How do play an actual punk (Gothic, Steam, Cyber, whatever) without just coming off as an obnoxious twat?

FPBP

Doesn't mean they can't be good characters, but punks are meant to be abrasive and obnoxious - recall that before it was a subculture it was an insult. Punks just appropriated the name as a badge of pride, they were the sort of people that wanted to annoy the older generation - who would then call them "punks" and then it becomes circular

They can still be interesting, good, even likable in many ways, but to be a punk is to be deliberately obnoxious

Also punks have sold out since their inception, the Sex Pistols were formed/managed by a guy wanting to promote his shop and fashion

Not necessarily. Fascist Punks exist, which would technically mean that if they ever got their way they'd eventually have to submit to authority.

Bipolar actually is more related to depression than constant mood changes.
Bipolar people are divided in two stages: a stage of sadness and a stage of mania.
So she would do compulsive stuff like buy shit she doesn't need, become temporarily a germaphobe or something alike.
Borderline is way more similar to Chloe

High streetwise and local urban knowledge. I'd also add in some "urban survival", knowing how to live for a week on basically no expenses: Safe squats, where to find basically free (and edible) food and other resources (washing facilities, tools and water/electricity etc.).

Often a well-developed sense of individuality or capacity for "lone wolf" lifestyles, but really at home in a sense of community: is not too far off, ofc you can be an annoying twat but even those will regularly put in an effort for the group, or honest people that need it.

13 replies and no one points out that those four things have absolutely nothing in common?
Punk is a western counterculture that formed in the 70s.
Gothics are a subculture that was influenced by or branched off from punk in the 80s or so.
Steampunk and Cyberpunk are artstyles or types of settings for ficiton and RPGs. They share nothing with punk except for the name, and maybe that characters in those settings tend to run into trouble with authority.

>How do play an actual punk (Gothic, Steam, Cyber, whatever) without just coming off as an obnoxious twat?
The wrong way, I'd say.

Get drunk before playing. That should do it.

Just have a bunch of moody teens flipping people off, but not able to articulate where they stand politically.

Sometimes a question is so dumb that it overwhelms you.

Remember punks in the 70s used to get swastika tattoos, not because they were neonazis (though some actually were), but because they knew it would piss off their parents/other normies.
That is the true punk mind set.
Not the pop-punk Sum 41, Green Day crap most people think of nowadays.

actual punks are usually not edgelords who just try to be costantly passive aggressive al the fucking time.
Just be joyful, never trust autority, be open minded int he arguments always try to help the poorer and wanting to have the best of times.
Also generally punks have soft spots for animals.

It's really not that crazy, media and cancerous internet lobotomization have costructed through the years this backwards shit of a concept for a punk rocker, where in reality we are just people try to go buy while not be fooled byt the stereotypes and the standardized ideals society tries to impose through capitalism.
It's the little things, not the costant try hard showing.
Yes there are times where you just gotta be crazy, but that shouldn't be the norm.

She's just a shitty teenage girl, and Max is a teenage anygirl.

Max is another shitty teenage girl actually

Just be a normal person in a Steampunk world.
Everyone will be angry at you, though.

You aren't a punk. You are a socialist. Punks don't believe in or respect anyone

I mean, she could be one of those nightmare cases in which life looked at her brain and asked itself, "Why not both?"

I thought being part of -punk culture was essentially being a giant twat?

>society tries to impose through capitalism
Oh boy here comes another "all punks are marxist, right?" type idiot.

Punks are hedonistic and irresponsible. If they're stupid enough they might think that they'll have less responsibility and more pleasure through communism.

That also applies to many populist worldviews. Punk subcultures exist for every single political ideology. The core of punk is to be a massive cunt. Ideologies are secondary.

user, I don`t think you know anything about punk culture, I just feel like in highschool someone with a mohawk and a leather jacket stole your lunch.

We usually call those Skinheads.

Irrespective of their actual haircut; there's a lot of overlap with the scenes later on, as Skinheads became more associated with working class hooliganism and Oi music than their origins in Ska and Jamaican Rudeboy culture.

Punk ethos is almost necessarily anarcho-collectivist. Punks give the finger to any kind of authority that would force them to follow, and always look out for their own. If a punk follows a leader, it's only because they choose to, and they wouldn't see any point in following a leader that wasn't looking out for the common good.

Punks are personal. They trust people they've vetted, or on the word of close allies. They don't trust people far removed from their personal sphere without good fucking reason. A punk doesn't trust a cop because they wear a badge.

Punks can be surprisingly humble, because they usually have to be. They'll eat on charity, because a full stomach matters more than being proud. Begging and busking and hustling is better than starving. This is different than compromise, because it's just accepting what others do.

Punks hate compromise. If they were willing to compromise, they wouldn't be punks in the first place; they'd be comfortable average folks, who realize the wisdom of giving a little bit of ground if it means you keep your life and livelihood. Punks will fight even when it's stupid hard.

