[PUNK] Update agogo

[Daniel Solis]

Daniel, that "you're in a bar" character creation thing is brilliant.

Thank Dev, it was his idea. :)

I think you could explain the 'karma account' thing more concisely; instead of giving the Man Authority, you can have it associated with the character:

Authority
Every time you succeed a passionate action, you get an Authority token.  The Man can exercise his Authority by discarding one of these tokens ...game mechanical effects...

Characters cannot have more than ten Authority tokens etc. etc

I just might end up doing this. Giving the players the authority tokens, but not actually letting the players use them in any way, might have a nice psychological oomph. Like a real, visible weight on the character's shoulders.

Are you still going to do that series of different -punk settings?  I think that the punk ideal is strong enough in your mechanics that you can have little "liner notes" setting booklets, which would be beyond awesome.

That's the plan. I don't think PUNK is a game for long-term play, so the setting booklets are probably only going to have three CD pages of material in them. An introduction to the premise, any special rules, and maybe some plot seeds.

The big problem with the Exploding Punk Phenomenon is that it's a chain reaction. Actually, it's quite likely that this will almost always happen, if there are two Punks in the group with 7s or higher. You might want to rethink that mechanic a bit...maybe, instead of distributing the 10 points among the others, it would be wisest to just give them +1s?

A buddy of mine thought of a simple solution: When a punk burns out, the rest of the punks get one anarchy token. This way, only those already on the edge would be in danger of exploding. I may also include a rule stating that punks who burn out as a result of another punk burning out do not give the rest of the punks and extra anarchy token.

One thing I realised is that I'm not sure exactly sure what the die mechanic is from the rules: is "best result" the single highest die result from each person's pool, or does it refer to the best sum, between player and Man?

Single highest die.

Also, maybe this was a conscious decision, but the rules still don't mention how the game might end; i.e. "victory conditions" or whatever.

Read the last section of the revision, titled, "How to Win."

[Daniel Solis]

Here's PUNK, revised, again: ;)

PUNK
You and your gang are rebels in a monolithic, dystopian alternate Earth. The faceless nemesis is a special player called the Man. In other games, he's called the GM and acts as a story guide and moderator. But this is PUNK, so he's the Man and you fight him.

Becoming a Punk
Describe three Passions:
Fight – Something that pisses you off. You want it to stop.
Fuck – Something you desire. You want to get or achieve it.
Flight – Something you fear. You want to avoid or get away from it.

  Only Punks and other named characters get passions. Everyone else is a cog in the Man's machine. Named characters in the service of the Man must have one of their passions express their devotion the status quo.

  You're all in a bar. Describe what you're doing. Before you leave the bar, write down  three of your character's notable Characteristics (skills, quirks, history, personality, etc.) as expressed through role-playing this first scene.

  Grab five tokens of Anarchy. Assemble ten punk songs for your character's soundtrack.

  Let's go!

Action
Say what you want to do. Get a six-sided die for each of your beneficially relevant traits. (Passions and Characteristics are both considered "traits.") The Man gathers a die for every one of your opponent's beneficially relevant traits. If you have access to such personal information, you can get a die for each of your opponent's negatively relevant traits. Your opponent can do the same to you.

  If there is no opponent, the Man humanizes the obstacle. For example, you roll to pick a lock. The Man rolls for the lock.

  Roll 'em. Whoever gets the highest result on a single die wins. The Man wins all ties.

  If you lost the roll, you describe your failure.

  If you won, the Man describes your success.

Anarchy
So, you're doing something that fits one or more passions. (Otherwise known as a "Passionate" action.) If you fail that act, you gain a token of Anarchy for every triggered passion.

  Spend Anarchy before a roll to increase each of your die results by one value on a 1-for-1 basis. Spend Anarchy after a successful roll to describe the success.

  If you have over ten Anarchy tokens, you burn out. Your character has a heart attack and dies. Each surviving punk gets an extra Anarchy token. Punks who exceed ten tokens as a result of another punk's burnout also die. These second-generation burnouts do not give the rest of the group yet another Anarchy token.

  If you have zero Anarchy tokens, you fade away. The forces of the Man ambush your character and the Man can do with him as he pleases.

Authority
Every time you succeed a Passionate action, you gain an authority token. The Man can exercise his Authority over you by discarding one of these tokens. Fortunately, you cannot have more than ten Authority tokens and the authority tokens of one character cannot be used against another character.

  The Man spends Authority before a roll to increase the value of his die results on a 1:1 basis. He spends it after your unsuccessful rolls to describe your failure.

  The only way to willingly lose Authority tokens is by laying low until the heat dies down. In other words, by not being a Punk. Every week spent avoiding passionate actions removes one Authority token. Unfortunately, you lose Anarchy tokens at the same rate.

The Power of Rock n' Roll
Put each character's soundtrack in an mp3 player or multi-disc CD changer. Keep the music playing in the background on a random setting. While your song is running, you can narrate your successes without having to spend Anarchy and the Man can't spend Authority to describe your failures.

How To Win
Once one passion is resolved, it effectively becomes a non-trait. It can not be used for your benefit or to your detriment. If you have resolved all of your character's passions at the same time, you can have whatever sappy happy ending you can imagine. The catch is that you can't take anyone with you (unless that's part of your passion or something). Winning PUNK is an exceedingly rare occurence unless your passions are fairly easy to resolve. If that's the case, you're probably playing a really boring character.

