and hand that to your Heroes.
Gifting a Building not only gives a Hero a place to hang up their cloak between adventures, it also gives them some responsibility. As the owner of a house, they may need to personalize it with furniture and their Tokens, or at least, clean up when guests come calling; as the owner of a business, they’ll need to find a good Employee to manage it; if you grant the Heroes a Castle, well, now they have responsibility over a whole swath of the countryside!
In any case, they’ll now feel responsible for protecting their Building from thieves, evildoers, and poor houseguests – all of which can serve as potential quest-hooks for future adventures. After all, nothing gets a Hero on the warpath quite like a bad guy messing with their stuff / employees / home / village.
Keep in mind that most Buildings also generate income for their owners, which may result in additional homework for someone (be it GM or Player) – and in additional resources for that player down the line, since they didn’t lay down the hefty initial cost for the Building in the first place.
Recommendation: Buildings may work best as a group-gift to the entire party, unless you’re giving each Hero their own House or the like (or only one Hero shows interest in running a business).
Quest Hooks
What Hero can turn down the invitation to adventure? Maybe it’s a hand-written letter from a friend, asking for help in a time of trouble; a lead from a colleague, about a new, lucrative opportunity; an invitation from a frenemy, to a duel or a challenge to settle who’s the best.
Giving your players Quest Hooks as a gift might seem a bit strange – after all, it’s not something material, or even immediately useful! But as long as the Quest Hook is crafted by the GM with care, and pays attention to the Hero and their player specifically, they can be very nice gifts indeed.
Quest Hooks are best built as side-quests – things the players can choose to do, whenever it suits them. They should be specifically tied to the individual who receives the gift, in either (or both!) their initial invitation or the action of their adventure. It’s a good idea to reference a Hero’s backstory, a favorite NPC they met on their travels, or a prior adventure they really enjoyed.
As such, you likely want to keep the individual quests relatively short, no more than a session or two – they’re distracting from the main plot, after all, and they’re shining the spotlight on one Hero over the others. Of course, the side-quest itself should have its own rewards; Heroes should always be compensated for their time. It should also be just as challenging as any side-quest; the gift isn’t in an “easy win”, but in undertaking a challenge that has a personal element to it.
Recommendation: Quest Hooks are always a good gift, so long as you don’t bury the main plot of your campaign for too long as the players follow up on them. The more ‘personal’ the stakes and elements of the quest are to the player that receives them, the better the gift is.
Feats, Songs, Spells, and Techniques
Last but not least: one potent holiday gift idea is to give your Heroes a new Feat, Song, Spell, or Technique. These make great personalized gifts!
Feat – If the Hero accomplished some truly ridiculous bit of heroics, or wants to specialize in something that the existing Reclaim rules simply don’t cover, then a custom Feat is a wonderful way to acknowledge their efforts. Perhaps the Hero who struggled mightily while tied up by the bad guy gets a feat that lets them fight even better while bound; or the Hero who emphasizes durable equipment gets a new Crafting Style, named in their honor, that pushes a weapon’s Durability better than before.
You can also use a Feat to modify a Hero’s favorite Spell or Technique. For instance, allowing an always-disguised Hero to use Impa’s Disguise on her friends, or letting a Spin Attack-happy Hero fling foes out of their radius. These modifiers should be built as a choice, with additional cost – that way, the Hero can always choose whether to use the original action as written, or their holiday-enhanced version.
Spells and Techniques – If a Hero enjoys using Spells and Techs of a particular type or style, or has a favorite weapon combination, then you can build a Spell or Technique that builds upon those ideas. If a Hero loves summoning terrain features to mess with foes and solve puzzles, grant them a new Spell to summon a new kind of terrain! Or for the Hero who loves calling on their friends in their Techniques, give them a new Technique that lets them call upon their allies in new ways.
Songs – Magical Songs are a potent force in the Zelda universe, so it’s natural to want to bring some new music into your holiday celebrations. This could be as simple as giving the Hero Songs to contact beloved allies, or enact large-scale effects that they couldn’t do before. Try to remember any problems that your party wished they could solve by Song – or find a piece of music that inspires you, or that your player deeply enjoys, and build a new Song effect around that.
Recommendation: While they’re the most work to create, custom Feats, Songs, Spells, and Techniques are also the most heartfelt and meaningful gifts a GM can give their players. Try to keep their (theoretical!) Token costs about the same, and don’t charge the players Tokens to learn their new skills – nobody wants to get a bill for Christmas.