Updated from an article originally published Nov 20, 2018.

Player characters receive bonds from their chosen Background, descriptive traits that tie them to the campaign setting via some sort of relationship to people, places, or things. An alternative method of using bonds is to more directly create ties between the individual player characters themselves, creating relationships that help them forge a team identity and a reason for sticking together through whatever adversity they face in their adventures together. Here are some additional ideas for bonds.

Random Party Bonds

Roll 1d12 or have each player choose one of the following options. Each player must choose a different, unique option. You can either have them forge each bond with the player to their right, or allow them to forge bonds with whomever they please, so long as each player gets at least one bond to another character.

  1. Which PC is a relative of yours (even if adopted)?
  2. Which PC did you train with as part of your Background or Class?
  3. Which PC do you view as your big/little sibling?
  4. Which PC shares a secret only you two know?
  5. Which PC knew your parent (s)/mentor well?
  6. Which PC owed your liege/mentor/parent(s) a debt?
  7. Which PC has dirt on you or your kin?
  8. Which PC traded with your family/business?
  9. Which PC did you save from a wilderness hazard?
  10. Which PC saved your life during a raid by goblins?
  11. Which PC was with you witnessed the theft of a magical relic from your hometown?
  12. Which PC was in a rival gang until the town watch broke up the gangs in your neighborhood?

Alternative Bond List

A list with more positive results and less “loaded” questions might look like the following. This is inspired by Smallville, Dungeon World, and Cam Banks’ Hammerheads for Cortex RPG, and specifically this character sheet for Hammerheads found on Game School’s podcast site.

Note that an asterisk (*) should be replaced by a party members’s name.

  1. * is my relative.
  2. * is my close friend.
  3. * survived an encounter with me.
  4. * trained/apprenticed/went to school with me.
  5. * owes my patron a debt.
  6. * did business with my family.
  7. * saved me from a wilderness hazard.
  8. * escaped with me from a raid.
  9. * was with me when something important was stolen.
  10. * is good for a laugh and a drink.
  11. * knows their stuff; they are dependable.
  12. * is a bit of a troublemaker.

NPC Bonds

You can use these general NPC bonds in multi-session adventures and campaigns where recurring NPCs will show up frequently, or influence the events of the adventure(s) frequently, even if they aren’t physically present all the time.

  • * is my blood. (What’s your relation to them? Parent, sibling, grandparent, uncle, etc.)
  • * is my rival.
  • * is my best friend.
  • * is my contact.
  • * is my vice purveyor.
  • * is my love.
  • * is my ex.
  • * wronged me in the past. (Are you over it? Are they?)
  • * is my patron.
  • * is my Guild mentor.

More specifically-worded bonds can be created for NPCs that are going to show up during a single adventure, or one-shot adventure. Think of these as being more “loaded,” and better yet, ripe for immediate use in your game session.

  • * stole something from me. (What is it?) [ED. – This is great if the focus of the adventure, or at least it’s initial hook, involves having a player character or party set out to get back the thing that was stolen. Better yet, if there’s a particular treasure in a pile of loot, or McGuffin important to the adventure, this is a great way to give the PCs a heads-up about it, because they want it back.]
  • * killed my loved one, and better be prepared to die! (Who did they kill?)
  • * abducted my [insert other NPC bond]. [ED. – Are there captives held anywhere in the adventure’s various sites/dungeons? Then this is the perfect bond to hook the characters.]

Optional Mechanics

Dungeons & Dragons generally leaves Bonds, Ideals, Flaws and Personality Traits as the purview of only two things: roleplaying guidelines and sources for generating Inspiration. But there aren’t hard and fast rules, even on that latter point: “did you roleplay it well?” or “did we have fun when you used that quirk?” are all it comes down to. Here are some ideas for reinforcing more specific bonds through game mechanics.

Inspiration

You could make Bonds the only source of Inspiration, or pair them off with one other trait (such as Flaws) to really focus on those specific personality elements as a potential route to gaining Inspiration. For example, you could rule that “nurturing a Bond grants you Inspiration.” Alternatively, it could be “challenging a Bond grants you Inspiration.”

Nurturing a Bond means putting time and effort into it; it’s not just a simple cordial interaction. It means focusing on it and trying to make it stronger. Some examples can be gleaned by reading up on how to improve a character’s Faction Rank and standing in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

In the case of ‘challenging’ a Bond, that means putting it in jeopardy. If it ends up in the same place, that’s fine (you get Inspiration), but it could also change the nature of the Bond, which would grant Inspiration too. So, if you didn’t trust Ralph (your Bond is, “Ralph is a troublemaker”) but then he came through for you in a big way, you could change the Bond to “I trust Ralph with my life.”

These ideas work equally well for both PC and NPC Bonds.

Experience Points & Milestones

Nurturing or challenging Bonds (as described above under “Inspiration”) might be a path to gaining experience instead of interacting with Inspiration rules. You might add “resolving Bonds” to that: if you have a Bond with an NPC that involves bringing them to justice, and you do just that during the course of your adventures, that Bond is now resolved. You gain experience.

The question then becomes whether you use Experience Points or Milestones for leveling. If you use Experience Points, consider making the nurturing, challenging, or resolution of a Bond equal in XP to a creature of a Challenge Rating equivalent to your party’s average level (APL in Adventurer’s League terms). These sorts of things shouldn’t be happening to any real degree every session, and should instead be the focus of plenty of effort, downtime, and possibly even an encounter or entire adventure of its own.

If you use Milestone leveling, you may wish to have Bonds become milestones unto themselves, so the players have clear, long-term, and very personal goals. This isn’t going to work in every adventure, but they are great in multi-session adventures and campaign play. Nurturing, challenging, or resolving Bonds should be big events, and though they may be very intimate to the Player Character with the specific Bond in question, they should involve the other PCs in some way. The other PCs’ relationships with the character might be challenged in order to nurture a Bond: maybe a PC has a connection to a patron that is, in fact, working at cross-purposes to some of the party’s other goals!

These ideas work best with NPC Bonds. Nurturing and challenging Bonds with other Player Characters can be done, but may be hard to repeat multiple times without straining credibility…or the relationship itself. Campaigns where that happens will be full of inter-party conflict and drama, which isn’t for everyone, especially in a party-focused game like D&D.  Resolving a Bond with a fellow party member is likely impossible without one of the characters being removed from play (retiring, perishing, being betrayed).

How much do you use Bonds in your D&D games?

More Variants & Options

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