Bright Future Bonds

Bonds are a deeper social aspect of Bright Future, they’re strongly connected with Stability, and having a network of friends can be invaluable when you find yourself in trouble. Bonds can be anything from a coworker to a life partner, or even a gang or organization.

Bond Strengths

Bonds can be classified by their current value.
0: Lost.
1-2: Weak.
3-4: Healthy.
5-6: Strong.
7-8: Deep.
9-10: Unshakable.

Maximum Bond Strength: 6 + Charisma Mod.

Default Bond Strength: Default bond strength is equal to your Charisma mod, minimum of 1.

Type of Bond

Bonds have a types which determine and defines the interaction between bond and character. These are how the character sees their bond, and can change over time.
Individual Types: These types are specifically for individuals.
Friend: Friends come in many shapes and sizes, races and genders, ages and walks of life. Mechanically speaking, friends only get needy if a favor is asked of them or if the GM uses them as a plot hook.
Dependent: This bond depends on you to survive in some way. A dependent bond becomes needy every week, however aiding a needy dependent restores three points of stability which can be spread across multiple aspects. Grinning Skull finished cleaning blood from her ax, barked at her group that she expected them to be back here before sunrise, and she went home. They had lost someone tonight, and the memory was still raw in Grinning Skull’s mind, but she couldn’t let it get to her because today was still a win. Opening the door she smiled for the first time today. “Brother, toss that old peg away, I’ve brought you a new metal leg for you to walk on.” Seeing his face light up restored her faith in others and herself, she was a hero."
Guardian: Always there to protect and help you, this Bond is rarely needy. Aside from their expectation that they’ll usually be helping the character, the Guardian acts like a friend. If the Bond ever reaches favor status they may stop being a Guardian as the character has proven they can take care of not only themselves but also the Guardian. Anytime the Guardian steps in to help, the character makes a Stress check, as they feel like a burden to the Guardian. “Ray’s bleeding out, could you…?” Alex asked over the Tele-Scriber. “Of course, keep you hand on the wound, slow the blood flow, I’ll be right there.” Ten minutes later Ray is patched up, Alex has said goodbye to her guardian angel, leaving Alex to wonder why she deserves such a friend.
Life Partner: Life Partners can be a lover, spouse, or other deep life time relationship. A source of normalcy and a trusted Bond, downtime spent with a Life Partner restores one extra point of Stability a day. However when a Life Partner becomes needy or cause stability checks, the stability damage is bumped up one rating higher (0/1 becomes 0/2, 0/2 becomes 1/3, and 1/3 becomes 2/4). Last weekend had been the break from reality Quinn needed. It had started out rough, still on edge about the indescribable thing on the other side of the portal, but seeing Jamie pushed those worries to the back of his mind. Which is the image burning it’s way to the core of Quinn’s mind as he hears of Jamie’s accident and mounting hospital bills. He’d make sure they all get paid.
Group Types: These types are specifically for groups of people.
Member: You’re a member of a group, gaining the ability to call in favors. If the bond is needy, the group needs your expertise with a Request.

Needy and Favor

Needy: When a Bond becomes needy, they find themselves in a situation where they need the characters help. The need the Bond has will determine how often it effects the character. High need would trigger daily, medium need weekly, and low need monthly. The effect is always a Stability save based on the circumstances, and having to make the roll reduces the bond strength by one. For example, a Bond who will die in a week if they don’t get a certain medication would have a high need, every day the character can’t provide the Bond with their need, they make a Stability save, inability to find or pay for the medicine would target Stress, while ignoring their need would target Detachment.
Favor: When a Bond owes you a favor, you can call on it without losing bond strength or causing them to become needy, but it does end the favored status. A favor can be “forgiven” to gain two points of Bond strength instantly. A Bond enters favor status when a character does something exceedingly helpful for the Bond without being asked to do so. Delivering a wanted criminal to a police officer, dropping six Kilos of ease on a drug dealers door step, or getting a friend a behind-the-scenes pass to their favorite band all would put the Bond in favor status.

