Finished, at last: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/timdenee/punk.rtf

This is a pretty ugly rich text version. Tell me if the file is readable, please. (A .pdf version can be expected soonish).

I get annoyed by 'punk' games; steampunk, cyberpunk, and so on. They always focus too much on the first part, (the 'steam' or 'cyber'), and not enough on the 'punk'.

This is my attempt to fix that.

It's (hopefully) a narrativist game with a premise of (hopefully) "Why fight when you know you can't win?"

So, does it deliver the premise? Is it playable? Are there gaping mechanical flaws?
In particular, do you think scenes are going to drag on too long? Is the 'fact' thing too clunky?
Will hell-shifts/consequences/reactions be too infrequent? Are there too many "bits" (i.e. should I strip it down)?

Tim,

I quickly read through Punk just now, so forgive me if not everything has sunk in yet. Overall, you conveyed the feel of the game to me, and it seems fairly workable.

Things I like...

- Hell and Hell-shifts. Dav and Ron talked about something like this in relation to a game of Little Fears they played, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever heard of. I've been trying to come up with a game idea I could insert that mechanic into, but it seems like you have it right here. Not sure how the actual mechanics would work without actually playing it, but the idea seems solid.

- Rolling for Facts. This reminds me of what I did with Human Wreckage, and it works well enough as long as you're not looking for dramatic combat scenes. For those I like straight forward Fortune, but for other things, this sort of mechanic can be fun.

Things I'm not too sure about...

Player-driven scene framing. I think it would be better if The Man just framed scenes, perhaps helped along by the structure you've provided, and with a requirement that he must[/] imbed some player-derived conflict into the story. Once the scene has been framed, the players can then state their goals in relation to it. Of course, players should still be able to request specific scenes, but I'd let the man do most of the framing. Just my opinion, of course.

Player driven adversity. Sort of reminds me of Chalk Outlines, and while there were many good things about that game (some of which are also good about your game), we had trouble delivering interesting adversity to ourselves. It just came off flat.

Seems like a game about beating the system, should have some way for the players to break it. I'm not sure what that means just yet, but it's a thought I just had.

Anyway, I'll continue to think on it, but there's some feedback to get you started.

- Scott

hardcoremoose wrote:
Seems like a game about beating the system, should have some way for the players to break it. I'm not sure what that means just yet, but it's a thought I just had.

Thanks guys. Valuable feedback. I'm thinking over it all.

Adversity issue: I don't want to individualize 'the enemy' too much. I want it to be 'Us vs. The World'. But I see your point. Any solutions?

Breaking the game: cool idea. Any mechanical ideas? Some sort of bluffing thing maybe?

Scene framing: ok. It'd speed things up. That's easy enough to change.

Katanapunk: you got me, it doesn't quite fit. I guess it's sort of a Japan quite far along the 'modernisation' timeline, where western, industrialized ways of thinking/acting have become prevalent/fashionable. Samurai/bushido/old ways are looked down upon, treated poorly, marginalized.

Tim,
I thought the rules were well written. They were easy to understand, and seem easy to use. Good work!

I'd like to see your next RPG, as punk's premise isn't to my taste. Could you rework the mechanics to suit a more uplifting premise?

Thanks!

Tim wrote

Adversity issue: I don't want to individualize 'the enemy' too much. I want it to be 'Us vs. The World'. But I see your point. Any solutions?

Scott wrote: My solution would be that when bad stuff has to happen to the characters, The Man narrates it. He is The Man, afterall. But really, this is strictly an issue of taste.

Scott wrote: As far as "breaking" the system, I dunno yet. What rules do you have in place so far that you can break?

Tim,

Man, I need to go to bed, but here's a quick thought.

What if, at the start of the game, players can only narrate a portion of the facts they roll. I don't how many, or what portion of your mechanics would detemine this - maybe it's just an arbitrary number, like, say, players can narrate 1 Fact in the opening of the scene and 1 in the wrap-up. Or maybe they just get to narrate their Trait facts to start with. The Man narrates all the rest. Those Facts they have power over they can parlay into more control - meaning the ability to narrate more and more Facts - in later scenes, perhaps by narrating self-imposed bad stuff or something, but by that time The Man has used so many Facts from early on that they players really need to work to escape the prison he's erected. And maybe, at some point (when they generate a Reaction? A Consequence? When they roll doubles?) they slip back into that pit and have to dig their way out again.

Note that if you were to do something like this, The Man wouldn't really need a Resistance number or dice at all. He'd have plenty of Facts to narrate in the early going, slowly giving way to the players ability to do more and more stuff (but still getting to frame scenes and narrate Reactions, unless you want the players to be able to do that sort of stuff too). Eventually the players would have a lot of control, but if you set up a trigger that sets them back to square one, eventually that condition will occur and The Man will be right back on top of them, giving the PCs the righteous beatdown they deserve for thinking they could beat the system.

Of course, none of this is really about "breaking" the system, it's just adding more rules to it to allow for the empowerment, and perhaps eventual beatdown, of the characters. It's grist for the mill though.

And yeah, I like the idea of The Man narrating Reactions. Again, that's just me.

- Scott

I really like it. This is along the lines of shared authorial power that I 've really been digging lately. I also like how Hells are basically long term motivations put right in. I also dig the rage/survival/soul thing.

As far as Katanapunk, it definitely fits in; Check out Yojimbo(inspiration for Fistful of Dollars), Roruni Kenshin(in his early years as the Battousai), Blade of the Immortal(known for its neopunk samurai), Vagrant, and Ghost Dog(for something more modern). Japan has always had its share of punks willing to buck the system...It just happens that the Man always wrote the history...

Chris

"Black man, white man...rip the system."

How about this. Use some kind of anger meter that goes up whenever the Man does something. Have the system involve lots of Fortune, kinda stacked against the players. Then when the meter is filled up, the player can take control / gets extra dice / whatever.

Just a quick thought, from a punk in hell:

I'd change the Premise from "Why fight when you know you can't win?" to "How fight when you know you can't win?"

That'd tie in to the breaking out of the system stuff here in the thread, anyway.

But you can win after all, can't you? You can change your hell, you can get your family member off heroin, you can bring Nike to its knees if you want, and if you score facts.

I like it, but (it might just be me) I want to know I can't win. How would it be if you couldn't change your hell?

-Vincent

I think katanapunk was definitely right if it's supposed to be 19th century. By that point modern/western had won for sure, so that's the new Establishment.

On the other hand, I disagree with whoever cited Blade of the Immortal. The real punk characters there are the antagonists, and they're all about modernity.

Sorry if that was off-topic.