Let’s discuss Bonds!

16 thoughts on “Let’s discuss Bonds!”

1. Let me see if I can get all these in one fell swoop:

   -Players can only Burn a Bond if they’ve got a Bond to Burn (so 1 or more). (If your book doesn’t state this you should download the latest version from Drivethru or via the links provided on kickstarter – it was a late addition/clarification).

   -As the EIC, there have only been a couple times I’ve reduced a Bond by more than 1 point, and that’s only been for devastating repercussions for things going on in the narrative. Also, while it’s technically within purview, I usually leave all the personal Bond Burning to the players, while I handle the bigger picture ones (The City, Law Enforcement).

   -No, a player cannot Burn a Bond at, or below, zero.

   -The “Bonds to be Resolved” section is there in case a player Burns a Bond but doesn’t resolve it right away. They can scribble something in there to remind them to play out a scene to resolve that Bond being Burned.

   -Players are not required to repair Bonds at all, they can choose to cut them loose, as long as it’s incorporated into the narrative, like you say.

   -New Bonds can totally be established by the narrative. There are ways for players to do this on their own, via certain moves and such, but I often offer a chance to form a Bond with a character that’s ended up being important, as long as they’ve got Bonds to spare. Other times a player will ask, or will seek a Bond out during downtime, so I always roll with that,  as having characters that matter to the PCs is always pretty gratifying. It’s not always in the form of characters either – successfully stopping an alien invasion, or getting in the good books of the police chief often ends up with Bonds being offered in those areas (and vice versa of course).

2. Kyle Simons Thanks for the very speedy and comprehensive response! =)

3. Ahem- one other thing, that I’m not clear on still.

   Is there a max/min cap to a Bond (if it isn’t stated in a Book)? For example, can a Bond be better than 10, or worse than -10?

4. No, no caps on Bonds, but since only a positive number can be Burned, and because there’s a Bond Threshold, I’ve yet to see a Bond swing that high either way on the spectrum. There was talk in another thread of having a custom move for when Bonds get to a certain point (i.e. low negative score) to find out what happens to that Bond and I thought that was a cool idea. I often repurpose negative Bonds for my own designs.

5. Kyle Simons Ahhh! I didn’t consider the Threshold! Thanks again! =)

6. And Bond Threshold just means “the number of Bonds you can write down on your sheet,” right?  Or does it just mean the number of bonds you can have with a positive number in them?  (like, could i write down 13 different Bonds, but only have positive numbers in 5, if my Bond Threshold was 5?)

   In either case, if a Move calls for me to increase a Bond with a character, but i’ve already got positive numbers in as many other Bonds as i do my Bond Threshold, does that mean i just can’t gain the benefit?  And it just goes away?

7. Gray Pawn Yeah  – the positive number. You could have 15 Bonds with zero, or negative, Bonds in them, and another 5 each with just 1 in them if you so chose. In usually works out in the beginning that the players will have a zero Bond with the city and law enforcement when I run a game (since the city and law enforcement would have never heard of them yet – they’ve only just become heroes in most cases) and positive Bonds usually go into important NPCs and team members.

   If a move gives you the option of increasing a Bond with a character, but you’re already at your Bond Threshold, then you can’t, that’s right. Bonds will go up and down as stuff happens in the fiction, and players can Burn them anytime, so that’s one of the reasons I encourage players to Burn bonds – especially newer players who usually try to conserve them. 

8. Thanks!  Just a question of curiosity:  Why did you eliminate the opportunity to “Double Burn” a bond, for, like, a guaranteed 10+?

   Also, does the Defend Move sort of allow a feedback loop, then, where you can choose to restore a Bond, then burn it to roll Defend, and choose to restore it again?  I mean, so long as you don’t hit a <6 that means you'll always have 3 hold and can just drop one to bring the Bond back up one, right?  [assuming the fictional positioning is all cool]

9. Gray Pawn No problem! I don’t think there was a specific reason I eliminated a double burn, I don’t even remember putting down that it couldn’t be done. I can’t imagine coming up often, but if a player asked I’m sure I’d be fine with it – it hasn’t happened yet though.

   The Defend move could allow for a loop like that, yeah. It would have to make sense in the fiction of course – I’ve had a player Burn a Bond from somewhere else to make sure they protected someone and chose to gain a Bond with the protectee – I was totally cool with it as it made a lot of sense in the fiction. I can’t see the fiction working with the loop much more than that though, and wanted to give heroes an easy way to gain back Bonds for good reasons, and I wanted to give a benefit to a move that is otherwise pretty punishing.

