Last update to PUNK was around August last year. It's time to take a another stab at the concept.

In case people have forgotten about PUNK, it's an attempt at making a set of simple rules for playing in -punk subgenre worlds beyond cyberpunk, steampunk or biopunk. The system is designed to encourage the underdog without making him so powered up that he actually ceases to be the underdog.

I've recently been dabbling in the creation of board games and dice games. I've also been spending a lot of time discussing game design with Greg Stolze. Both experiences have given me a very strong appreciation for concise rules and a "get to the point" mindset with regards to system writeups.

This latest version of the PUNK is therefore a lot shorter than the excessively wordy iteration seen here. In fact, it's meant to fit onto a single page of a CD booklet. At 400 words, I may have been unsuccessful in that goal, in which case I'll have to trim down the wordcount or just have it run over into a second page for a double-page spread. No biggie. The ultimate layout I'd like is a single sheet of paper trimmed to the dimensions of a CD booklet double-page spread. The front is the cover, the inside spread is the rules, and the back cover is the character sheet.

Punk world supplements would follow a similar format. Front is the cover. Inside-spread to the back cover is an intro to the world and new rules specific to that world. I'm not expecting long-term play from PUNK.

With regards to the mechanics themselves: The biggest thing I've removed from the system is the ("Little Fish, Big Fish, Shark") social food chain setup. After objectively evaluating its necessity, I decided there had to be more elegant methods of showing a sense of underdog-ness. I may end up salvaging the food chain for the criminal heist RPG I've got cooking on the back burner.

The second biggest edit is the absence of any sort of combat system per se. The way I see it, a punk fight isn't about injuries, the strengths of weapons or the durability of your protection. It's about the righteous anger of the downtrodden boiling from the surface to scald the face of the Man. w00t. So, combat is just another task resolution roll. The only way you "lose" or "die" in PUNK is if your discontent becomes too great ("burning out), or becomes too subdued ("fading away"). Both outcomes have very different in-game results.

There are no more exploding dice, as they tended to increase search & handling time with uncomfortable frequency. PUNK now uses d6s instead of d10s, since I'm not so concerned with explosion probabilites anymore. Also, there is no more self-conscious advise on carefully defining DIY traits. That stuff just annoyed me.

There are probably things I've forgotten to mention, but let's get to the point:

PUNK - Worlds of Wonder, Danger and Filth
You and your gang are rebels in a monolithic, dystopian alternate Earth.

TRAITS
Describe your 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.

Write down the following details about yourself:
* A simple character concept. ("Corrupt Cop," "Perversion of Science," "Drunken Master," etc.)
* Two things you're really good at doing. ("Lying," "Vandalism," "Holding my Liquor," etc.)
* A notable characteristic. Good or bad, they all have the same mechanical weight.

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

ACTION
Say what you want to do. Gather a six-sided die for each of your beneficially relevant traits. The Man gathers a die for every one of an opponent's beneficially relevant traits. If there is no opponent, then the difficulty of whatever you're trying to do is humanized in some way. (Ex: Player rolls to lock pick. The Man rolls for the lock.) Roll 'em. Whoever gets the highest result wins. If you lost the roll, you describe your failure. If you won the roll, the Man describes your success.

ANARCHY
If you fail a passionate action, 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 1:1 basis. Spend Anarchy after a successful roll to describe the success. If you have more than ten or more Anarchy tokens, you burn out. Your character has a heart attack and dies. Your Anarchy tokens are distributed evenly among the rest of the group, favoring those with compatible passions. 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, the Man gains an Authority token. 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.

JUKEBOX
If you have the resources available, 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 a character's song is running, the player narrates his successes for free and the Man can't spend Authority to describe his failures.

Concise. Neat.

What happens on a tied roll?

It is clear to me that the Man is the GM of this game. Is it really that obvious though?

Rust Never Sleeps,
Mark

Good question. Hm. I guess the Man ought to win ties since it's, y'know, the Man.

As for the Man's GM-role, I've so far had no trouble with at least semi-experienced gamers recognizing it. PUNK probably isn't the best introductory experience for new gamers anyway.

The "win by losing" certainly seems clear. In fact I would suggest that there's a definite sense of futility in fighting the man. It's pretty darn dystopian.

You might want to clarify what exactly defines a "passionate action." I can pretty well guess, but it's a term you use in the Anarchy and Authority sections without having defined previously.

