Punk

[Monster Manuel]

I think my lack of clarity stems from trying to stretch the definition from cyberpunk over D&D. I'm a big William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Spider Robinson fan.
I guess it's an "I know it when I see it" kind of thing for me. (which I know you hate, Joshua).

I was expressing my take on it.

Here's my rationale:

counterculture: Willingness to think when others around you are not doing so. Examining the root culture from a stance somewhat outside of it, and actively rebelling against social expectations. I guess I didn't just say 'class boundaries', which I should have.

Only the Heroes see that society is detrimental: This I agree was wrong and unclear, since I posted in haste.

Maybe I should have said 'antiheroes' since alignment is unimportant in the face of results in my experience of the cyberpunk genre. It's a common theme that the masses in cyberpunk at least are drugged or entertained into complacency... and for that matter it holds true with dungeonpunk, if you adopt the Victorian era as a backdrop; there's liquor, opiates, and other debaucheries to hold most people down. If these people are accepting these forms of suppression, in my view, at least they are part of "The system", and not actively against it. So to clarify, the masses probably see the corruption, but cower from it, and are unwilling to take action against it.

Style over substance: perhaps not always for the key players, but many of the other punks (NPCs) in cyberpunk were all about intimidating or impressing others. Look at the "gothicks", other gangs and samurais in Gibson. The impression of bad***itude was often as valuable as being able to back up your mouth.

As verdigris says: "Punks hated disco's vapid optimism and fought it with unrelenting, vapid pessimism."

I was refering to the impression I have that the antiheroes of the genre hold rather empty ideologies on a superficial level. They seem to me to be rather machine-like in their expression of these drives, if you can call them that. (Even if these ideologies are 'right' within the context of the genre.)

So this is where I was coming from. I could still be wrong, but I thought I should clarify my rationale.

 

[Emiricol]

No, you aren't too far off. Joshua disagreed with you without posting his own interpretation (beyond "you are wrong"), but having been a fan of the cyberpunk genre, I'd say you aren't all that wrong. You only missed the urban dystopia that is a cornerstone.

That, and in Cyberpunk the (anti)heroes don't stand around yelling, nor do they tend to be vapid middle-class teens. In most cases they are either fighting the good fight, or fighting to stay alive and get ahead in a glamorized technoghetto, which in the genre usually places them in opposition to some corporate elite.

 

[Olive]

The punk "movement" was a (thankfully) brief fetish originating in the late 70s and early 80s...

Snip the rest. Needless to say that's one interpretation of it. While punk as an aboveground phenonenom burnt out in the early 80s, there are vibrant punk/hardcore scenes in a bewildering array of cities around the world to this day. And with out that scene, grunge and nu-metal would have lacked crucial influences that create them today. No wanting to get off topic, but find me a major city without a punk scene filled with creative, exciting people doing what they want without corporate help, and I'll be surprised. I'm not super into the mucis these days (or at least no way as much into as I was 3 years ago, and for the 10 years preceeding that), but punk didn't die, it wnet underground.

I can only think of one notable RPG person with punk roots. Chris Pramas toured with Belgian (or was it Dutch?) hardcore band Nations on Fire at one point. So there you go.

On the subject of why genres are called -punk, I've never got it, but thats probably because I never looked at punk as relentlessly nihilistic because by the time I got into it, it wasn't (not to mention that most of the best punk bands of that era like the clash and the buzzcocks weren't nearly as nihilistic as say the pistols). So from Verdigris' perspective on punk, it makes more sense.

 

[TheAntiSummit]

Okay this topic wasn't about punk music of which I am a fan, but the word punk in RPG titles. Now to address what Olive said: I love punk music, in fact, i have the same exact image of Sid Vicious that was posted here on my wall, but that doesn't mean that todays punk scenes are any of the things you said. Punk is not original anymore, none of it, and none of the punks. I can't stand punks that say they are original and they bash "conformists" when every punk since the 70's has been nothing but a carbon copy of his predecessors. Punks dress the same (including myself), sound the same, and for the most part think the same. Even Johnny Rotten said in The Filth and The Fury that it was the punks who ruined punk, because punk wasn't about buying a fifty dollar leather jacket, or a pair of plaid pants, it was about being yourself, and in today's world, people who don't fit the punk mold are ostracized from the culture, even in the underground. So to refute your point, you find me any major city with any punk scene at all, and I will show you a major city with a punk scene that does NOT have creative and exciting people in it.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I've also not clear where you're getting the style over substance argument, unless you're basing punk in this context on that Matthew Lillard movie about punk rockers in Salt Lake City...

In the rule books and source books for the game "Cyberpunk," the phrase "style over substance" is used repeatedly as an example of what cyberpunk is, and what the term cyberpunk represents. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you look good doing it -- this phrase is used often as well.

