Question: My players all want to work for the Lord of the realm, but a valid question has come up, If one character buys a relationship that character exists, would the other characters have to role circles to interact with him, that seems a little weird. So this lead to the question of can the group pool points to by a collective relationship… and i am not sure if this makes sense in context. My thought initially was while someone could by an major relationship, the other characters would also have to buy relationships but by buying a minor, it just means your access to the Lord is more limited. and no relationship means you have no access and you would have to gain access through other people…
The town of Horstead is surround, attacked nightly who are these dark raiders and how are you going to stop them?
But they decided that they want to be part of the lords retinue, not just the populace of the town. But we are trying to work out how that relationship should work…
They each have to buy the relationship.
If they want discounts, they can complicate their relationship with their superior.
If they don’t buy the relationship, they’re just another face in the crowd to the lord.
To elaborate, capital “r” Relationships are people personally important to your character. You’re expected to only have one or two of them starting out: everyone else is in your life is in circles.(BWGR pg. 94)
Not having a character as a Relationship doesn’t mean that character doesn’t exist or that they aren’t in your life or even that you don’t have a – little “r” – relationship with them. You don’t need a Relationship to have a mother or a brother or a boss, but your access to them, their feelings toward you, and their ability to help you with what you need are all in question – or whatever else the GM thinks makes for a good failure condition when circling them up.
Of course, your players would need to have a lifepath or setting in common to try, otherwise they just never got the chance to meet the guy before play started, even if they’ve worked for him before.
Or indeed that he’ll (for example) trust you in a meaningful way if he does remember you.
One person having a Relationship and introducing the others is like one person introducing some work colleagues to a member of their family, or like recommending a good plumber to your neighbour. It gets a conversation, but it doesn’t usually create much of a connection.
If they want to be part of the Lord’s retinue, then they’ll arguably need a Reputation for that in the city. Combined with one character having a Relationship, so you know the Lord’s name, it won’t necessarily be an extremely hard Circles test anyway and might not take that many Circles tests for him to become a Relationship in play.
There is also no guarantee the lord will let them all in. Or listen to them. Yeah they all work for the lord… but so does the gardener and the dish washers. That one guy, the lord KNOWS him and has time for him.