Punk in SR, does it belong? If so how? Options

[sunnyside]

What I'm talking about here is the more punkish elements of the genre. Pink mohawks, fashion changing by the minute, style over substance, rebelious characters trying to change the system. That sort of thing.

The first question is does any of that actually belong is SR? Take the novels. There isn't a punk type character in any of the ones I read ( that was back in the FASA days, I doubt they've gotten punker since). Now the characters weren't the annoying cold blooded pro cliche. But they were three dimensional characters with, honestly, ordinary fashion sense. T-shirts, jeans and armored jackets making a good showing. And the most outlandish hairdo I remember was an ordinary mullet, and I think those were popular in real life when the book was written.

Really nothing very punkish about any of them personality wise either. Nor punkish rebellious goals.



The next question is if you think punk elements should be in the game how can you actually make them work? Take CP2020. They tried to make that game punk. They tried hard. About half the "classes" were very different than SR archtypes. We're talking about rockerboys, medias, corporates, and even cops. And the system would often force you to start off with a girlfriend, an ex that hates you and occasionally drunk dials, and MADE you have a fashion sense that featured, say, pink mohawks and mesh shirts. All depending on how you rolled.

And what did people do? They made combat characters, broke into the corp building, stole the prototype, and escaped in their helicopter.

They even made a sourcebook called "Listen up you primitive screwheads" which was basically yelling at the GMs for making adventures like that and dropping the "punk" thing.

How could you really do better in SR, which isn't really designed for it? Practical very specific advise please. I don't know if I want to go full punk, but I'd like to infuse a little more. Having chars get fashion stuff that they can conceal/take off during a run is about as punk as I generally go. Though the associated clubbing is fun and may get a couple karma or more likely contacts slid their way. I think that's more than most.

[Platinum]

What you encourage and how people experience the game is definitely up to the GM. In the last few years, Shadowrun went Emo. That's right, it's a sad, wrist slashing little teenager with lots of tears, emotion and no drive, but yet still yearns for attention. So it does desperate things to harm itself so people will at least notice it is here.

So that being said.... I personally love the angst, lawlessness, and outlandish neon spiked hair and chains, xenophobic corps from a japanese takeover, but that doesn't sell anymore. My generation is busy with jobs and kids. So shadowrun now is trying to appeal to confused sexuality and no drive to do anything about it. It's much easier to spin PR then to herd an abandoned market.

So what are the odds that shadowrun go back to punk? About the same as Shadows of latin america being released on holostreets.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The best way to make Shadowrun more punk is to make the corps not give a fuck. If you get off their property alive, they're too apathetic to give chase.

Make investigation and consequences of Shadowruns a thing of the past, and characters will feel freer to go around with pink mohawks and cunning hats.

[Kagetenshi]

[Platinum]

Emo is punk without angst or drive. All the emotion and rage but no motivation to do anything about it.

[hyzmarca]

I feel that there is something extremely perverse in making Punk so mainstream that it it can be seen everywhere but has lost the true soul of rebellion. "I'm a noncomformist, just like everybody else."

In other words, imagine a corporate board meeting with very rich and very stuck-up guys in 10,000 :nuyen: business suits all sporting three-foot-tall rainbow mohawks.

[TheMadDutchman]

I was never that much into punk, but I'm not anit-punk. If someone wants to wear a pink mohawk or rally against a cause I'm all for it.

This is where my post is going to move more into a "how do you SR" area.
My Shadowrun is more gangsta. Blaring beats and rage against the system. People so oppressed and angry that they feel ready and willing to throw it all away peddling drugs on the streets and solving even the smallest problem w/ violence.

The big difference is apprearance. The guy who might have a pink mohawk and a leather jacket in your game is more likely to be sporting a couple gold chains, a grill, and some lugz in mine.

I think the big thing is that a lot of GMs let the social strife really slip through the cracks in their games. Even I'm guilty of that. One of the things I'm working on to keep that from happening in my upcoming game is to help keep the mood of the game up. I'm planning to bring in social strife and political and religious movements.

[Wounded Ronin]

[mfb]

it depends on what you mean by 'punk'. 80s punk? no. modern punk? piercings, tats, eyeliner, chains, heavy boots? yes.

[Kagetenshi]

'80s punk belongs as well. Better yet, cybertechnology can make it easier--imagine a cyber-mohawk that can flatten against your skull and change colour at a thought.

~J

[mfb]

mohawks are timeless punk.

[eidolon]

Kage, problem is that "emo" as a reference to the form of music is not how "emo" is used today. Doesn't matter how many times people try to reverse that, today emo means this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4nRNYG_xM2U

And Platinum, your post was poetry.

