One of the things I’m always mindful of when prepping one-shots is encouraging player roleplay. I don’t mean PCs talking to my NPCs (you can directly influence this as GM), I mean PCs talking to other PCs. There’s several techniques to promote this, but I’m going to talk today about bonds.

What are bonds? They’re questions, or loaded phrases, that link 2 (or more) PCs together at the start of the session. In a one-shot, after everyone has picked their character, they answer the question or tag the bond which whichever of their fellow PCs they want. They give players a chance to customise who their pregen is, ground them in their past and the setting, and set them up to interact with their fellow players. They’re entirely transferable – while lots of PBTA games come with them ready-baked into the playbooks, you can use them in D&D, Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu (which is what really got me thinking about them).

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