Two questions, from someone who hasn't read the previous editions of the rules, so these might indicate to you what's not clear or needs to be present here as much as genuine additions/changes:

1. What happens if you ever manage to destroy your "fight," get your "fuck," or escape your "flight," once and for all? Would the passion be replaced by a new one? Would there be a reward of some kind? Or maybe the character just needs to be retired at that point? I really like the other endigns for the character, which are very point-blank (ambushed by The Man, or burns out), so this wouldn't be out of place I think.

2. You give The Man extra dice to use through Authority tokens. Since his ability to create challenge is not normally circumscribed in any way, I assume the main point of this is to indicate clearly that things should get harder after the character succeeds at something? Can Authority tokens obtained (by the GM) from one character's success be used against another character? (If it were me, I wouldn't allow this.) How long can Authority tokens be held on to? There's apparently no limit to how many the GM can have.


Side question that you may have answered at some other time: Why so much focus on trying to get it to fit into a CD jacket? It seems to me like the rules need to be a little more verbose for clarity's sake...and clarity is probably better than brevity per se, at least IMHO.

[edited for typos]

What if, say, the Fight and Flight are both relevant to a situation?

Could the Man derive dice from the punk's Flight while the Punk derived dice from his Fight?

I guess what I'm asking is whether you can employ other people's traits as dice in your roll, or only your own. In various directions. (Like could you get extra dice if you figured out that some pissy cop was afraid of whipped cream and sprayed it in his face during a conflict or something.)

Calithena wrote: I guess what I'm asking is whether you can employ other people's traits as dice in your roll, or only your own. In various directions. (Like could you get extra dice if you figured out that some pissy cop was afraid of whipped cream and sprayed it in his face during a conflict or something.)

Jasper wrote: You might want to clarify what exactly defines a "passionate action." I can pretty well guess, but it's a term you use in the Anarchy and Authority sections without having defined previously.

Jasper wrote: 1. What happens if you ever manage to destroy your "fight," get your "fuck," or escape your "flight," once and for all? Would the passion be replaced by a new one? Would there be a reward of some kind? Or maybe the character just needs to be retired at that point? I really like the other endigns for the character, which are very point-blank (ambushed by The Man, or burns out), so this wouldn't be out of place I think.

Jasper wrote: 2. You give The Man extra dice to use through Authority tokens. Since his ability to create challenge is not normally circumscribed in any way, I assume the main point of this is to indicate clearly that things should get harder after the character succeeds at something? Can Authority tokens obtained (by the GM) from one character's success be used against another character? (If it were me, I wouldn't allow this.) How long can Authority tokens be held on to? There's apparently no limit to how many the GM can have.

Jasper wrote: Side question that you may have answered at some other time: Why so much focus on trying to get it to fit into a CD jacket?

Short answer: total rocking, and it cuts much clearer to the point of what you were trying to do. Great stuff. I'll tenatively offer to play this out a bit via post or such, if you want your playtest. (Granted, neither of us has time. But I'm just saying.)

the highest result wins. If you lost the roll, you describe your failure. If you won the roll, the Man describes your success.

It feels like there are two many steps in character creation. Which bits could be omitted or blended into one another?

If you have more than ten or more Anarchy tokens, you burn out. Your character has a heart attack and dies. Your Anarchy tokens are distributed evenly among the rest of the group, favoring those with compatible passions. 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.

The ultimate layout I'd like is a single sheet of paper trimmed to the dimensions of a CD booklet double-page spread. The front is the cover, the inside spread is the rules, and the back cover is the character sheet.

Side-question: what would go on the CD? Or was the liner-note design simply for easy description? It'd be cool to load up each setting-CD with appropriate music (probably tonnes of MP3s or, to be all punk-y, .ogg) and images and other "source material".

Dev wrote: Short answer: total rocking, and it cuts much clearer to the point of what you were trying to do. Great stuff. I'll tenatively offer to play this out a bit via post or such, if you want your playtest. (Granted, neither of us has time. But I'm just saying.)

Dev wrote: Maybe I'm lame; at first, I glossed over this bit, so the bit about Anarchy tokens was a bit confusing. Formatwise, do it in bold and/or on its on paragraph? It is the big key line.
...
You do want to make clear that passions = traits, in case of folks like me.