Gaining a new Bond: Anytime you add a new bond to your character sheet, remove one strength from every other bond. This represents your new need to further split your time and attention, and also represents the decay of bonds over time if they’re not maintained.

Number of Bonds

While there is no limit to the number of bonds a character can have, the more a person has the harder they are to maintain and strengthen. As every new bond you add, takes one strength from every other bond you have, it becomes harder and harder to maintain more and more bonds.

Using Bonds

Bonds are mostly for role-playing, but they have some mechanical benefits as well.
Asking a Favor: Asking a Favor requires bond strength of 2 or higher. Minor favors aside, asking for something puts strain on a relationship. At the cost of decreasing a bonds strength or the bond becoming need, a favor can be asked of them. Bond strength loss usually stays close to 1 or 2 strength, however big favors or uncharacteristic actions can cause more strength to be lost.
Burn a Bond: Burn a Bond requires bond strength of 4 or higher. A massive and uncharacteristic favor. The Bond doesn’t like the implications of the favor so much their Bond strength drops to zero and the bond will cut ties after the favor is complete.
Relaxing Downtime: Spending time with a bond doesn’t always strengthen in, if you’re going through a hard time, every two hours you spend with a bond restores a point of stability in any aspect.
Vacation: A Vacation requires bond strength of 4 or higher. Planning out a full day of relaxation with all the necessary entertainment is a great way to unwind and find some normalcy. Character pays their own or the Bonds weekly salary (whichever is higher) to spend a full day of down time relaxing, regain the Bond strength in stability, which can be spread across multiple aspects.
Enhanced Training: Enhanced training requires bond strength of 2 or higher. A specific favor to to ask for training from a Bond. The Bond doubles the value of your downtime when it comes to training for the next ten downtime days (Ten days of downtime translates to twenty days of training), at the cost of decreasing the bond strength by 1 or paying the Bonds weekly salary. The bond must already be trained in what your character is training for.

Strengthening Bonds

Improving a relationship with someone just takes time, You may spend free time to give yourself a chance to improve a bonds strength. Bonds may also strengthen from a characters roleplaying interactions with them, a successful fight with just you and your bond against some foes, or a date that went well could be worth a point. Those increases will likely be limited to once a day, but there are always extenuating circumstances, like saving someones life at great personal risk, or being there when a character faces something deeply personal and standing by their side.

Bond Maximum strength: 6 + Charisma Mod.
Spend Downtime: After five downtime days are spent with the bond, make a Charisma DC 10 check.
Critical Success: The Bond gains 2 strength or enters favor status.
Success: The Bond gains 1 strength.
Failure: Nothing.
+Critical Failure: Bond loses 1 strength.

Weakening Bonds

Bonds decrease in a number of ways. Anytime you add a new bond, all your old bonds decrease in strength by one, from a mixture of time constrains and time passed. Bonds may also decrease during play, after a scene plays out, if the GM determines that the bond was hurt by what happened within, the bond will decrease in strength anywhere from a single point up to a full loss of the bond, dependent on the severity of the damage. There’s no formula for this, just guide lines. A simple bad experience will likely result in only a single point loss, while revealing you’ve only been dating someone for a chance to speak with their rich parents about funding your latest start up company is going to cost you upwards of eight points.

Losing a Bond

Once a bond hit’s 0 it’s considered lost, remove it from your character sheet. To regain the bond you’ll need to spend the time to reacquire the bond (ten downtime days), the same negative side effects to other bonds occur, except the bond reforms at strength 1 despite your charisma mod, as the previous experience still taints this bond. The one exception is when you Burn a Bond, that Bond literally never wants to see or hear of you again, and they will not reform the bond.
Instability of Loss: Losing a Bond results in a Stability check 1/3, usually in Detachment, occasionally in Stress depending on the nature of the Bond Lost.
Death of a Bond: Bonds die, of natural causes or preordained. The strength of the Bond and the circumstance of their death determines the strength of the Stability damage. If responsibility falls on the character the impact is even heavier. Losing a Bond who is a strength 6 Life Partner could cause a character to crack in a single Stability loss, especially if their decisions lead to the Bond’s death.