[PUNK: Boo York City] Initial Sketch of ectopunk supplement

[Daniel Solis]

Hey folks. Things have been crazy busy up in this joint with senior year hitting full throttle and the professors whipping us into shape. I did have a few minutes this morning to write out some initial ideas for the first supplement of the revised PUNK. (Found here.)

I've been toying with the idea of "ectopunk" or "ghostpunk" ever since I read about the Renegades in Wraith: the Oblivion. It struck me that these guys should've been the focus of the game since they seem to be the most proactive of the factions in that setting. That's neither here nor there though.

This concept is loosely based on Ghostbusters, but from the ghost's perspective. Specifically, a ghostpunk's perspective. RPG inspiration comes from InSpectres and Kill Puppies for Satan. The premise of Boo York City is that you're a ghost causing as much mayhem as possible in 1980s New York while avoiding the Man and his "busters." Here we go...

Boo York City

You're a ghost given a second chance at living it up on Earth without the hangups of actually being alive. By whom, you don't know, don't care, don't remember. But you do remember it was bad in the afterlife. Game over, man. So if whoever, or whatever, returned you to earth says you have to scare as many New Yorkers as possible, you're sure as hell gonna do it. Anyway, it's fun to scare the mortals.

NYC, 1985
A sudden onslaught of supernatural activity in New York City has forced the mayor's hand. An NYPD task force of mediums, parapsychologists, ectophysicists, psychics and priests of all stripes has been assembled to keep the undead menace at bay. Though ghosts cannot be killed, they can be contained and used as a source of clean, efficient power. The busters, as the media has dubbed NYPD's supernatural task force, use all manner of techniques but they all have the same effect: Capture and Submission. Afterwards, ghosts are sent upstate to the power plant to become a productive member of society.

I Ain't Got No Body
Character creation is exactly the same as in PUNK, the bar scene and everything. The catch is that you're ghosts. Ghosts sent back to Earth--New York, in particular--on a mission to cause as much panic as possible. No ghost is going to be assigned this mission if they have any hesitation about scaring people, so keep your passions focused on self-serving, sensual or sadistic goals.

Because there are so many different interpretations of ghosthood, especially concerning corporeality, here are the ground rules of ghosts in this setting. Ghosts can move through solid matter with ease. Ghosts cannot move through each other. Ghosts are unaffected by physical phenomenon, including fire, electricity and other types of lethal energy. Ghosts can control their solidity at will, but they retain their invulnerability in any form. The only thing a ghost has to fear are the attempts by busters to capture them, regardless of the actual techniques being used. Ghosts always leave trace ectoplasmic residue wherever they've caused supernatural phenomenon.

Finally, ghosthood comes with just one catch that many only find out the hard way: No killing. If you kill any person, you're immediately sent back to wherever you came from. This is probably because the afterlife is crowded enough already without smartassed supernatural agents wanting to increase the dead population any further.

Resisting Arrest
The Man spends your authority tokens to try to capture your character. In game, this is represented by busters using various methods ranging from thousand-year old exorcism rites to nuclear-powered rayguns. To resist arrest, you have to spend more anarchy tokens than the Man spends authority tokens. Others can help you to resist capture by contributing from their own anarchy pool even if they're not in the same scene as your character. However, the Man still cannot use one character's anarchy tokens against another character.

Riot on Broadway
Panic is caused by creating scary phenomenon to freak out the mortals. This causes riots, car crashes, crying babies, all sorts of fun stuff. What's even better is that causing panic actually reduces your authority tokens. The authority cost of a panic is determined by the number of people affected and the intensity of the supernatural trigger, whichever is higher. If you're going to do little spooky stuff, it's more resource-efficient to do it on smaller groups. If you're doing a special effects bonanza, keep it on a grander scale.

Code Select Expand


COST  SIZE              EXAMPLE EFFECTS
0     One person        Sliming someone. Tracing messages on misty glass.
1     "              Scaring a child.
2     "                 Dropping the temperature. Posession of a living being.*
3     A Family          Visible manifestation. Animating several objects.
4     "              Bleeding walls. Unholy howls from the grave. Opening scary portals.
5     A Hotel           Lengthening the distances between points. Summoning scary stuff.
6     Crowded Stadium   Posession of several living beings. Re-animating corpses.**
7     A City Block      Alter gravity. Slow/Speed time to about half/double normal rate.
8     "                 Rivers of blood. Rains of sloppy meat. Blackened skies.
9     The Whole City    Biblical Apocalypse.

* You don't gain the hosts physical stats, you're just a detached puppeteer.
** These zombies don't really need to eat flesh, but it can't hurt let them try.

"Eh."
While this stuff is plenty freaky, New Yorkers are tough, jaded lot. When spend anarchy tokens to cause a scary effect, anything that would cost less than that effect isn't going to work from that point on. As a matter of fact, New Yorkers can tell when a ghost isn't working to their full potential and will ignore the unambitious little spectre. Ghosts who aren't being creative in their scariness are treated worse than mimes. At least mimes are trying.

So yeah, as I said, it still needs some clarification. I'm testing how far I can stretch the basic PUNK ruleset without adding new stats or anything. I'd also like to create some concise rules for riots and the destruction they cause in the city. Maybe property damage proportional to anarchy tokens spent? I dunno. I think it needs something more, for some reason.

[Doctor Xero]

Well, I think the scare-because-the-metaphysical-authority-told-you-to-or-else
motivation clashes both with the 3Fs motivation of Punk and with the anarchist
feel of Punk.  Why is listening to The Man who returned you from the dead any
less odious an obedience than listening to The Man who wants you to conform
in Punk or wants you to conform as a power source in Boo York City?  In some
ways, scaring for The Metaphysical Man is just as much cubicle-hell conformity
as getting a job and an ulcer constitutes conforming to the dictates of The Man
when you were alive.

I'd definitely want to see the 3Fs motivations integrated better into the scaring.
For example, how does trying to scare someone in line with your Fuck or your
Fight motivation affect your success?  What happens when you try to scare anyone
who activates your Flight  motivation?

Make this more Punk and less the Ghostly Trio in the motivations of the protagonists.

I think it could work if you can successfully merge that anarchic anger with the
supernatural explosions.

Doctor Xero

[Daniel Solis]

Y'know, you're damn right. In hindsight, I should have let this simmer in my brain for a few more weeks before posting it. Okey dokey, ignore this thread. Move along, nothing to see here.

[DevP]

As encouragement, fucking with vanilla normals in the suburbs because you can (consider the folks in Beatlejuice?) is very punk, so you're not too far off.

[Spooky Fanboy]

Don't give up yet!

It could still work because the dead might well be "lashing out" at the living for forgetting them, bulldozing over their old spots, and denying the past's connection to the present. So they make it their mission to forcibly remind the living that there is more to life than, well, being alive...and blind unchecked progress.

That could be where the 'punk' comes in.

Just a thought.