Credits
PUNK is by Daniel Solis, with help from Alexander Cherry, Micheal V. Goins, Derek Guder, Mike Holmes, Mark Johnson, Bran Leybourne, Jasper McChensey, Dev Purkayastha, Shreyas Sampat, Jeffrey S. Schecter, Ross Winn, the Forge, and rock n' roll.

The folks in the credits are all the full names I found on the various PUNK threads I've posted over the last several months. In fact, after searching "PUNK" in the Forge search engine, I found not one, but two previous attempts at making some sort of punk-inspired RPG. The first was called PUNk, and was posted in 2001. The second was simply Punk and posted in 2002. PUNK was first posted in the summer of 2003. Will there be another punk RPG presented for 2004?

[DevP]

Will there be another punk RPG presented for 2004?

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9346">MythDeck tries like hell to be punk rock, but that outcome will be dependent on which font I use.

So, the last few notes:
* it is pretty much golden, so these are optional notes
* the bit about the distribution of points + 2nd gen points could be made shorter by simply saying "everyone gets 1, if they want" or "exploding guy divies them up however she wants"; different effect, but it's brief.
* you want some header before the "You're in a bar" part to make is more clear that you've already started playing in character. I'd say:

The Setup
Start out with everybody being in a bar. Describe what you're doing, introduce yourself and talk as your character. As you're doing this, write down up to three Details (skills, quirks, history, personality, etc.) that come accross from a scene.

Once you're done,  grab five tokens of Anarchy, queue up your soundtrack and Go!

Of course, I just noticed a bit of a thing about when you assemble your CD, and if you're all interactively doing the bar thing right before you start playing...

But anyway, that's the suggestion.

[Doctor Xero]

To be honest, I preferred the original rules write-up to this latest because
it had more of a flavor text fitting the genre.

I'd love to run this RPG myself someday!

The idea of one punk losing it and thereby causing everyone else to
lose it (as a result of distributing all of his/her tokens) makes a great
deal of sense to me.  I would simply rename it from Burn-out to
Freak-out!  It accurately replicates how a single person who loses it can
be the catalyst for a violent group's implosion upon itself.

Similarly, the idea of a punk's leaving the group because he/she has
fulfilled all three of his/her passions nicely replicates the way a lot of
anarchist and violent activist (as opposed to peaceful protester) groups
function: a person who is in there for a limited reason usually bores of
it and leaves to live a mundane, "respectable" life, while the others
scream at him/her that he/she never really had "the passion", never
really was in it for "the cause", never really had the right allegiance
because the passion was too specific.

Example: Bill has the passions of Fight = Hates being put down for being
x-minority, Fuck = Craves money, money, money! Flight = Fears cops
because he thinks they're all racists.  Bill ends up married to a sugar
momma who keeps him in expensive clothes and neighborhoods.
Suddenly, no one puts him down for being x-minority because all they
see is his sugar momma's credit cards, he has all the money he wants,
and cops are polite to him because he is "respectable rich."  His passions
are all filled up -- and his former fellow punks scream "Sell-out bitch!" at
him until he moves into neighborhoods they're locked out of.  Yeah, ol'
Bill never had the passion -- he was a punk just out of bitterness.

Ria has the passions of Fight = Hates racism, Fuck = Craves equality for
everyone (except The Man!), Flight = Fears Selling-Out.  Ria will never
"sell out" like Bill, for there will never be an end to racism (unless the
game suddenly turns into a utopia fiction), there will never be a time when
everyone is equal, and she has an active fear of becoming satisfied with
the status quo anyway.  Ria has "the passion" and is definitely in it for
the cause!

Doctor Xero

[Daniel Solis]

To be honest, I preferred the original rules write-up to this latest because
it had more of a flavor text fitting the genre.

Thanks! Part of my writing process lately is to trim down the rules so they make as much sense as possible with as little verbage as possible. After that point, I build it back up with some attitude-laden flavor text. While the old writeup had more room for flavor text, the old system was way too crunchy for a game encouraging rule-breaking rebellion.

The idea of one punk losing it and thereby causing everyone else to
lose it (as a result of distributing all of his/her tokens) makes a great
deal of sense to me.  I would simply rename it from Burn-out to
Freak-out!  It accurately replicates how a single person who loses it can
be the catalyst for a violent group's implosion upon itself.

It also encourages keeping track of your fellow punks to make sure they're still right in the head. I may as well include it as an optional rule. Can't hurt.

Similarly, the idea of a punk's leaving the group because he/she has
fulfilled all three of his/her passions nicely replicates the way a lot of
anarchist and violent activist (as opposed to peaceful protester) groups
function: a person who is in there for a limited reason usually bores of
it and leaves to live a mundane, "respectable" life, while the others
scream at him/her that he/she never really had "the passion", never
really was in it for "the cause", never really had the right allegiance
because the passion was too specific.

Yup, precisely. I had hoped this would encourage players interested in short-term play to make characters with short-term goals and (long-term characters to have long-term goals). No more guilt for the player only interested in a couple sessions while everyone else wants to play a campaign. (I've been in that spot far too many times.) All that having been said, I doubt PUNK is really meant for long-term play.

[Calithena]

I would change 'The Power of Rock 'n Roll' to 'The Power of Punk' or 'The Power of Punk Rock'. Other than that, everything looks great.