Dev wrote: Other idea: "Now that you have your passions, you need to tell your backstory. Everybody starts their players in a bar, and just start talking freely, asking questions, being rude, etc. Whenever you answer a question that shows some Trait of yours, write it down; once everyone has 5 Traits, you all leave the Bar and you start this adventure." It's a little longer in text than just listing characteristics, but it gives a very clear "beginning" to the game: your punks all meet in a bar. I think it fits the genre enough.

Dev wrote: Worst case scenario: guy dies, gives his tokens away evenly, more folks burn out, distribute their many tokens, etc. It's kinda funny on this side of the screen, I'm afraid. <g> Maybe it's a feature.

Dev wrote: I wanted to suggest enabling a Cypher-like burnout, where a guy is forced to turn on his mates, but that's a bit too situation-specific. I do think you should suggest generalizing the Burn Out / Fade Out endings for players.

Dev wrote: I am very much with you. I think presentation matters a whole damn lot, as well as consiseness; it may be helpful to put online an extended "design notes/explanation" for those who are curious. (Or, if you will, a "Developer's Commentary".)

anonymouse wrote: Side-question: what would go on the CD?

gobi wrote:

Dev wrote: Other idea: "Everybody starts their players in a bar...

Hmmm... I like the concept, but I wonder if there may be a more appropriate beginning to the "campaign." This setup may also present problems for characters introduced in the middle of the game.

Dev wrote: Worst case scenario: guy dies, gives his tokens away evenly, more folks burn out, distribute their many tokens, etc. It's kinda funny on this side of the screen, I'm afraid. <g> Maybe it's a feature.

Dev wrote: To clarify what I meant here is chain reaction: one player dying instantly (by virtue of token redistribution) causes other players to burn out & die themselves.

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 sort of referee and moderator, but this is PUNK, so he’s the Man and you fight him.

Traits
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.

You’re all in a bar. Describe how you act, what you’re doing and how you interact with one another. Before you leave the bar, write down three of your character’s notable characteristics (skills, quirks, personality, etc.) as expressed through role-playing this first scene.

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

Let’s go!

Action
Say what you want to do. Gather 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 an opponent’s beneficially relevant traits. Opponents, if they have access to such personal information, can get a die for each of their enemy’s negatively relevant traits. If there is no opponent, then the obstacle is humanized in some way. (Ex: Player rolls to pick a lock. The Man rolls for the lock.)

Roll ‘em. Whoever gets the highest result wins.

If you lost the roll, you describe your failure. If you won the roll, the Man describes your success. The Man wins all ties.

Anarchy
Say you’re doing an action that follows the motivation of one or more of your passions. 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 more than ten or more Anarchy tokens, you burn out. Your character has a heart attack and dies. Your Anarchy tokens are then distributed evenly among the rest of the group, favoring those with compatible passions. 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, the Man gains an Authority token. 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.

Each punk has their own seperate “karma account.” Characters cannot individually have more than ten authority tokens. Finally, characters can choose to lay low until the heat dies down, thus reducing their authority tokens gradually. Every week spent avoiding passsionate actions removes one authority token from their account.

Authority tokens garnered by one character cannot be used against another.

Jukebox
If you have the resources available, 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 a character’s song is running, the player narrates his successes for free and the Man can’t spend Authority to describe his 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).

Daniel, that "you're in a bar" character creation thing is brilliant. I love what you've done with this.

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

The big problem with the Exploding Punk Phenomenon is that it's a chain reaction. As more Punks have cardiac arrests, more points of Anarchy are being redistributed among more players.

F'rex: you've got five Punks, with Anarchies of 9, 7, 5, 4, and 2. Number Nine blows it, falls down dead. Seven and Two each get three tokesn, Five and four each get two. Now you're got:

10, 7, 6, 5.

Oops! Our new Ten just exploded! That's another three to Seven and Six, and four to five. Now we have:

10, 9, 9

BAM! Another Punk bites the bullet! Now there's:

14, 14

Holy fuck! The force of that ripped out their ribcages!

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?

--Jeff

Looks great.

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?

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.

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

Shreyas Sampat wrote: 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

Shreyas Sampat wrote: 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.

Jeph wrote: 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?

Jasper wrote: 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?

Jasper wrote: 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.

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.

Will there be another punk RPG presented for 2004?

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!

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

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

Doctor Xero wrote: 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.

Doctor Xero wrote: 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.

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.