Hi everyone, I’ve launched a short DW campaign in which one of the players plays a gunslinger (Peter J version).
One of his bonds is “I once had Elsa (a female burglar) in my sights, but I let her live” and we don’t really know how to solve it. How could this change? Or stop being true? (apart from killing her…)
He’s also secretly in love with her, in the first session he tried to save her as she was dangling from a rope above a chasm but rolled a 6- and got knocked out (great scene 🙂 ).
Could anyone suggest a way to solve this bond? Thanks a lot!
The official by-the-book answer: Their relationship is no longer defined by the fact that he let her live but rather that he is secretly in love with her so their bond should reflect that. Resolve it (if both players agree) and write a new one about his secret love for her.
The unofficial one: A lot of DW players have moved away from bonds and replaced it by drives, flags or Lady-Blackbird-like keys. I personally do like bonds for the initial set-up and to bring the PCs together at the start of a campaign or for a one-shot but in my experience after some time playing they seize to be interesting enough for the players to really care about them.
Have you established why he let her live? Was it because he fell in love with her? Does she know he had her in his sights and let her live? Resolution could involve her finding out that he is in love with her, or her finding out that he let her live and Elsa possibly saving his live in return.
Thanks a lot for your answer. Actually the love bond was also set during character creation so I’ll probably have to cheat around the ideas (like : he didn’t shoot because he unconsciously recognized her, got haunted with his own reaction and realized why he did that when he saw her in mortal danger). I’ll just let him chose another bond, maybe with another character.
I read a lot that many DW players were trying to find alternatives for bonds, I’ll have a shot at using them RAW and move away from them if they suck 🙂
I didn’t know about the “keys” so thanks for the tip, but I feel I really want to have a tool that binds the characters together by using what happened in the fiction and I don’t think drives or flags do that.
Robert Finamore Obviously we’ve had similar thoughts on how to solve it 🙂
It is also possible to change/write a new bond without resolving it. You don’t get xp for it off course, but you can’t hit with all bonds.
I let my players change/rewrite bonds at End of Session. Potentially one bond is nominated for resolving (xp), but they may also change other bonds as they like.