10. My EiC and I are arguing over our interpretation of both the book and the clarifications here, so I’m going to ask this question in a really specific way to clarify the clarification. 🙂

    Bond Threshold: Is this…

    A) The total number of points you can have in your bonds. Example: My bond threshold is 6. I have a bond with Lesley, The City, and My Mom. Lesley is 3. The city is 2. My Mom is 1. I have now hit my bond threshold because these total 6, so I can’t increase or add additional positive bonds until I increase my bond threshold.

    B) The total number of positive bonds I can have. I have the same bonds listed above. These bonds can be increased, and I can add up to three more bonds with 1 or more points in them. Once I hit six bonds, I’ve reached my bond threshold.

11. It’s my understanding that “A” is the correct interpretation. Your Bond threshold shows the starting Bond total MAX. In your example, 6 Bond points may be distributed amongst your Bonds, as you see fit. Those Bond amounts may rise or fall, but must always equal 6 points, total.

12. Sorry guys, I obviously didn’t make this clear enough both in the book and in comments, so let me try to be as clear as possible. B is the right interpretation – if your Bond Threshold is 6, then you can only ever have a total of 6 Bonds, like David Semmes says. However, that doesn’t mean that negative Bonds, or Bonds that start at (or have been reduced to) zero can’t be on your sheet. 

    For example. Let’s say I’m Cyclops and I’ve got a Bond Threshold of  11 (5 other players are playing let’s say, plus I get another 6 for it only being occasionally difficult for me to fit in). My Bonds look like this when I start playing (this are all completely arbitrary, so don’t read too deeply into the choices made):

    The City: -1 (A people that hates and fears us)

    Law Enforcement: -1(Fear + hate + they have guns and don’t know what to do with us mutants)

    Professor X: 3

    Beast: 2

    Storm: 1

    Ice Man: 1

    Emma Frost: 3

    Wolverine: 1 (Let’s call it a healthy rivalry at this point)

    Now, throughout the course of play, I’ve been imbued with the Phoenix force, gone a bit nuts, and have killed Professor X. There aren’t many people that don’t hate me on the X-Men now and so I’ve got negative Bonds with all my previous teammates (Maybe I Burned those Bonds when I was fighting against the Avengers and everyone else trying to take me down while I was crazy, maybe not. Suffice to say, people are actively hostile towards me now, so my Bonds change to reflect that).

    The City: -3

    Law Enforcement: -3

    Professor X: 3

    Beast:-1

    Storm: -1

    Ice Man: -1

    Emma Frost: 3

    Wolverine: -1

    I’ve still got Bonds with Emma because I’m going to go start a new team of my own later with way cooler mutants that sympathize with me and that see me as a leader for mutantkind. I’ve got 3 Bonds with Emma, and my Bond Threshold is 11. I’ve still got 8 Bonds that I am able to obtain. I might work towards recovering some of those relationships, I might choose to form new Bonds as I build a new team for myself. Regardless of what I do, I still have 8 possible Bonds that I can still gain.

    Does that make sense? Let me know if anything needs further clarification Lukas Myhan; sorry for any confusion.

13. Kyle Simons I guess I didn’t understand Lukas’ question, because, Kyle, your example above, is how I thought Bonds worked. Great breakdown.

14. Kyle Simons: Well… you say it’s B, but then your example makes it sound like A is actually right.

    If it was B and my bond threshold is 6, I could have:

    The City: 12

    Law Enforcement: 40

    Iron Man: 700

    Captain America: 60

    Black Widow: 900

    Galactus: 390

    I’m exaggerating the numbers here to try to make what I’m saying clear: in B, the threshold isn’t the numbers NEXT TO the names, but rather how many names can have positive numbers.

    In A, if my threshold is still 6, I could have those same six names, but the maximum number next to each one would be 1 or I could have three of them with the number 2 next to them or two of them with a three next to them. In A, it’s the total of the positive numbers next to the names, not the total number of names with positive numbers.

15. Lukas Myhan Ok, well I misread what you were saying as well then. So I guess it’s not A (or it is, as long as it takes into account negative Bonds) and it’s not B either (if B has anything to with names listed) – it’s what I’ve written in my example, if B means anything about names. There is no limit to the number of names you can have listed, just to have how many positive Bonds you can have. Which is why I said it sounded like B was right, “The total number of positive bonds I can have.” In any case, see my example if there’s any confusion.

16. I understand what you mean, Kyle Simons, and I appreciate you taking the time to clarify! Thank you for that.

    I think the confusion comes from the book referring to multiple things as “Bonds”, in that it seems to refer both to the people/institutions and to the numbers next to them.

    If I were trying to explain this to someone, I would probably differentiate between “Bonds” (the names you write down on your sheet) and “Bond Scores” (or Bond Points), the positive numbers that you write down next to them. In this setup, Bonds are infinite. You can have as many as you want, but the sum of all your “Bond Scores” cannot exceed your Bond Threshold.

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