What Makes a Good Bond?
Texto
Notably, bonds are more than just close relationships: they are close relationships that are important to the story the GM and players want to tell, and they are by their nature dynamic. A bond is a relationship that can change and grow. A character might have a very close relationship with someone, but if that relationship is not going to be focal to the character’s narrative arc in some way or if the player doesn’t think it could really develop significantly, it shouldn’t be represented mechanically with a bond.
Importantly, bonds do not vanish if the person with whom a character shares a bond leaves or even perishes. The relationship will always be a part of the character who was in it, and the lessons they learned and strength they gained from that connection are permanent. A character can even continue to advance a relationship with a dead person, provided they can still learn more about them, or come to better understand the time the two once spent together. In Rokugan, reincarnation or spiritual echoes might even lead the two characters to cross paths again, in this life or the next.
Bonds between PCs function mechanically, but they are not generally as useful as bonds between PCs and NPCs. This is because bonds are meant to help the GM and players get more out of the PCs’ relationships with the characters who appear less frequently in the story (whereas most of the time, all of the PCs are present in the story, and the players can simply roleplay their relationship at the table). The GM should feel free to set the roleplaying threshold for forming a bond between PCs higher than it is between PCs and NPCs.
Bonds generally exist between two characters, but they can exist between more than two characters at the GM’s discretion (rather than having many individual bonds, for example, a close fellowship of companions or a family might have a single bond shared by all members of the group).
Texto do livro
Courts of Stone · Chapter 3: Games of Discourse › Bonds › What Makes a Good Bond? · p. 136
Mostrar o texto como impresso
Notably, bonds are more than just close relationships: they are close relationships that are important to the story the GM and players want to tell, and they are by their nature dynamic. A bond is a relationship that can change and grow. A character might have a very close relationship with someone, but if that relationship is not going to be focal to the character’s narrative arc in some way or if the player doesn’t think it could really develop significantly, it shouldn’t be represented mechanically with a bond.
Importantly, bonds do not vanish if the person with whom a character shares a bond leaves or even perishes. The relationship will always be a part of the character who was in it, and the lessons they learned and strength they gained from that connection are permanent. A character can even continue to advance a relationship with a dead person, provided they can still learn more about them, or come to better understand the time the two once spent together. In Rokugan, reincarnation or spiritual echoes might even lead the two characters to cross paths again, in this life or the next.
Bonds between PCs function mechanically, but they are not generally as useful as bonds between PCs and NPCs. This is because bonds are meant to help the GM and players get more out of the PCs’ relationships with the characters who appear less frequently in the story (whereas most of the time, all of the PCs are present in the story, and the players can simply roleplay their relationship at the table). The GM should feel free to set the roleplaying threshold for forming a bond between PCs higher than it is between PCs and NPCs.
Bonds generally exist between two characters, but they can exist between more than two characters at the GM’s discretion (rather than having many individual bonds, for example, a close fellowship of companions or a family might have a single bond shared by all members of the group).