I wrote this up for the Traveller RPG, as part of a criminal syndicate adventure.
Role: Punk.
Synonyms: Bandits, Brigands, Chavs, Gangsters, Hoodlums, Rowdies, Thugs, Toughs, and Tweakers.
Explanation: "Punk" is a generic term for a person of limited professional and social skills who acts out of his or her own self-interest to present a rebellious, anti-establishment attitude in action, dress, and language to his or her peers.
Appearance: A punk will never wear ordinary clothing that conforms to accepted norms. Instead, a punk’s clothing reflects his contempt for conformity and society as a whole. To this end, punk clothing is embellished with chains, spikes, medallions, and occult imagery. It may include military surplus uniforms, formal evening wear, business attire, and even articles normally worn by law-enforcement personnel and religious leaders in a hodge-podge of styles. Their hair is arranged in clashing styles and colors, their skin is tattooed and pierced, and garish makeup is the norm.
Attitude: Contempt and cynicism directed towards authority figures, institutions, and any form of conformity, including ordinary people with steady employment. The only people they respect are other punks, and only as long as those other punks continue to mock authority and conformity. Punks also believe that they are entitled to anything they can take, especially from the weak and complacent. Thus, they will flaunt stolen goods and brag about their audacity in obtaining them.
Behavior: They tend to engage in unruly, destructive, and deliberate behavior that violates public order and expresses explicit disrespect towards the society, often under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Punks make their living by drug dealing, robbery, theft, and vice. Some who have the talent will become popular as entertainers, specifically in the music industry, where they must learn to work with established corporations. Others end up in prison, where they may come in contact with more organized criminals. If they survive, they may end up with meaningful, if somewhat illegal, employment on the outside.
Centering: Emotionally reactive, under a thin veneer of indifference.
Goals: Their main goals are to achieve instant gratification, and to build up and maintain an impressive and influential reputation among other punks. All other goals and activities work towards these ends.
Methodology: Audacity, Brutality, Cruelty, Intimidation, Threats, and Violence.
Fatal Flaws: Aversion to, and contempt for authority and conformity. Unwillingness to remain employed under supervision. Inability or unwillingness to ‘see the larger picture’ or to ‘take the longer view.’ Thus, their limited education (EDU = 1D+1 = 2 to 7) is the punk norm. While they may brag about the ‘Big Scores’ they’ve made or are contemplating, their limited knowledge causes them to never quite succeed in their grandiose plans.
Social Status: Punks tend to live on the fringe of society in a state of near-anarchy. Thus, the lower social classes (SOC = 1D+1 = 2 to 7).
Environment: Low to Mid law levels (LAW 1 to 7) are their natural environment. Government types ideal to punks are Bureaucracies (GOV 8 & 9), Democracies (GOV 2 & 4), Oligarchies (GOV 3 & C), or Balkanized (GOV 7). Other governments are too repressive.
Summary: Punk is a lifestyle that centers on an attitude of entitlement and an image of autonomous free will against an oppressive establishment. Paradoxically, the very ‘establishment’ that punks rebel against is what enables the punks to exist at all. In a completely lawless society (LAW 0), punk would be the normal state of things and there would be nothing to rebel against. Thus, there would be no ‘establishment’ to provide the punks with food, shelter, clothing, or any other basic necessities of living, and even the punks would fail to survive. Only if the members of such an anarchistic society cooperate and organize to provide needed services would there be enough of an establishment for the punks to exist.
Perhaps not entirely accurate in all cases - I did write this for a game, after all - but it seems to apply everywhere in a general way.
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The mere fact that science may not yet adequately explain an object, event, or experience does not mean the immediate explanation should automatically default to a conspiratorial, extraterrestrial, paranormal, or supernatural cause.
03 Jan 2009, 2:31 am