[Daddy's Litt...]

I think it depends on what you want to have your character be like. SR was the first RPG I played so my characters had a level of sameness at first. M<ore experienced players did have some characters who were corporate and soem who were street punks. The street level characters, interacting with the more 'respectable' members led to some interesting interaction.

[Snow_Fox]

She's right. I had a game not with my usual gorup where I was more corperate and another runner was pure street and we bitched at each other so strongly other people htought we were going to really get into a cat fight. We just looked at them and laughed as the others started easing away from us- to get out of the line of fire- and we both said, "guys, we're in character, chill."

[sunnyside]

Hurm. So I guess for a lot of people Thug is the new Punk. That makes sense as Punk is probably hard for a lot of the younger set to grasp. Of course with the gangsta mentality you loose the whole "cause" thing. Which, actually, is rather scary in real life.

Ah well I gotz mad connections in India.

[Xirces]

I think the biggest problem is that everyone who /was/ punk is now all grown up and actually has a life to lead. SR is a product of the eighties, as am I. I grew up with images of the rebel "punk" - including the piercings, the tats and the mohawk - which even by that time were pretty corporate - even if it wasn't admitted.

I also remember at the start of the nineties when "indie" music was popular - y'know "indie" standing for "independent" and being churned out by the big labels. Every generation thinks that it is being rebellious and "cool" and trying to find something to differentiate them from their parents and frankly it doesn't work. Look back to the fifties and the behaviour of the "Brat Pack" :)

The mainstream grows to encompass all other forms of expression - derivatives of heavy rock and metal hit the charts one week, rap and hip hop the next. Damien Hirst is a /popular/ artist. Just about every magazine or newspaper on the shelves is pornographic - if you look through your grandparent's eyes.

The mass media co-opts the underground and makes it acceptable because it gets more difficult to shock so the next thrill is always needed. That will continue and that is why punk is dead. On the flip side, there are very few barriers any more, but the result is an increasing homogenisation of culture.

People who want to change the world do so from Parliament and the board room - to get to those points you have to be mainstream enough on the outside - if that means hiding the inner rebel to get there, so be it.

[mfb]

granted, but i think recognizing that is one of the key differences between cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk. in classic cyberpunk, those in power are too arrogant to bother subverting the underground scene.

[Daddy's Litt...]

I was born in '79. For me 'punk' means a violent thug with colorful body augmentation (hair, piercings, studs,) who seems nihlistic and likes ultra violent rock music. The image created as a reaction to disco music and that culture and typified by the Sex Pistols and some guys on the train in An American Werewolf in London.

That having been said, I am now grown and married with a child. So at the risk of making some of you feel old, we are talking history here.

[Wounded Ronin]

[mfb]

being a '79er as well, that's one concept that i associate with 'punk'. however, i spend many of my days in a local coffee shop, ogling the alt chicks doing work. the people i see there are what i think of as punk.

[PlatonicPimp]

I was born in 82. For me a punk is a kid with an overinflated assessment of their own badassery who engages in anti-social activity because they need to prove it.

Meanwhile "Punk" is a DIY anarchist movement. I'm not sure how it got the name, except that maybe old people would call them punks for flouting social norms.

Also, I understand there's some kind of music or whatnot. I've never cared enough about music to sort that out.

And not all change comes from the boardroom or the senate. An awful lot oc cahnge comes from the ground up, from people who just do it because that's the world they want to live in. That doesn't require pretending to be mainstream. Now if it's successful, then some politician or corporate stiff will try to co-opt it. Besides, there are some goals that simply cannot be furthered by dressing up and working in the system. A man in a suit may have more luck getting environmental laws passed, but a man in a suit calling for the abolition of suits would seem downright silly.

[Snow_Fox]

DLN I am going to hurt you. a lot.
You've all hit on variation of what punk was. (no I was not old enough for it but being older than DLN I ave a better idea of what was going on.)part of it was an economically and socially alienated youth who found a way to express their anger in dress and music in a way that shows the later 'grunge' movement as pathetic posers. Unfortunatelyt there was a violent and racist side to it too. Some tried to prove they were more angst ridden and angrier by acting out worst-There was also the back lash against disco that was seen as more classis-needed good clothes for it- and as a place of 'black' culture. ironic since the blacks as a group were similarly oppressed and beaten down and the kings of disco- John Travolta and the Bee Gees were all lilly white, but this shows exactly how the anger could get badly focused.

[eidolon]

[Caine Hazen]

[Daddy's Litt...]