Punks love to fight. Not always with fists, just sometimes. Punks are contrarian and ready to argue about anything because arguing with the world is what makes them punk in the first place. You can change a punk's beliefs but you have to be ready to argue them down for ages in the first place.

Punks have beliefs. Sometimes it's a "belief in nothing" but just as often it's more. But it had to be some kind of strange notion to get a punk out in the world in the first place. (Used to be that just being a fag or a dyke was enough, but that's changed nowadays.)

>How do play an actual punk (Gothic, Steam, Cyber, whatever)
Those aren't the same.

Arrrgh.

In the sense that all teenagers are shitty. Max is blinded by her preconceptions, bitterness, and suffers from anxiety and self-doubt. That's most high school students.

Chloe on the other hand is dealing drugs, handling illegal firearms, and rages against her well meaning step-dad. She has issues, but it stems from her dad dying and her mom not being enough to curb her anger. When her dad was alive she was normal even after a *worse* outcome.

Max gets a small taste of playing God as a teen, and learns a brutal lesson from it.

Punk has fuckall to do with politics. People pretend that it does, because they have punk friends who care about politics, but in reality it has about as much to do with politics as your favourite colour.

It's a style. That style may include different arenas of expression, but it's a style nonetheless.

hamhigh.co.uk/etcetera/music/john_lydon_an_anarchist_i_never_was_whoever_told_you_that_1_1468479

Acts speak way louder than words.

DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

Yet they all draw on punk culture for their central themes when executed correctly (rather than as an aesthetic, as so often happens with steampunk and cyberpunk). A true cyberpunk story needs to be about giving to the finger to an uncaring, inhuman authority (be it corporate, an AI or a conspiracy of some sort), not just about guys in trenchcoats wearing mirroshades and night and hacking computers.

Gothic punk is a term popularized by White Wolf to describe the atmosphere of Vampire: The Masquerade. In its earliest editions, it was very much a game about angry young people (young to death, sometimes) riling against authority, and its aesthetics drew deeply from both punk and goth cultures. How the hell do you think Clan Brujah became a thing?

This desu. This is a great way to play a punk. It's not the only one, but it's great.

This.

Urban scavenger. Not a regular hobo, but hobo with style, attitude and possibly a shotgun.

Give the GM a BJ so he let's you get away with it.

Sorry to break the truth to you so early.

Any thriving "asshole", "douche", or "narcissistic" characters are either VERY POWERFUL and playing in very specific (wuxia, superhero, 40k, etc), or they are coddled by a GM.

If anyone is up for a thought experiment, post a 1 sentence description of your characters relative power level, followed by 1 sentence about what 'he got away with for being so awesome xD";

I'll tell you exactly why you're getting coddled, and how I would have raped your character backwards (IC socially, physically and mentally) with raw wit and setting specific context.

(inb4 "super-powered" examples even though I ruled them out)

Accept the twatiness, but justify it. The reason that the punks are the good guys is because their opposition is terribly, terribly in the wrong. You've got the corporations going over the top in a way to make Carnage decry them, building company towns, treating their wage slaves as literal slaves, and playing whatever the local government is like a puppet - the punks are the only group that still have some means to work against them.

Extra points for Steampunk settings by portraying the big wigs as the sort of cog-fops most people idolize when they think of that type of setting; guess who mines the resources for these rich idiots to turn into gears to stick onto their outfits?

Fpbp

Step 1: Come up with a personality

Step 2: They wear goth clothes and makeup

Done

Make it funny and self-defeating.

>I would have raped your character backwards (IC socially, physically and mentally) with raw wit and setting specific context
You've just put a bucket of chum on the end of your line.

Are you in the right thread?

>If you are honest about what it is you are in life you will find that you can form very good friendships with all manner of people.

This.

In my lifetime, I have tripped on shit and fell flat on my face. The social circles all responded to my tripping and falling differently. Jocks, gang-bangers, and the "popular" fucks all just point and laugh (even after High School) but at all those concert venues, in public, and elsewhere the punks, metal heads, and even goths were all attentive and helped me get back up on my feet.

Give your punk character a "get real" vibe that shows they care at least enough not to leave you in the dirt.

It isn't about not being an obnoxious twat. It's about making an obnoxious twat likable.

I don't know what kind of after school special cast you hang out with, but I knew plenty of people that would be put in the "alternative" crowd, and they would all point and laugh too.

Why do punks idolize characters that would never call themselves punks.

Because the very nature of calling yourself a punk, conforming to a label centered around the idea of non-conformance, makes you a shit.

I am very fond of the way Dave Barry once phrased an observation of his about Japan: "All Japanese youth show how uniquely individual they are by dying their hair pink."

Any person worth knowing will laugh and help you up.

Any friend worth having will push you to the ground, laugh at you, help you get up, and then laugh when you use your current position to make them trip

Why would I trip them after they helped me up? Sure, they pushed me, but I don't want to get tripped again.

Man, the ending to that game was bullshit. Episode 2 gave me real high expectations, but that was sad.