Relationships Are Not Ladders

Heartline tracks important relationships without reducing them to one approval number.

Shared Closeness can be Distant, Familiar, Close, Intimate, or Estranged. Tension can be Easy, Charged, Fractured, or Volatile. Neither is a simple better/worse scale. Intimate can be romantic, familial, platonic, or something harder to name; Charged does not automatically mean sexual.

Each direction is tracked separately. One person may trust the other more, feel Intense desire while the other feels None, or carry resentment the other does not share. The two people can even disagree about what the relationship currently is.

A successful roll does not mean +1 Trust or +1 Desire. Resolve the action first, then update only the fields the scene changed. Most ordinal changes move one step; larger jumps need a betrayal, major sacrifice, explicit commitment, defining revelation, or clear rupture.

Consent is never a permanent relationship statistic. Attraction does not create consent. Intimacy does not create future permission. Rejection is a complete and valid outcome that can lead to friendship, awkwardness, relief, grief, distance, respect, or some new form of connection.

Rupture and repair are separate. An apology is an action, not a reset button. Forgiveness can occur without restored closeness; trust can return while resentment remains; love can exist without a workable relationship.