Gifting / Bribing

[Zamajam]

In the rules it mentions you can give away items to Bribe someone. I was wondering what the rules are for this. Can you gift an item from your hand, or does it have to be in play? If I have too many cards in hand, can I choose to gift those instead of using the Charity rule? How many cards can I gift?

The reason why I ask is because in a recent game I had a friend that basically gifted all their excess cards at the end of the turn so they wouldn't have to help another player or put them in the discard pile. It just didn't seem right, so I thought I should ask.

[Mathgeni]

Only items "in play" may be traded or used as bribes. "In play" meaning items on the table either equipped or being carried. Cards in your hand are only cards in your hand. They are not items until they are "in play."

There is no such thing as "gifting" cards from your hand unless another card (such as a curse or even bad stuff) dictates that cards are lost from your hand. This would make Charity a non-existent phase of the game of players could simply choose to ignore the rules entirely. If a player has excess cards in their hand at the end of their turn they must either carry/equip items, play curses or other cards, or give them to charity if they are not the lowest level player or discard if they are lowest level.

There is no choice in giving to charity. The only choice in giving to charity is if multiple players are tied for the lowest level, the person giving to charity decides which player gets which card(s) as long as cards are distributed as equally as possible among all lowest level players.

Your friend choosing to "gift" cards from their hand in order to avoid giving charity to the lowest level player has not followed the rules of the game.

[Andrew Hackard]

And, although this is stated several times in the rules, only cards with a printed Gold Piece value (or the printed phrase "No Value") are considered Items.