A party is the group of player characters in a role-playing game. In most games, members of a party are allies attempting to achieve a common goal. In other games, mainly one-shot or narrative-focused games, player characters may be opposed to each other, but be tied together for other reasons (although the term party is often not used in these cases). Bonds are the connections between characters that bring them together in a party (either positively or as rivals).
A group of players may create a party and its internal relationships in party creation, or the makeup of a party may arise organically after player characters who have been created separately are brought together in the game.
The term party is sometimes used, in the context of traditional games such as Dungeons & Dragons, to refer to any team of adventurers in the setting, including ones other than the player characters.