So I’m a little confused about the nature of PC to PC Bonds. For NPCs, a Bond seems designed to reflect their feelings about your character rather than the other way around, which makes sense.
But what about your team Bonds, is it the same thing or is it reversed? As it seems odd that you can exercise control over how another PC feels about you, but only they can exercise control over how you feel about them, at least from a mechanical standpoint.
Or are the Bond values always supposed to be the same on both sheets anyway and I’ve just missed something?
Yeah, it’s the reverse for PC-PC Bonds (as in, how you see the relationship and what you feel about the other player character, rather than how they feel about you).
Sometimes it’ll mean that if you Burn a Bond with them, they’ll most likely lower the Bond on their sheet as well (though maybe not, depending on the fiction), and if they gain one with you, you might gain one as well, other times it’ll mean that one character interprets and views the relationship in a totally different way than the other:
One PC might protect another and choose to raise their Bond with them, justifying it by saying how they think of the PC like a sibling, or whatever. Whether the PC chooses to do likewise is up to them – how does having someone protect me make me (re: my character) feel? Did they think I couldn’t handle it myself and make me feel incompetent? When are the others going to stop seeing me as a child/new member, etc. vs. Just in the nick of time! It’s nice to know they’ve got my back, etc.
Yeah, it was Protect and Serve’s bond creation/advancement that was really muddying things for me. If the Bonds run the other way around for PCs it makes a lot more sense; great explanations, thanks!
Not a problem!