 

[Macbeth]

Just had to say the afformentioned punk music movie set in Salt Lake City is called SLC Punk, and it is highly recommended by me, even though it has nothing to do with RPGs.
Also, since punk music was mentioned just thought I would contirbute, since I am a fan of "punk" music. First off, punk music is defined differently by every "punk." A fan of Blink 182 (not saying that Blink 182 is punk, just using it as an example) would define punk as a kind of blend of pop, rock, and attitude. A fan of some of the punk bands of today, such as myself, would define it as a subset of alternative rock characterized by driving drums, lyrics primarily concerned with societal problems or love, and bands that nobody knows about . Some of the other people who posted in this thread have already gave their definition. Overall, punk is what you make of it, so lets stop arguing, especially since punk music isn't the topic of this thread. Some bands that you might consider punk today, and that I highly recommend are: Alkaline Trio, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, Alkaline Trio, Tsunami Bomb, Authority Zero, Alkaline Trio, Finch, and Alkaline Trio. (notice a pattern?)

As for what that has to do with RPGs, I have no idea.

 

[Pramas]

Needless to say that's one interpretation of it. While punk as an aboveground phenonenom burnt out in the early 80s, there are vibrant punk/hardcore scenes in a bewildering array of cities around the world to this day. And with out that scene, grunge and nu-metal would have lacked crucial influences that create them today. No wanting to get off topic, but find me a major city without a punk scene filled with creative, exciting people doing what they want without corporate help, and I'll be surprised. I'm not super into the mucis these days (or at least no way as much into as I was 3 years ago, and for the 10 years preceeding that), but punk didn't die, it wnet underground.

Thanks for saying it, so I didn't have to.

I can only think of one notable RPG person with punk roots. Chris Pramas toured with Belgian (or was it Dutch?) hardcore band Nations on Fire at one point. So there you go.

The band I toured with was Scraps, from Lille, France. Their singer David, however, had been in Nations on Fire (who are from Belgium) and Scraps played a couple of Nations on Fire songs in their set on the tour.

I was also in a couple of bands myself in NYC, the Ex-Teenage Rebels and Adverse Possession. More imporantly, I helped to run ABC No Rio, a punk rock arts space in New York that still has $5 punk matinees every Saturday (as well as hosting art shows, political meetings, a photographic studio, and other activities). Seattle, unfortunately, doesn't have a space like ABC No Rio and my move out here has disconnected me somewhat from the punk scene. Well, that and working seven days a week on Green Ronin.

GR, btw, was very much a product of the punk rock, DIY spirit.

 

[Olive]

Thanks for saying it, so I didn't have to.

No problem... Like I say, my current ivolvement is soemwhat limited, but I have a lot of respect for the people who are still involved. And Antisummit, every scene has morons in it. Scenes attract them. But look hard enough, go to the DIY shows and you'll find some good people.

The band I toured with was Scraps, from Lille, France. Their singer David, however, had been in Nations on Fire (who are from Belgium) and Scraps played a couple of Nations on Fire songs in their set on the tour.

Ah... sorry. I always think of NoF and Scraps as the CD of the NoF album I have has the Scraps album on it too.

I was also in a couple of bands myself in NYC, the Ex-Teenage Rebels and Adverse Possession. More imporantly, I helped to run ABC No Rio, a punk rock arts space in New York that still has $5 punk matinees every Saturday (as well as hosting art shows, political meetings, a photographic studio, and other activities). Seattle, unfortunately, doesn't have a space like ABC No Rio and my move out here has disconnected me somewhat from the punk scene. Well, that and working seven days a week on Green Ronin.

GR, btw, was very much a product of the punk rock, DIY spirit.

That's the creative punk scene I'm talking about... Didn't know you were part of ABC. Some of my favourite bands (Born Against and others I'm forgetting) I associate with that scene...

Anyway, this is probably enough of a hijack.

 

[Grim]

Just had to say the afformentioned punk music movie set in Salt Lake City is called SLC Punk, and it is highly recommended by me, even though it has nothing to do with RPGs.

Hey, it does. There was a flashback to when they were playing DnD in thier basement, and they one realized he wanted to be a punk, and the other was like "You're a level nine magic user, what are you complaining about?".

It was hilarious

 

[Umbran]

From the Jargon File:

cyberpunk: /si:´ber·puhnk/, n.,adj.
[orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois] A subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel Neuromancer (though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's True Names (see the Bibliography in Appendix C) to John Brunner's 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider). Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naïve and tremendously stimulating. Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived but innovative Max Headroom TV series. See cyberspace, ice, jack in, go flatline.

Since 1990 or so, popular culture has included a movement or fashion trend that calls itself ‘cyberpunk’, associated especially with the rave/techno subculture. Hackers have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, self-described cyberpunks too often seem to be shallow trendoids in black leather who have substituted enthusiastic blathering about technology for actually learning and doing it. Attitude is no substitute for competence. On the other hand, at least cyberpunks are excited about the right things and properly respectful of hacking talent in those who have it. The general consensus is to tolerate them politely in hopes that they'll attract people who grow into being true hackers.